The Revelation...

[lloydkirk1989]

I would like to announce the recent opening of z80 Revelation, a new but rising programming group.

[AlienCC]

Cool website, and Welcome to UnitedTI.

--AlienCC

[DigiTan]

Hey, it's lloydkirk!

Good to see the TI community is still active as ever.

[lloydkirk1989]

Thanks for the positive feedback and welcome. Im realy begining to like this forum. When do you guys think the main site will be back up?

[AlienCC]

It might be a few days yet,

The main page is programmed in perl, and makes use of a mysql database for News Items, FAQ's, Downloads, etc. It also houses a completely seperate userbase from the forum.

One of my goals was to rewrite the main page into php, and share the same user accounts as the forum already has, therefore eliminating the need to have 2 seperate login accounts to our site.

Our new server runs OpenBSD, in a chrooted apache environment for maximum security, however I've been unsuccessful in getting perl to talk to mysql through the socket while apache is secured like this. Another factor we are looking at upgrading the Forum to IPB 2.0 (paid) in about 2 weeks from now.

So my focus has shifted more from creating a work around for perl to talk to mysql, towards the homepage re-write which extends into the forum database for user accounts. With all that in mind, it will probably be a few days before the homepage appears anything similar to what it should, or used to.

--AlienCC

[Adm.Wiggin]

If you are really worried about AlienCC not finishing the front page, then you surely don't know him very well yet. He's very good at doing what he says he'll do! I'm definitely not worried...

BTW, website looks nice Very nice contrast of colors (that lime green text is a *little* hard to read, but other than that, it's great!)

[Madskillz]

I like the layout dkirk...but like Wiggin here, I agree, that lime/bright green text should be changed...

[Arcane Wizard]

Welcome.

If we're giving feedback on sites, I've got some things to say as well:

Design:
First of all, in the new members list, the alignment of the dates and usernames/avatars is rather lacking, it makes the whole left side of the webpage look chaotic and disorienting. I think you should put the avatars below the nicknames, and if that's not enough to make it look nice, add a little horizontal line or something of the sort in between each user to keep them seperated. I personally wouldn't show the avatars at all and use the same little list icons as you use in the main menu in front of each username.

The orange doesn't really fit, maybe this will improve when there are more links and thus more orange, but if it doesn't I'd stick with the colours you use in the main menu, it would make the page more coherent. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem with a bit darker center block background (see below).

Don't use green and Impact where you do in that welcome message, there's already a big banner at the top of the page telling users what site they're on, and it looks really, really out-of-place. I mean, the entire page is grey/blueish with white text, don't suddenly make one word of the entire page almost twice as big as the others and bright green. If you want a welcome that stands out, change the title of that message to "Welcome to z80 Revelation!"

The background of the center block is also too bright in my honest opinion, try using the same colour as in the bottom div, #89929e.

Next up, the buttons, though I think it's lovely that I'll see two pink buttons on your site if I change my windows theme to pink, I'd advice you to use your own graphics, or text.

I'd also indent the content in the "login", "Who's Online", and "Sponsers" blocks, like you did in the main menu and New Members blocks. Maybe "align=right;" them.

And make the google ad's colours correspond with the rest of the page. They've got a lovely little settings system for that, use it.

Finally, I like the simplicity and anything I didn't mention. : )

Tech:
XML : D

CSS : D
Try using the stylesheet(s) more though.

Javascript
:'( but you're forced to use it so that's cool.

Tables
:'(

EXTREME META TAG++
:'(

[lloydkirk1989]

Thanks for that very thorough site review Arcane Wizzard. I'll try to make a few of those changes, especially the green text.

[Arcane Wizard]

I initially intended to just post 2 or 3 tips, but I guess I got carried away.

I have nothing better to do anyway. : )

[lloydkirk1989]

by the way, new link

[lloydkirk1989]

The site is back up with some changes! I accidently overwrit some of the files a week ago, so I had to scrap everything, but I didn't like some things about it anyways. :biggrin: Anyways, sorry for the down time.

[Bledoux]

Hmm, it seems like a cool little website. I'd like to see how well it is when it gets a little older and you do more work on it. Although I like the layout and the banner. Those two things are nice. Good job.

[lloydkirk1989]

Thanks alot. What "more work" could be done? Its already rather graphic intense, atleast compared to most sites.