New GDU design

[Marked 197]

Hi guys

 

I have been slowly working away on an update to the site for a while now, and I only just got time to spend a bit more time on it and finally upload it last night.

 

I know that most of you only visit the forums and topics, but there have been changes and updates across the entire site. There's also a few bugs that occurred here on the live version that didn't on the local version, so I will be fixing those up soon.

 

The new look is what I consider phase 1 of approximately 3 phases. The phases are

1. Redesign (90% complete)
2. New layout-related features
3. Clean-up and bug fixing

For example, under phase 2 I will create a proper footer with dynamic content, round off the homepage with more content, etc. I also plan to round off the content sections (scripts and tutorials). I have already added pagination to them. For example, if you call the "All RPG Maker VX Ace Scripts" category, all 62 scripts were listed on that page. Compare with this http://www.gdunlimited.net/scripts/rpg-maker-vx-ace I plan to round the pages off by adding such things as related scripts/tutorials, and a specialized search bar that doesn't use google search, and is built into the layout as opposed to having to use the main search bar function (which would also work). And also things like follow, and ratings.

 

Two other related things that I have been really wanting to develop are what I call a "My GDU" section in the forum index (you may recall I made a topic about this concept a while back) and our own GDU mailing system which will send nice HTML emails to the GDU content you follow (note that here I am distinguishing between forum content and content that is custom coded by me, ie games, scripts, tuts). This email system will ensure you're always informed about your content and the content you're interested in. For example, when one of the many members who ask about Lizzie's mission script in the scripts section, Lizzie will sent/spammed with emails that detail that comment. Just like a topic post, but the email will be way cooler and not boring and plain text. The My GDU concept will be a bar on the forum index that you can click to open (so it remains unobtrusive unless you want to use it), and it will contain a neat summary of your content. This will help you keep track of your games, tutorials and scripts, as well as forum content including topics, file uploads, gallery uploads, etc. It will be the thing that links you to all your content that lives here at GDU, so that it is not lost to you once it is submitted.

 

I also plan to add more content-related features to make it easier to see all of GDU's content. Right now I think people very heavily rely on the recent activity module, unless of course they're looking for something specific on GDU. But this topic is getting a bit long so I'll save that for another day.

[Polraudio 122]

Very awesome. Love the latest thingy at the top. Background could use something little different tbh. Maybe something darker?

[rgangsta 43]

:O The site made love to my eyes. Amazing....

[Marked 197]

I'm thinking about having a customization setting that stores a few vars in cookies; so everyone can really quickly swap the background colour/image, font, and colour scheme. Coz cookies means even regular guests can change the look and it will stay that way until cookies expire.

[drago2308 4]

I like! First Impressions.

 

But i miss having my profile picture large in the top right :P (but the design language doesn't allow for that :P)

 

Love the drop down menus tho :P

 

[Polraudio 122]

I'm thinking about having a customization setting that stores a few vars in cookies; so everyone can really quickly swap the background colour/image, font, and colour scheme. Coz cookies means even regular guests can change the look and it will stay that way until cookies expire.

That would be awesome.

[rgangsta 43]

That would be awesome.

Yes indeed. I'd love that. Probably a custom green and black background. :D

[GermanyXItaly1000 16]

I came back after having visited the site last night (the old version) and had a short "wtf" moment when I saw this. But when I got used to it, it's actually very impressive.

 

Nice changes! Love 'em.

[Yvy 2]

I came back after having visited the site last night (the old version) and had a short "wtf" moment when I saw this. But when I got used to it, it's actually very impressive.

 

Nice changes! Love 'em.

Yeah, I agree with him. My eyes took a while to adjust to the new design, but after that, I realised how awesome the site is looking now.

Congratz!

[zahraa 26]

It's really nice to see you're updating again :) I've noticed some very cool changes, But I think homepage generally looks...untidy imo.

Edited December 18, 2014 by zahraa

[ShinkuAura 15]

The site is designed beautifully and feels even more responsive on web-browser. However i have to complain that the mobile version of this site is poorly optimized. It's quite slow i must say. Rgangsta said the same thing as well. maybe a bit of optimization for mobile would be okay now and then. 

[Bob423 52]

IT'S SO FANCY AND COOL. Except the background. I agree with pol, it seems like a weird color.

[Marked 197]

I am in the process of coding up a customizer where I'll let you guys mix and match backgrounds, fonts and colour schemes.

 

 

Give me some cool backgrounds that you guys think will look good and I may add them to the customizer. You can use firebug to test out images live on the website to see how they'll actually look, if you can figure out how to do so :)

[Bob423 52]

Awesome :D

[rgangsta 43]

I am in the process of coding up a customizer where I'll let you guys mix and match backgrounds, fonts and colour schemes.

