Redesigning and re-branding EN World

[Usurper]

Wow, I read through 10 pages to make sure I didn't repeat myself when I went to recommend Brothercake's dropdown menu, and you went ahead and got it already. Excellent script. Works on everything.

It does seem to clip behind the ad when the ad uses an animated gif in mozilla though. Does your ad script set a z-index on the ad or something? At any rate, you can also configure that menu to be stacked vertically. Putting it in the left column would keep it from conflicting with the ads.

My main organizational suggestion would be to go into "guides" and "resources" and "black pages" and whatnot and take all the OGC/free stuff and put it in one place. I use your site for news, but rarely check the freebies because they're kind of buried. Heck, the black pages really need to go in favor of a category that tells me exactly what it is.

 

[Mistwell]

Re-design of Board

It blows.

I would suggest you look at some of the more well-known fan-based boards. For example, check out www.comicbookresources.com .

 

[Morrus]

Re: Re-design of Board

I would suggest you look at some of the more well-known fan-based boards. For example, check out www.comicbookresources.com .

I find that particular layout cold and impersonal. It's technically very good, though.

 

[Khorod]

I don't like most top-menu-bars, most are very uncooperative. This one seems ok. But I don't like sites whose links are all buried at the top of the page- I find it requires more focused attention to navigate menus, and I particularly lose track of the page when I looked up instead of left. Its enough of a bias that it has slowed my exploration of rpg host sites- the top bar is irritating, and their is no other access to its contents.

I suggest some of the key links- say to those pages visited most often, also be placed on the left side of the screen- messageboards, reviews, resources... like, 8 links or less.

 

[the Jester]

I like it... it's clean, and the main problem right now is that the site is cluttered (as I view it, anyway; no real problem with it at all!)

Sorry Mistwell, the site you linked to blows in my opinion. It's BORING, and it looks just like everything else out there.

 

[tburdett]

I like it.

I like it. It cuts down on clutter. It also retains just enough of the old EN World to satisfy my sense of nostalgia.

 

[Aaron L]

I like it. As long as it's not glaringly ugly I'll like it, I'm not picky

 

[Ricochet]

It's a definite improvement, although the drop-down needs to somehow be more visible to the eye..

Also, go back to the old orange-isch colors, that would be awesome... Maybe you could make some kind of option for users to choose different color schemes

 

[Duncan Haldane]

First Draft

Hi Morrus,

I like your draft. I believe 100% that drop down menus is the way to go.

I have a 21" monitor, so the way I see the site (both current and draft) may be different to most. But when I looked at the menus above the ad block, and they opened up into the ad blocks space, they were *behind* the block.

I would recommend a minor change to fix this (if it can be done - I'm not a web guru):
First line should be the site logo and the ad.
The menu should be *under* that.

IMO this would be helpful. I had to wait a while for the menu to load (damn 56k), and didn't notice it at first (I realise someone else also didn't see it). It would also put the menu closer to the rest of the writing, thus making it more part of the site. Then we can just ignore the ad, like I do on most sites ;-)

Also, one other suggestion - can you do sub menus? For me it would be great if I could go to community, move the mouse over "Message boards" and then select the message board I want, rather than having to click on the message boards link, then wait for the list of forums to load, then select the forum I want. A submenu would save me loading that list of forums each time.

Thanks, and good luck!

Duncan

 

[Usurper]

Yeah, under the title would be good. You should probably also put standard html links to the topmost category's pages underneath the dropdown menu for those who don't have jscript enabled. You should be able to get the menu to cover up the links as soon as it loads.