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Jazz2Online realignment

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Stijn

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Jan 15, 2010, 01:07 PM
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Lightbulb Jazz2Online realignment

Jazz2Online has evolved a fair bit in the past year (give or take a few months), and I think we can be happy with the current state of the site; there's still a steady influx of downloads, and there's a number of loyal members that, coupled with the odd new member, manages to keep the site active. Of course activity isn't what it used to be during the heydays of the site, but that's what to be expected given the age of J2O's main subject.

However I've noticed during the past few months that when adding new features it's hard to give them a fitting place in the site's layout. There's also a number of site sections (such as articles and links, and the static "info" pages) that, in my feeling, aren't adequately presented.

Both the articles and links section are more or less dead, and no additions of worth have been made for a long time, but yet they're prominently featured in the site's navigation. On the other hand, other sections such as the user's photo gallery or the wiki only have a place in the "other" submenu, while I think they're at this moment more important than aforementioned dead sections given their activity or content.

There's also a few other parts that could do with restructuring. Spread over several places (on and off J2O) there's a lot of information about JJ2's inner workings, which could be gathered and featured in a central place. A similar issue is that the wiki and nodes system are basically comparable, and yet they're using two separate systems and not easily browsable. While there's some nodes with very useful information (such as some about why online play won't work, or the Jazz Jackrabbit FAQ) they're often not easy to find and there's no central list of nodes, save for the (non-dynamic) sitemap which itself is buried in a few layers of links.

What I'm getting at is that I think now is a good time for tweaking Jazz2Online's layout and overall structure. There's no immediate features that need adding or large bugs to be fixed (if there are, please do tell!) and the back-end is fairly stable. This is something that has been discussed before in several places (amongst which are some threads in this subforum), but no one has gotten around to working on it yet. As I should have some time available the next few months, and am right now very familiar with J2O's codebase (having written a large part of it), I should be able to work on it.

I started prototyping something here, but decided that it might be a better idea to start a thread about it first. While I've acted mostly on my own accord with regards to working on J2O recently, hopefully meanwhile paying adequate attention to bug reports and feature requests, I think this warrants some more discussion.

A few of my ideas about an improved navigation structure can be seen in that prototype; more prominent "online play" and "knowledge" (couldn't think of a better term at the time) sections and "sub-links" in submenu-like lists on the top instead of the side, that are viewable even when not currently visiting that section. Furthermore I thought about using the breadcrumbs (currently seen in your PM inbox) site-wide, to make it more obvious to users where they are in relation to the site's structure.

What's currently the sidebar would (in this prototype) feature recent site additions, such as the newest levels, newsposts, user actions, forum posts, clanwar results or whatever. Whether this is worth being featured on each page is debatable and I'm not really sure whether it's a good idea. One thing I am fairly sure about is that the current sidebars need to be rethought; they take up a lot of space while only showing a relatively limited amount of links. They could be replaced by the aforementioned submenus at the top, and perhaps a few page-specific links.

I also propose merging the articles, nodes and links systems with the wiki. Namespaces (or categories) could be used to limit access to certain types of wiki articles. This has been discussed often before and I think it's something that's agreed on by most people. It would be a waste to simply remove the articles and links sections, and by moving their content to the wiki it would be preserved without having to keep the respective storage and editing systems in place.

All this is a lot of work and especially moving content around will require a lot of manual editing. I'm up for the task of working on it, and probably will (though I can make no commitments about when it'd be finished), but I'd appreciate others thoughts and help with it. If you have any feedback to what I've posted here or reservations with regards to me working on it, please share it.

Last edited by Stijn; Aug 1, 2010 at 12:06 PM.
EvilMike

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Jan 15, 2010, 02:23 PM
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I think the new organization you are proposing is a good idea, and I especially like any suggestion that features downloads more prominently on the front page. You can take it further and also show the most recent reviews too (right now, when reviewing something old, it's pretty easy to go unnoticed). On the other hand it would be hard to implement this feature without showing too much, and turning it into a gigantic list of unsorted information.

One suggestion I have is that you might want to just have links to all big JJ2 sites right on the navigation bar. There aren't really that many active ones besides J2O. One option is to list the big ones in the navigation bar (jazzjackrabbit.net and JDC come to mind) and the smaller ones can go under some "Other" page which lists the rest. I think that's probably better than always having to navigate to a totally different page.
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Jan 16, 2010, 08:08 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stijn View Post
One thing I am fairly sure about is that the current sidebars need to be rethought; they take up a lot of space while only showing a relatively limited amount of links. They could be replaced by the aforementioned submenus at the top, and perhaps a few page-specific links.
It's something of a double edged sword here. The current sidebar is an obscene waste of space, and should be replaced. Stuffing the links at the top could make the top appear very cluttered though (just like J2Ov1). The prototype seems to handle this well but it could get out of hand.