 

 

Give me some cool backgrounds that you guys think will look good and I may add them to the customizer. You can use firebug to test out images live on the website to see how they'll actually look, if you can figure out how to do so :)

O.o an idea has struck! How big do the images have to be?

[Marked 197]

:D

 

Just has to be 1600px wide. That's the standard. If it's fixed, eg the current background, try to make it around 1000px high. However the height doesn't matter if the image fades to a solid color. It pretty much can be anything, but for any dimension that doesn't repeat or fade to solid, then 1600w/1000h.

[GermanyXItaly1000 16]

I'm looking forward to the customizer. Usually I'm cool with whatever's the default colour/background, since I'm not especially picky about it. (Tbh even if it were bright pink, I'd ignore it after a while... though I would definitely be questioning Marked's taste in colours and web design lol)

 

But being able to mix and match actually sounds pretty good.

[Polraudio 122]

Any way to make it so it can display a background from our computers or a remote site so that way we can just put whatever we want? OR make it so the list of backgrounds to choose can be from a certain album in the gallery. Then if people want to add stuff for everyone to see and use all they have to do it upload it to the gallery.

[rgangsta 43]

I have a few things to upload.  :shifty: 

[Marked 197]

I have most of the customizer coded, just waiting for a few spare hours to finish it off before I upload it. Actually the colour scheme options are a bit of a pain to implement lol but should be k. I'm doing a pink version for our female members too. The one's that like pink. Hot pink.

[rgangsta 43]

I'll be using pink. Don't judge me. I like pink.

[Chief 30]

It's looking really good! Man, I didn't even know that this site was still up. I figured Marked dropped it a while ago. Is everyone still just using RPG Maker?

[Polraudio 122]

It's looking really good! Man, I didn't even know that this site was still up. I figured Marked dropped it a while ago. Is everyone still just using RPG Maker?

I moved on to Unity. Wanted to get into more "real" game design.

[GermanyXItaly1000 16]

I'm still using RMXP. Two years, man. Looking forward to being able to move on from my current project someday and picking up Unity or something. Or at least learn Ruby so I can actually do more with the engine.

 

If purple's an option in the customizer... don't mind me... I'll be taking that.

[rgangsta 43]

Chief! Long time. Yea, I'm still using VX. I feel as though I should move on but VX has a charm to it that I can't give up.

After I finish my current project, though, I'll move on to whatever is the latest RPG Maker.

 

 

Oh, and Happy Holidays to everyone! Enjoy the snow, food, and booze! :D

[FranklinX 37]

The new site is AWESOME! Mark, you out did yourself once again. GDU has the best webdesign in the indie gaming community. 

[GermanyXItaly1000 16]

The new site is AWESOME! Mark, you out did yourself once again. GDU has the best webdesign in the indie gaming community. 

 

You can say that again. It's totally different from when I joined a year and a half ago. I'm pretty glad I decided to come on here more recently; there aren't as many active members as I seem to remember, but I still love it :D

[Marked 197]

You can say that again. It's totally different from when I joined a year and a half ago. I'm pretty glad I decided to come on here more recently; there aren't as many active members as I seem to remember, but I still love it :D

Tell your friends :thumbsup:

 

You guys are too kind :3 Although I cannot take all the credit for this design, I did heavily borrow inspiration from an existing purchasable design.

 

I have pretty much completed the customizer, but it started getting too messy with the colour schemes. The background changer is simple, but to change the blue to different colours was a bit more complex and started taking way too much time. Could probably go live with it now, but I don't think I will. The website and forums are different software so it can get trickey and messy quite quick. Perhaps I'll release the background changer only.

 

there aren't as many active members as I seem to remember, but I still love it :D

It's looking really good! Man, I didn't even know that this site was still up. I figured Marked dropped it a while ago.

Yeah, this place is fueled by my sentimentally... it's also my disease. I was hoping that the community would attract people who would fuel growth and I could sit in the background and do nothing, lol. This place has been around so long, I'm starting to get old D: I have less and less time these days and I don't think I'll be developing any more sections for the site, but I think I'll try my hand at a marketing approach; I want to implement following systems all over the site, and a really cool email system and design, and maybe, an unlikely maybe, I will try and get social media more active. But I'll prolly need a volunteer for that. I was thinking Omar, if we can exorcise the troll from him.

[Izyees Fariz 1]

Maybe you should add a shop section so user can sell their rpg maker game.  :shifty:

[rgangsta 43]

Maybe you should add a shop section so user can sell their rpg maker game.  :shifty:

O.o That's not a bad idea.

 

 

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!

2015 FTW