3.5 d20 SRD Project

[Nifft]

barsoomcore: Much as I like generated pages, the site you pointed us to has some larger pages that take up to 8 seconds to load. If your site were more popular -- say, as popular as ENWorld or the WotC site -- it would be really quite slow. Give me nice pages that can be cached and load very quickly and I'm happy enough.

Unless he's willing to invest in a very serious server... static pages may be better.

-- N

 

[Timeboxer]

Love the filters idea. I've always wanted an interactive SRD such that I could be like, "Okay, I want a list of all touch spells and another list of all ray spells," or something.

Now, if someone would only release a complete Windows Help version of the SRD...

 

[Boredflak]

what it really needs are dynamically generated pages -- so that when I click on "Balance" I get a page that's just the Balance skill and not a great big page with an anchor in the middle of it.

This is really two suggestions:

First is that the pages be dynamically generated. On this I disagree. The content is static as opposed to a catalog site, or a portal, or news aggregator, or discussion board, etc. I don't see any advantage to serving the pages up on the fly, and there certainly would be a performance hit. The filters mentioned earlier in this thread are basically dynamic index pages.

The second part of your suggestion is one that I'm conflicted about. Should I break the data up into many small pages? The obvious advantage to doing this would be smaller downloads per page. But there are advantages to larger pages also, namely browsability. I've often browsed through feats for instance. That would mean a LOT of clicking if they were all on separate pages.

So the pages I've considered breaking up are:
- Monsters
- Spells
- Classes (including Prestige Classes)
- Skills
- Feats
- Magic Items

The deciding factor so far has been the size of the individual entries. Each monster, spell, & class entry is a fairly large block of text, possibly meriting it's own page. Skills are borderline. Feats & magic items are often small, and therefore out.

I haven't completely decided to break up any page. The SRD pages are currently organized almost identically to the official RTF documents. This may be helpful to those already familiar with that organization.

I'm also not overwhelmingly concerned with individual page size. If someone finds the site to be a useful game supplement, I would hope they would consider the shareware subscription. I provide a nicely packaged and edited local version of the site for subscribers that performs very well.

I’d love to hear opinions on all of this of course.

You might also want to consider having systemreferencedocuments.org host it as well. d20srd.org is a fine domain name, but the more the merrier, says I. I'm sure the systemreferencedocuments.ord people would be happy to host it.

systemreferencedocuments.org is a fine site, and TheRaven was kind enough to offer hosting my SRD project there, but I have a professional relationship with my current hosting provider and I am very happy with their services.

BTW - I like your site very much. I plan on only including fantasy genre SRD/OGL content on my site. It's nice to see all the bases are covered!

 

[green slime]

Very, very nice.

I have a suggestion: Would it be possible to display pics of the monsters from WotC website? They have the MM, XPH, and ELH art on-line. Or at least a link to the relevant pic?

 

[Boredflak]

Would it be possible to display pics of the monsters from WotC website? They have the MM, XPH, and ELH art on-line. Or at least a link to the relevant pic?

I currently link to the MM pix. Just click the eye icon next to the monster name.

I'll certainly plan on linking to the other relevant pix! Thanks.

 

[barsoomcore]

Much as I like generated pages, the site you pointed us to has some larger pages that take up to 8 seconds to load.

8 SECONDS!? Holy crap. Which pages are that slow? None of the obvious culprits take anywhere near that length when I'm testing. I definitely consider more than two or three seconds to be unacceptable -- and while I know a couple of pages take longer than that, they're mostly things like "All Skills" or "All Creatures" -- which I don't imagine many people choose to view. If you can tell me which pages are giving you the worst times, I'd sure appreciate it.

The other big pages (like the equipment pages) are for the most part NOT dynamically generated -- most of my site is actually "mostly" static (except for the menus and stuff). I doubt the load times you're experiencing are due to the back-end scripting. Among my list of things to do someday lurks a review of those big pages and figuring out a better organizational system.

Besides, those pages cache just fine. Or at least they do for me.

Should I break the data up into many small pages? The obvious advantage to doing this would be smaller downloads per page. But there are advantages to larger pages also, namely browsability.

The reason for providing some of the "list" content (feats, skills, spells, etc) through dynamic pages is because it solves this very problem. Dynamic page creation allows you to both break it up and allow browsable displays, while maintaining a single set of data. Otherwise, implementing updates and errata becomes impossible. Or at least incredibly tedious.

Even if my dynamic pages are slow in loading, well, I've never done ANY PHP scripting before in my life, and I know nothing about servers or routers or any of that crap. There's no reason to take my site as a sign of what's typical -- I suck. I'm sure someone with a modicum of experience or training could improve things by sufficient margin to overcome any concerns -- though as you say, page load time isn't a big deal.

My reason for wanting individual display of items has more to do with straightforward presentation of data than load time. It just bugs me when I ask to see something and I get a great big list of stuff I'm not interested in. From a site mangement perspective, dynamic pages make sense because it's so much easier to update things.

 

[green slime]

Another suggestion: The summon monster list splits the summoned creature into "template" and "creature". That is, I click on the "template" section and are shown that, or I click on the "creature" section and see that. Would it not be better to actually have the link point directly to a correctly stated version of the templated creature?

The Summon Monster tables towards the end are some way away from the spell itself (which would be resolved by placing them sperately on single pages).

Also, Summon Monster I has no heading description stating casting time, level, duration or the like, yet all other Summon Monster refer to it...

Would you consider making a .zip / .rar file of your site available so others can easily have it on their laptops for ready game access?

Would it be possible to state the source for the spell/monster (page number) and/or if it has been corrected in an errata?

 

[Kerrick]

This is COOL! As someone who does a lot of d20 writing, I'd find this invaluable, and I definitely will be using it - it's a lot easier to reference than the normal SRD. Great work!

 

[Boredflak]

Another suggestion: The summon monster list splits the summoned creature into "template" and "creature". That is, I click on the "template" section and are shown that, or I click on the "creature" section and see that. Would it not be better to actually have the link point directly to a correctly stated version of the templated creature?

That certainly would be useful, but it's a bit outside of my purview. I've avoided adding to the SRD so far. Perhaps this would be a good addition to my site "extras".

The Summon Monster tables towards the end are some way away from the spell itself (which would be resolved by placing them sperately on single pages).

Also, Summon Monster I has no heading description stating casting time, level, duration or the like, yet all other Summon Monster refer to it...

I broke up the Summon Monster & Summon Nature's Ally tables. It increases scrolling, but the tables are now clearly associated with the appropriate spell.

I don't know what happened to my Summon Monster I stat block. It's back now. Thanks Mr. Slime!

Would you consider making a .zip / .rar file of your site available so others can easily have it on their laptops for ready game access?

As I mentioned above, amongst other things, I offer a nicely edited and packaged local version of the site to site subscribers.

Would it be possible to state the source for the spell/monster (page number) and/or if it has been corrected in an errata?

Referencing published WotC works is against the OGL. The site should already be corrected with all published errata, but I'll double check.

 

[swash001]

Srd

One item which I have yet to see on any online copy of the SRD is the chart (and accompanying text) that shows how much xp a character earns for defeating a monster. Is that in the SRD? under what heading?