MER Site Refresh

Stuff that relates to the running of the forums, and not to Ranger reenactment.
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caedmon
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Re: Forum business cards?

Post by caedmon »

Udwin wrote:Not related to the business card discussion (sorry, I can't resist!):

but arghh, seeing that honey site (while it's very slick and shiny looking) makes me realize that man, sometimes I really do hate Peter Jackson.
"...honey produced right here in the real Middle‑Earth, New Zealand, for Lord of the Rings™ fans."
LIES LIES LIES. ...
I totally get that. When I saw the site I didn't read it, I simply saw Bilbo's gate and the map and loved the feel. I just read the copyright line...
Middle-earth, Beorn, Anduin Vale, The Lord of the Rings and the places, items, characters and events therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company....

WTF???! Grrr.
-Jack Horner

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Impression: Cædmon Reedmace | bronze founder living in Archet, Breeland. c. 3017
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Manveruon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by Manveruon »

Yeah... alas, Zaentz tainted touch has defiled much of what was pure about Middle Earth... Bit like Sauron or Melkor. :shock:
Maerondir Perianseron, also called “Mickel,” Halfling Friend - Ranger of the Misty Mountains
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caedmon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by caedmon »

Ok, started building a new site over lunch... There's no reason that it can't be done in public.

http://dev.middleearthrangers.org/

http://dev.middleearthrangers.org/forum/

This is a dev site, content will be out of date (or non-extant).

SO I'm doing a couple things:

Starting with the same basic building blocks: mediawiki and phpbb. I'll be building new custom templates, and making sure that the correct bridges are installed so that we don't get the user login issues we had with the current system.

I'm dropping the Gallery 2 gallery, it's no longer supported and was clunky to start with. So we will need a simple gallery system that users can edit (and understand), I'm open to suggestions.

My only requirements for the templates are that they be responsive (I like to check in on my phone, I'm guessing others do as well.)

We don't have to go Bootstrap, but it's easy. Anyway, actually coding a template is still a way out.

I'll be scraping the site for images, but the front page will need high quality. If you got something, PM me and I'll send you a link to my Dropbox share.
-Jack Horner

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Impression: Cædmon Reedmace | bronze founder living in Archet, Breeland. c. 3017
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Greg
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by Greg »

Posting my comments over from some PMs, so I apologize if this seems weird contextually:
I like the direction it's going in that discussion, but I'm going to make a few cautionary and artistic suggestions, to keep it going in the quality-upgrade direction, and not get too camp-y, for lack of a better term.

Photographs really need to be of some serious quality for us to put them on the front page. No saying they have to be mine...but I don't want you to feel obligated to put someone's photo on the frontpage that just isn't at a resolution and composition level that we oughta have there. The Lasdhir photo is a perfect example. Well shot, high resolution. Two cents.

Next...honestly, I think I'd like to suggest we not show pics of any forum members on the frontpage. Might set a precedent that there's a standard to how we look. I think I'd like to follow up on your first panel concept with Andy and a wide background similarly, but by commissioning a digital, line-drawing black and transparent sketch of a generic Ranger on a landscape background from Manveruon. Maybe have parchment as the backdrop color along the sides, etc., to give the feeling of a lot of the Alan Lee stuff and/or maps, etc. Then, as we go down the page, one could alternate between drawings and photos to keep the parchment theme going, hypothetically. Again, photos without people in them.

When I'm talking about commissioning a drawing from Manveruon, etc., I'm thinking about all these things in vector, as Elleth and you are also capable of. To that end, we could have these alternating pieces of the page (a sketch of a ranger on landscape at the top, a sketch of a recognizable location (weathertop, etc.) further down, a partial map at the bottom, etc.) all shown in a similar transparent line drawing format, so as they scroll over a parchment background, they all show up as more-or-less uniform, while the photos in between of kit items or other pertinent, recognizable content (again, no faces/people) scroll through more traditionally. This would allow us to have multiple artists generating content, but ultimately have a unity to the page and (hopefully) a touch of class.

As for the wiki, and gallery:

I think the wiki is going in a good direction...I have some evil plans in store for the near future to do a bit of re-arranging of things so the write-ups/patterns, etc. don't require so much digging to access...make the page look a lot more full than it currently does. With that in mind, I think we could keep the wiki as is for the time being, and just have a different means for accessing it (ie. a link from the new frontpage.)

I'd be okay with trying something new for gallery purposes *IF* we can get one of those to work without spitting ads all over the place, or showing outside photos. Don't need pinterest showing all sorts of "We think you'd like this too..." pics in a sidebar, etc.

