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New Site Design


Pete

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Well I had a rethink and came up with what I think is my best yet. Check out the main page, try out the sections and hold out on reporting any errors until I've finished all the sections :)

 

The main content tables (news posts in this case) should be semi-transparent with an X-COM Interceptor craft flying along in (bizarrely yellow/orange) space. If you can't see that through the background then you're on an old browser (most likely Internet Explorer version lower than 5.5). Upgrade :)

 

This one works on 800x600 and above, so enjoy, and feel free to comment away!

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He Pete, cool main page,

It works oke from here. :)

always liked the Firestar.

It seems fan fiction is missing in the bar above, or it's a flaw in my connection.

Or there is no Fanfiction anymore,

anyway see you later, in a month I am back in the Netherlands and then I will be here more often, there are a few projects runnung I see, UFO Alien Invasion, Xenocide is starting to get shape,

a while ago we had the freedom force mod, UFO Aftermath ofcourse and I am curious how it is with X-COM Last Hope, that FPS.

Anything I have left out, anyway nice work Pete.

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eek!! help!!

 

oh wait, ah I see! Nice one Pete though it's a shame you gave into them 800x600'ers :) :)

 

But yeah, really cool, though when I was looking at it it sorta reminded me of the Federal News Network thingy from Starship troopers (I watched it to check that my DVD player works :( )

 

But like I said, very nice and very cool, love the Firestar behind the menu's :(

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Indeed - fan fiction goes to Mouse, but I've not finished the fan fiction script (the only benefit 99.9% of users will see is that they can subscribe, whilst it makes Mouse's life INFINITELY easier I hope :)).

 

Hopefully now I've got this design pretty sorted I can finish that.

 

Not bothering with the forum skin yet to make it look like the new design as there's a new version coming out and new version usually means new way of skinning :) Well... I might just do it anyway to see how neat I can get it looking, but no promises!

 

I'm determined to have a 100% skinned and functional site by Summer :(

 

@ Bastiaan - you are correct - the fan fiction link is missing off the nav bar links. There are many new projects coming up and the Alien Invasion demo was kinda cool. I'm going to follow it a bit more closely once the redesign's done. See you soon mate!

 

Cheers for the comments!

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Great idea and good job. The access to the forums has been greatly improved (I use 800x600 :)). Just two things: there should be a quick link to the main site (probably on the X-COM banner on top); and...where are the aliens on the banner? :) it's just that is easier to identify the site with X-COM when the ole Chryssalid/Sectoid are up there :(
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Looks good, but my only complaint is that it locks up my browser after the page fully loads. Odd, really. Everything loads fine, but once it begins on the background image, poof, ctrl+alt+delete time.

 

It's probably just my laptop. Hard drive is slowly failing anyway... problem should clear after a reboot.

 

- NKF

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Sorry Pete, it still freezes when it starts loading the background image. Everything else is just fine, however.

 

I'm using a copy of Mozilla that's 3 years old, so I'm guessing its java implementation may be a tad outdated.

 

- NKF

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Ah. Outdated Moz will almost definitely be the cause then. I've double-checked my CSS and there's nothing wrong witht he way it's trying to load that background image.

 

I did have a little trouble initially getting it in the right place using CSS as Mozilla has some funny ideas of where I was trying to pin it originally, but it works now on Mozila, Netscape, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.

 

I really don't like to suggest that people update their software as it's none of my business, but I highly recommend Mozilla Firefox as the browser of choice for all your web-browsing needs (blatant plug). Seriously though, it's 6MB and does what it needs to do without loading up a billion useless features.

 

I only mention it as I'm currently trying to work the main site design into the forum layout too and it'd be pretty crap of me to cut off any of the site members let alone one of the main contributors.

 

I'll throw up a page without javascript though in the meantime just to check it really isn't that that's causing the trouble - https://www.x-com.co.uk/nojs.php

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Heh, I was planning to upgrade to Firebird and now they come out with Firefox. Gecko's getting a bit tiresome, actually.

 

Anyway after looking at the no javascript page, the thing crashed again. Still at the same time it starts to load the background image.

 

Could you try and make a test page without the background image? Just for troubleshooting purposes to see if it really is what's causing the crash. I hope it isn't - since there's no real reason why it should be the cause of the crash, but it might be part of the problem. We'll get to the bottom of this, ying-tong-iddle-i-po!

 

I don't want to force this extra work on you simply for the sake of downward compatiblity. We all have to keep up with the times sometimes, right? :)

 

 

 

- NKF

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There's one image that doesn't load correctly on my local server but does on the online one. I'll take both out and see what happens.

 

The display may look a little odder than I intended, but head back on over to https://www.x-com.co.uk/nojs.php and see what happens this time :)

 

I am impressed with Firefox (formerly Firebird) after two days of using it. Having been a lifelong Internet Explorer user, I really can say the only time I'd go back now is for testing pages in all browser types. The tabbing system, bookmarking system and the bookmarks toolbar have greatly increased my browsing efficiency and Firebird hasn't crashed yet, whereas IE doesn't need an excuse to crash randomly at me.

 

Anyway, I'd like to find out if it is that background image as other people may have trouble too! I've reuploaded the background image as well and corrected a PHP mistake in the main https://www.x-com.co.uk file and the nojs.php file, though since PHP is server side I can't see that being the case. One last time eh :)

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You'll be pleased to know that it's not a problem with the images in question because it locked up my browser anyway. I'll give it another go later tonight.

 

If all else fails, I'll just upgrade my browser and be done with it. High time I did that anyway.

 

- NKF

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LOL. I shall commence full-speed with the forum design then. It's almost done anyway, and I wasn;t going to bother until the new forum version, but it looks kinda cool on my machine here almost totally integrated with the rest of the site.

 

I'd give it til the end of the weekend til this site is finally reunited under one design (that works - unlike the current broken forum design) that'll work for 99.95% of folk :)

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Erm... some people have more time than others and live in teh middle of our current home planet no doubt :) Kidding. Very well put.

 

(Middle of home planet - geddit? Middle Earth... :) evidently I have far too little time to write anything remotely amusing :().

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