Not too sold about the latest additions sidebar appearing on every page, either - might be good to keep it frontpage only.

Breadcrumb trails in every sub-site are good.

And we should keep the yellow background from the prototype, it looks cool

PS. This August J2O will turn 10 years old. Can we possibly get this finished by then?
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Jan 16, 2010, 08:33 AM
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I'm not promising anything, but August might be possible. It would be nice to be able to announce the new site on the anniversary indeed. Of course, it would speed things up if there'd be others working on it apart from me. At the very least we'll probably need someone who can do some graphics, as that's not really something I'm good at.
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Jan 16, 2010, 09:12 AM
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I'll deal with some of the content moving and some of the graphics then
Stijn

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Jan 19, 2010, 12:52 PM
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That would be great. I dunno, maybe you could experiment a bit based on what we've got so far?

My main inspiration was http://www.tweakers.net but that should only be as much of an influence as you want it to be, of course.
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Jan 20, 2010, 01:38 AM
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I think the interesting part of tweakers.net is that they moved their sidebar outside of the main layout. Maybe you should consider doing that, even though it might be a bit problematic with the background we use. Any menu you're going to put on there is going to stand out, no matter what you do.
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Jan 26, 2010, 12:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilMike View Post
One suggestion I have is that you might want to just have links to all big JJ2 sites right on the navigation bar. There aren't really that many active ones besides J2O. One option is to list the big ones in the navigation bar (jazzjackrabbit.net and JDC come to mind) and the smaller ones can go under some "Other" page which lists the rest. I think that's probably better than always having to navigate to a totally different page.
Links worth visiting:
- jj.net
- JDC
- Old Jazz2city
- Disguise's Tileset Resource
- OpenJazz
- Haze's Hideout? (has been dead for over a year)
- ???
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Jan 27, 2010, 12:17 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stijn View Post
- Haze's Hideout? (has been dead for over a year)
On a not unrelated note...
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Stijn

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Jan 27, 2010, 02:15 AM
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I know, but Haze's new site isn't really about Jazz Jackrabbit anymore, though from what I read it will have the occasional JJ-related article.
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Jul 25, 2010, 12:55 PM
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Any news on this? Is August still a feasible date? I have time to work on implementing a new layout, but I'd rather leave the graphics work to someone else. Maybe we could make a newspost about it, asking for contributions from site members?
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Jul 26, 2010, 10:03 PM
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Yes, ask for contributions.
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Stijn

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Aug 1, 2010, 12:02 PM
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So, this thread was in a private forum before, but I've taken it to this forum now so people can see previous discussion on the subject. Feel free to chime in. Also see the J2O Newspost for some earlier discussion and a few prototypes by others.
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Aug 1, 2010, 12:40 PM
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What are the usage numbers on the different JCF themes, for inspiration?
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Aug 1, 2010, 12:54 PM
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What are the usage numbers on the different JCF themes, for inspiration?
Hmm, I'm using the Dark Green one. Some smilies look quite bad. Nvm.

That Stijn's prototype thingie looks quite completed, probably a Log Out button would be nice and some other forgotten things should be added, but overally I think it's a good base to start adding graphic.
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Stijn

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Aug 1, 2010, 01:07 PM
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Quote:
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What are the usage numbers on the different JCF themes, for inspiration?
Hard to say since for a lot of people it's stored inside a cookie, not in our database.

Database says:

Default theme - 3203 + 57
Default theme (Alternative Colors) - 134
Christmas Theme - 66
Digital Eclipse - 25
Dimension Jazz Theme - 23
Dark Green - 15
Ultimecia - 13
Light Blue - 12
Theme for High Resolutions - 11
Dark and Simple - 11
Black & Red - 10
vBulletin default - 9
Metallic - 8
Stone - 7
Alternate Logo - 7
Firenze - 7
Lori Central - 6
Light Blue Quistysoft EVIL Mix - 5

(Rest is less than 5)

Last edited by Stijn; Aug 1, 2010 at 01:35 PM.
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Aug 8, 2010, 03:22 AM
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Too little, too late.

As I've said before, this site needs to expand to other games if it hopes to survive the years. Worms would be a strong choice, especially given the new game coming out.