That's all I've got to throw into the blue at the moment...but food for thought.
So that's my take on the matter...I think as a group we could put something pretty stellar together.
Now the sword shall come from under the cloak.
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Manveruon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by Manveruon »

I think you make excellent points. And I very much appreciate your nod my direction for the front-page content - however, I must admit that I am rather garbage at drawing landscapes, and wide compositions in general... but I may yet be able to help you out there in one way or the other. Lemme think on it a bit. I love the idea of a sort of "Alan-Lee-Vibe." Otherwise, I'm thrilled to do other sketches, including sort of generic "Middle-Earth-Ish" looking maps, if we're afraid of someone getting us in trouble for using anything directly from Tolkien. And it sounds like Elleth is all over that project too, so you guys should have plenty of resources there. I also like the idea of not necessarily showing any specific members right on the home page, keeping that instead for the gallery page. Totally see your point there.

In a nutshell... I like it. Good stuff, Greg. I will try to see what I can find to send your way that fits into these general ideas, Caedmon!
Maerondir Perianseron, also called “Mickel,” Halfling Friend - Ranger of the Misty Mountains
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caedmon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by caedmon »

I understand the motivation to keep individual ranger's off the front page.

To me the important thing is to highlight the wild and the individual/small group tendency that is our thing. However we accomplish that is good for me.
-Jack Horner

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Impression: Cædmon Reedmace | bronze founder living in Archet, Breeland. c. 3017
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caedmon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by caedmon »

Ok new site is up and functional. Not to pretty yet.
http://dev.middleearthrangers.org/

I have separated the Front page from the Wiki (because the wiki-forum integration script I found did it that way.

So we have three moving parts:
  • Home Page
  • Wiki
  • Forum
-Jack Horner

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Impression: Cædmon Reedmace | bronze founder living in Archet, Breeland. c. 3017
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Elleth
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by Elleth »

Nice!

I know the architecture work is thankless. It just seems to drag on so long, and looks to the outside world like nothing is happening. Thank you for making the slog!
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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caedmon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by caedmon »

New mockup. I just discovered unsplash.com ... free images. probably requires attribution. But if were want to lead with parchment that changes things.. Anyway generic girl sitting on cliff turned into generic ranger sitting on cliff. I still really like the idea of working Andy into the front page somewhere. Just a nod to the start of it all.

Anyway I played with the nav items and tightened up some front page copy. For those with access to the dropbox share, the original, mockup.psd, is in my folder. Let me know if it you need it in another format.


-Jack
mockup2.png
mockup2.png (1.07 MiB) Viewed 17349 times
-Jack Horner

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BrianGrubbs
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by BrianGrubbs »

I have a couple of picture that you are welcome to use. The first is a landscape taken in the mountains of Alabama by my wife.

Image

This second is the banner page from my Facebook "business" page. I would get a copy without the text from the guy who did the photoshop work for me pretty easily. The original image is much higher res.

Image

Also my brother is an obscenely talented artist. I wish I had access to some of his drawings, but here's a couple of art projects that I pulled off his facebook. First, the fake "goblin hand" that he made.

Image

Then, how he makes snowmen. Meet "Snowdin" (Odin as a snowman)

Image

As a Tolkien scholar himself, I'm sure he would be more than happy to contribute to any art we would need. Just some thoughts.

Brian
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caedmon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by caedmon »

Ok, been a while since there was an update, so here's where I'm at. I have an updated copy of the site going at:


http://dev.middleearthrangers.org/forum/

It had direct edit access for all registered users on the wiki, http://dev.middleearthrangers.org/wiki/, but then I broke it when I attempted to merge the current wiki content. So... back to the drawing board.

The current MERF theme is a phpbb 2.6 theme that barely passed compatibility with 3.0, and the switch to 3.1 killed it, so I will have to do a new one. I am thinking of adapting this one:

http://themeforest.net/item/metro-a-res ... b3/4559274

Which, I think when updated to our color scheme and icon set, will not provide to big a visual leap. It is responsive which will give us better phone and tablet viewability.

The wiki template is no longer supported in mediawiki 1.26, so I am also looking for a new (as well as better & more compatible) template for it as well. No particular candidates there yet.
-Jack Horner

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caedmon
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by caedmon »

Another stylistic take on a front splash. Thoughts?
merf_splash.png
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-Jack Horner

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Greg
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by Greg »

I dig it. Might be a nice way to finish off the front page, down at the bottom as a send-off (from the context of the text, etc.)

I have better internet and tools at my disposal now...I'll start digging into this project more here shortly. Pardon my absence.
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Mirimaran
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by Mirimaran »

That's just beautiful! It really captures Tolkien, I think!

Ken
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Elleth
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Re: MER Site Refresh

Post by Elleth »

I LOVE that image!

The verse took me a sec: I was reading it in columns, and wondering why it seemed vaguely familiar. Oops. :)
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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