I’ve been working on the forum for quite awhile now, and it’s almost finished. For example, today I added the thumb up/thumb down functionality. I’m getting down to the more useless stuff, which is nice. Despite a couple of missing features, I could probably switch the old forums tomorrow if I wanted to. (It might be missing Reid’s CSS though, heheh.) The biggest thing missing is a more complete PM system. It’s slightly functional right now, but 100% ugly, and missing things you’d normally expect from PMs.
Archive for the 'Starmen.Net' Category
The second half of my insane-o long post, wherein I’ll be discussing the work we’ve gotten done on Fangamer’s design/code since February. A tl;dr summary for the lazy among us:
- I got some mockups done
- Started work on the XHTML/CSS
- Ryan has made TONS of progress on the forum
Again, we’ve got some more banners to show first!
A quick summary of what’s been going on:
- Got a new computer (I can Photoshop again!)
- Got a loan for Fangamer
- Got a handful of investors/owners
There’s a lot more, but this is already a huge post, so I’m actually going to split it up into two updates and post the second half tomorrow. Before I jump into the details: the Banner Contest strikes back with another big update! Here are three of the 12 new entries:
It’s been awhile since Reid has made a post. Things are going quite smoothly. The train has left the station and we’re on a roll! While I’m not as wordy as Reid, I’d like to start about some fancy features we’re implementing, and Reid’d like to show you a couple of new layout images. More after the jump!
The problem is, I don’t have much to publicly show. I did a lot of Rails reprogramming to enable security on a lower level. That way, it checks for permissions in the model instead of in the controller. I have a few qualms with the find() lookup, but it works and I’m not going to complain. It’s ugly and not very Ruby-esque, but it gets the job done. The update, create, and delete are very clean though. I can see why people really love Ruby!
Read more to help me with searching!
I’ve gotten a lot of work done over the past few days, and finally hit a milestone — my first presentable mockup for the forum! I’ve got a full-sized preview after the jump, but first, a look at some of the awesome banners you guys have sent my way for the Banner Contest:
Got to meet with Dean Axelrod today, it went really well — he’s definitely the guy I’m gonna work with for lawyerly stuff. Also got another huge batch of headers, but there’s too many to post, so I’m gonna do a queue thing kinda like the Halloween Funfest. Also some good news about the forum advertising, which has made a minor recovery from its Thanksgiving slumber. But first, three selections from our latest round of Banner Contest updates:
Now that I’ve launched this blog, it’s time to bring the community in on a matter of dire, mission-critical importance: I need a sweet image for the header. And you folks are just the people to help me out. If you’re interested in making a design, here are a few guidelines:
Continue reading ‘Hook me up with a sweet header design, dudes.’
Over the past week or two I’ve been working pretty hard on a new design for the Starmen.Net Forum. (Incidentally, Ryan made a lot of progress on some new code for the forum over Thanksgiving Break… more on that later.) I’ve been uploading mockups for the staff/mods to look over, and the reception so far has definitely been lukewarm.
My first mockup (pictured) is pretty crappy and definitely unfinished, but I wanted to get people talking more than anything else, so I threw it up for the staff/mods to review. Some people liked it, but the general consensus seemed to be that it was too different and too cluttered. And there were lots of things (namely the header and footer) that I simply didn’t include in my hurry to get it posted.
I’m preparing to meet with a lawyer this coming Wednesday. Needless to say, this is terrifying. His name is very soothing, though — Dean Axelrod. Did I say soothing? I meant terrifying, like seeing a doctor named James McSwordicutty. Honestly though, I talked with Dean on the phone and he sounds like a nice guy. I’m going to be speaking with him about incorporation and investors and will report back here with my findings on Wednesday evening.
The ‘ad test’ on the forum hasn’t gone so well — the eCPM (convoluted acronym for “how much scrilla do we get per 1,000 pageviews?”) bottomed out pretty hard before Thanksgiving and hasn’t come back up since. I’m not too discouraged, though, because Google Analytics has been kind enough to inform me that only 8.7% of the forum’s pageviews are from new visitors.