New Clash Web Site - Comments Please

[Kull]

"Welcome to the long-awaited Clash of Civilizations Web Page! It's only a "beta" right now, and your comments and suggestions are going to be necessary in order to bring things through to fruition....."

I won't repeat everything that's posted on the Web Site, so why not go there and see for yourself??

(NOTE: The old web site link has been updated to reflect the move over to Apolyton)

http://clash.apolyton.net

[This message has been edited by Kull (edited December 09, 1999).]

[Kull]

I will be away on business for the next week, so you probably won't get many (if any) responses from me until next Friday. Don't let that stop YOU, however!

[Mark_Everson]

Dominic and Kull:

Looks Great!

You guys have done a Lot of work, and it shows.

The design for each sub-page is really good, and makes getting a quick impression of a few areas pretty easy.


Link to current discussion on forum is really good. Sometimes ther'll be several needed IMO.


One quick note...

I tried the site with Netscape 4.06 and couldn't get the "site map" frame to the left to appear. It was just a blank wallpaper. And to add insult to injury the main page has Two Adds!

It does work fine with IE5.

Everyone in charge of an area:

As Kull said on the site, we need Executive summaries of each area for people who don't want to read 10 pages! (most people IMO ) At the top of the bit for each model it'd be a one or two paragraph description of the Big Ideas of the model/area. Alternatively you could use 5-10 bullet points. (Do we need a standard here?) After the Exec summary maybe an intro thats one to two pages? We need to figure out exactly how to get our message across in the best way.

Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited October 31, 1999).]

[rentgen]

Thanks for the job done, guys!
I'll go with criticizing right away if you don't mind

1. Ermm.. Could we do without frames? It is very easy to do the same layout using tables and we get rid of the frames which are considered by many to be *not very good style*
You have a good point there about not having much graphics -- now, this is actually a *very* good point. It would allow to view the page with as many browsers as possible -- even the text only ones. (Like lynx -- many unix people use it. I use it occasionally) And then, having frames kills this advantage since not so many browsers out there support frames. Lynx doesn't.

We aim to make clash an inter platform project -- so we better make web site "interbrowserable" as well.

2. About the layout on the left. It would probably be good to make it "double-level". Meaning the following: to have a top level structure outlined first:

- Main
- Downloads
- Models
- Screenshots

etc,
and then below we can expand on it, providing opportunity for "fine-choosing" from the main page:

...
- Main
**** news
**** project synopsis

- Model
**** diplomacy
**** military

etc.

With this layout we will have to have additional pages that will be shown when a person chooses top-level links ("main", "models" etc) that will describe the contents a bit and provide the same links as in the corresponding "expanded" section below on the left.

I hope this is understandable

3. Minor comments.

-- should have a "status" section
-- links that lead off the clash site should be opened in the new window (well, this is definetely optional but worth discussing)

Also i have much to say about the improvements that could be made on sub-pages, but i wonder if you gonna change them pretty soon anyways. If you don't, i'll post my thoughts.

Thanks,

-- Anton.

[This message has been edited by rentgen (edited October 31, 1999).]

[Blade Runner]

Hi Kull,

I got the same problem with the site like Mark. I use Netscape 4.6 . I think in long term we need to support minimum the two mainstream browser: IE and Netscape.

Blade Runner

[Dominic]

1) In the regards to the frame. Kull and myself have thought long and hard on that question. He had a very good idea. That if go to a site, without frames, you can leave vary easily. With the frame you have to stick with the web site. This can of course be easily changed. I think it would go against Kull's better judgment.

2) Now for the frame not working with Netscape; I don't know really why it dose not work.

Thanks,

Dom

[Mark_Everson]

One possibility on the frames issue is to just have a link to a no-frames Ver. all the no-frames Ver. would need is all the links on the home page, and each page would need a link back home. Seems like a simple, and frequently-used compromise to me...

[alms66]

I think the page is great!
It keeps me from having to spend hours reading the enormous amout of threads on Apolyton anyway.
Well, that was kinda short!

[rentgen]

Originally posted by Dominic on 10-31-1999 01:53 PM
1) In the regards to the frame. Kull and myself have thought long and hard on that question. He had a very good idea. That if go to a site, without frames, you can leave vary easily. With the frame you have to stick with the web site. This can of course be easily changed. I think it would go against Kull's better judgment.

2) Now for the frame not working with Netscape; I don't know really why it dose not work.