There's so much stuff out there that this site could expand into: Trine, Aquaria, Braid, Worms, Plants Vs Zombies, etc.
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Stijn

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Aug 8, 2010, 06:05 AM
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I think we're perfectly happy with just serving Jazz Jackrabbit fans. If that means this site will not continue to exist indefinitely, so be it.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve the site while it still lasts. For me the motivation behind changing the layout is not trying to attract new visitors to the site, but to improve the experience for the current visitors.
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Aug 10, 2010, 05:07 AM
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I am not necessarily against expanding the board to new audiences, as long as it does not change the general atmosphere of the community by much. It could draw new blood into the community. I would think it would make sense to focus on some platformgames then, though.

Not sure at all if it's a good idea, but I do think we've got a solid, friendly and open community going so it's a nice concept to expand.
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Interesting Jazz-related links:
Thread: Gameplay Theories - Thread: Make Up Your Own Gametype

Spotify.fm

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Aug 10, 2010, 08:25 AM
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without having read everything just a structure thought. No Design and just for my lazyness in Flash, jsut to give an idea http://4k4.de/feat/j20try.html
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Aug 10, 2010, 08:54 AM
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That's an interesting structure idea there.
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Aug 10, 2010, 10:11 AM
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without having read everything just a structure thought. No Design and just for my lazyness in Flash, jsut to give an idea http://4k4.de/feat/j20try.html
what the HELL, it's Mirrow. And I like that structure.
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Aug 10, 2010, 05:32 PM
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I do like the in-line search module and integration of Facebook/Twitter on Mirrow's design, but I think it'd have to have a bit more. I can't pin it, but it feels like it's lacking something.

Edit: On another note, I'd like to see a button on the downloads in the download section to expand the details without having to go to the download's full page to get a little more info.
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Aug 11, 2010, 07:50 PM
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Aug 12, 2010, 09:26 AM
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That's awesome.
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Aug 15, 2010, 11:44 PM
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Oh, and as for the idea of expanding into other games... I'm not totally against it, but they should at least be related games. I enjoy Trine, for instance, but even just thinking visually, trying to theme a site around this and this just isn't going to work. Jazz, GBA aside, is a 90's platformer series, and if we wanted to make friends (as in the old days when the JMMB was home to Commander Keen, if I recall correctly) that would be the place to look for them.
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I like the suggestions box up the top right.
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Sep 1, 2010, 12:07 PM
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Well I don't like UR's picture. It's a little bit too facebook-ish. JJ2 and J2O don't need something like facebook. I mean, profiles with pictures, and such as things what looks like facebook. but I suggest something. What about putting avatars on J2O. But not normal avatars. I think you all know about Newspaz's fur editor for jazz on jj.net. Maybe you can use it with permission from NS and make Lori too. So everyone will have their spaz's/jazz's/lori's fur for avatar. What about it?
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Sep 1, 2010, 12:59 PM
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Like what we have on jjnet, you mean?
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yes um it is a direct parody
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well, newspaz fixed the script to work for lori, so that code could be shared unless he minds
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Like what we have on jjnet, you mean?
Yeah, I wrote "on j2o" my bad
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Quote:
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You cant do that!

You just copied Facebook.com's theme NOOB

can you do that?
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Evidently, you can.
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Sep 3, 2010, 05:01 AM
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what about this? (Still need menu,text colors, text size, etc. But theme is good hmm? )

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Yes, it looks good. I'm not sure though that does the gray background fit on the logo...
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Sep 3, 2010, 07:15 AM
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Yeah. Logo isn't the best, but the rest is good . I hope someone will make logo's background or new logo better than I did.
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I was thinking a lot about merging the Rabbit Journal with regular news and giving them a new graphic style, and my best idea as for now is changing them into, kinda, a message board (let's say placed in the Carrotus Castle to keep it Jazzy). You know, I mean something like you write a note and then you pin it to the board. If it gets admin approval there appears a (for example) red stamp on it. If it's a regular (admin) news, it has a (for example) green stamp from the beginning. Pictures (like screenshots of featured downlads) could look like photos glued to the pinned paper.

Perhaps I should draw what I mean (and I hope to do so when having some more inspiration), since with my lacking of words English it's rather hard to describe. As for now I just wanted to share my thoughts. Maybe the merge of those two sections is overally a bad idea?
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Sep 3, 2010, 04:45 PM
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Quote:
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well, newspaz fixed the script to work for lori, so that code could be shared unless he minds
It's under the IDGAF license so be my guest. Actually, feel free to upload it to J2O. I don't have the code anymore.
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So, is this mostly going to be graphical/layout change, or are you going to change some of the technical aspects of the site too?
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