Dawn of Light

I am slowly but surely changing the way the Storm Website looks, to be different from DOL and DAOC Portal.

- How do you feel about the changes so far?
- What features on the site do you use the most?
- What features on the site have you never used?

I think I like it, I am kinda annoyed by the top bar changing width for the various pages (home, herald, tracker and forum). But apart from that it looks good. And this should be an easy fix
Must say I was never really bothered by the Dol, Portal and Storm being the same layout. I can see the point though; for players a clear distinction could be very nice.

The features I used to use the most, when I was more actively playing, was the herald. I have seen quite a bunch of nice attempts, but sadly none of them lasted. I would definitely would like to see that working (and keeps working). Drop list was also high on my list.
Nowadays I check the tracker about every day, but the amount of reports is quite scary... so I tend to keep an eye open for the latest ones, I have seen to many old bugs which already were fixed when I checked them.

Personally I never used the Storm Forum, I simply use the Dol Forum so I can see all in one go

I think I like the new design except that I have a wide screen monitor and half my screen isn't used. Basically the title bar and everything except the bottom status thing only takes up the middle. I have 10cm on each side of empty white space.

And Tom, perhaps you could fix the search box position on Storm portal ?
Also, Merec used a layout tool for resources.dolserver.net. Not sure if it is something you plan to use (you are motivate to learn & use), but it seems interesting.

Also an interesting idea: an interface to display and allow to download builds.

Regarding the width, I went towards a fixed width as opposed to 100% width as used on the other sites because, the wider the site the longer the line you have to read. This makes text quite difficult to read, and layout to maintain.

Rooz, what do you mean with the top bar changing width? Can you provide some screenshots? Same for Sand Thanks.

I may rewrite some of the tracker to be less daunting.

I like the changes but its missing the Forum [New Posts - ##] quick links feature for the Storm Forums page, I used that 100% instead of searching through each thread for new posts..

I would also request the (Jump to:) box on the index page. It is on all of the sub pages, but is the only way I can find to get to the Server Team and Website Team Staff Forums.

Thanks

Here is a Screen shot.

This is IE but any browser would do the same with a fixed width setting. If you don't maximize window or happen to use a large resolution combined with say using a long monitor (meaning a wide resolution but on flipped sideways), you could be apt to get a side scroll.

Here it is in Firefox. I think it looks ok. Trying it on my wife's netbook in a second. It also looks fine on my PSP.

Interesting that it chops off the edge of this image.

For the most part, the width is working as intended. In order to have a design that looks the same on multiple resolutions you have to draw a line and say, this is the minimum size, and everything bigger will also see it as such.

I'm quite happy with the white space, as the pages are much easier to read.

Netbook looks perfect. I like the design, having the text too wide is actually harder to read, I prefer fixed width as well.

Since looks like your set the fixed width, I do suggest you look into how pics are being imbedded as it does not seem to be fitting it into the width, it is flowing off to the right causing side scroll bar on the main page as oppose to just on the pic itself.

I was only giving my first impression.

I had a whole post written about seeing your point about width and prox and cons of fixed width but accidentally closed window before I posted. Not going to rewrite it but suffice, I don't think one has to force people to lowest denominator but one does have to be consident of varying widths.

I would be above the norm using a 1680x1050 but still sides are predominant on 1440x900 which I would estimate to be the most common resolution out there and thus what you would optimize for.

It is a difficulty for web design to do that yet allow for viewability on smaller widths but still if you CAN, I think you should aim utlize the width whenever possible which is if you can use % rather than fixed you do so.

It does seem to be standard out there though to at least put core content with fixed, which is understandable but often less glaring than dol. Ex, LOTRO site for example does keep core content within same width but they have a background image that fills in and thus didn't even realize it was doing it.

I wouldn't recommend putting in a background image but it shows they are using the best viewed on wide yet viewable on smaller approach to web design which is the way to go. For dol I thought filling width was fine, as even with my width rarely, if ever, found I needed to reduce the width but I COULD if I wanted to by adjusting my browser window width.

I agree with Sand, full white background in 16:10 or 16:9 width is perhaps something to change ?

Another downside to fixed width is that mobile browsing becomes difficult, it's why I have only changed Storm for now.

It's a possibility to fill the white areas with a texture or color, in my opinion white should be used for the content area.

Also do you mean images within forum posts?