[*]Now, i'll tell you why it doesn't work. Look at the source of clash_list.html very carefully... YOU ARE MISSING A CLOSING </TABLE> TAG, that's why it doesn't work! Insert one after the line
<tr>

<td align="center" width="117">

and before the start of the script at the very end. Also it is a good practice to put closing </HTML> tag in the end of the document. You know.. just to respect standards.. Because there are GOOD browsers that somehow conform to them and don't automatically suppose anything about what you meant.. like ie does for instance.. (which is not necesserily a good thing)

Now i don't know whether it's M$ frontPage or what... but if it is -- take a good advice - throw it in garbage along with windoze and get the work done in some good old text editor...
[*]About the frames.
First of all, it's not hard at all to get out of such a site. Just do "open the link in the new window". I do it all the time, don't know about others..
Second, "tabled" sites look better. Virtually all big corporations have tabled layout.. Ah.. I guess i can't convince you of that anyways.. It's just my experience and general ideas of web design.. Even this: frames may look good.. but that scrolling bar -- it destroys the beauty of the whole design solution you have there.. i mean, the colors and pics. It is made cool, but - my opinion - tables would make it better...[/list]

-- Anton.


[This message has been edited by rentgen (edited November 01, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by rentgen (edited November 01, 1999).]

[rentgen]

So, the frames.. Let's have 'em if you insist, but let's then get rid of the scroll bar at least..

One more thing...

Guys, REMOVE THAT UGLY <BLINK> thing from the news section!!!

Read some guidelines for a good web design - it says everywhere - DON'T USE BLINK!

The reason is simple -- it takes 80% of your attention so you can't see anything else on the page.
Now, it doesn't show in ie, but after i corrected the clash_list and loaded it in Netscape, it is perfectly there...

Also, you will probably need to do some more script magic to get rid of the ad on the left in Netscape.. but if the site will be hosted on apolyton, that doesn't really needed i guess..

If i sound harsh, i don't mean to. I just want the web-page to be super-top-class-best-of-all-pages
And you really did a good job.

[This message has been edited by rentgen (edited November 01, 1999).]

[Dominic]

Over the past few days I have been working on a non frame section of the site. This way the user can have the option of having frames or no frame. I think that this would be better for most people out there on the web.

Thanks for telling me Anton. I'll try to fit that in. I have mainly been working hard on the non frame part of the site.

Thanks,
Dom

[Glak]

Originally posted by Dominic on 10-31-1999 01:53 PM
1) In the regards to the frame. Kull and myself have thought long and hard on that question. He had a very good idea. That if go to a site, without frames, you can leave vary easily. With the frame you have to stick with the web site. This can of course be easily changed. I think it would go against Kull's better judgment.
Dom

Umm don't you see anything wrong with that? That is simply immoral. For that reason alone the frames should be removed. People should be able to come and go as they please, that is what people expect. Sure they might stay a little longer on their first trip but if they find it hard to leave then they will not come back.

Trying to get people to stay longer through means of the medium is very bad, only the content should influence how long they choose to stay. If you want people to linger then just improve the content, otherwise the people will just go off and spend those portions of their finite lifespans doing something else.

[Kull]

Frames:

OK. Let's clear something up. My partiality toward frames is not part of some evil, Machiavellian plot to "trap" helpless surfers within the web of the Clash Site. There is ONLY one reason: Making it easy for people to move around within the Clash World.

You'll note I use the term "World" instead of "Web Site". It's NOT an accident. Although many important Clash events will be chronicled by and hosted within the Clash Web Site, it's not the only Clash thing happening out there. We have the Apolyton Forums, member sites, and many related topics. ALL of these exist elsewhere on the web. If you use the Web Index frame as it's intended, you can do ONE-CLICK hopping from a Model description, to a related thread on the Apolyton Clash forum, to Mark Everson's site, to the Java download page, back to Clash Home, etc. etc. Maybe it's just me, but I LOVE being able to do that! I find it to be extremely user friendly. (Down off my "frame" soap box.)

Having said that, there's clearly a number of folks who have no use for frames. So be it. Mark and Dom have suggested using the standard approach of allowing folks to choose between frames and non-frames. And perhaps right now there aren't enough good examples to fully highlight my "Clash World" vision. But in the long run, I truly believe frames are the best way to implement it.

[Kull]

Rentgen: Thanks for the helpful comments. Dom's web development skills are still a bit rough, so I know he really appreciates your insights. If you find any more bugs in the code (such as the blink thing and the Netscape problem), please let us know right away. As to "text editor" web page development....well...neither of us has the expertise to carry THAT off! So please bear with the reliance on Front Page, and don't hesitate to offer code improvement suggestions!

[Colon™]

Hi, I'd like to give my moral support (for what it's worth) to this whole project, I'm glad there are guys out there who are trying t make a complex, realistic game rather then making another simplistic one. (that focuses more on appeal then content)
The site looks great, it's in my fav's list.


[This message has been edited by Colon (edited November 06, 1999).]