Site Design Update

[Frank Peterson]

Hello everyone,

After the crash we had, it took some time to get things rolling. However, we are making progress and have setup the new homepage we'll be using. We're going in a new direction with some changes in color schemes. Kelly Pelrine of Digital Racecraft has again done excellent work in helping this become a reality.

We are at the first step in setting up the framework for the site. The next step will be some custom integration for results, event coverage info, and related items. Jim Gilmour has done phenomenal work in the past and I think I can speak for many in saying that.

There may be some changes coming. There is a possibility of moving away from VBulletin, though that decision is still well into the future. We'll be adding some new sections as you'll see in the test setup. I'm still in the process of testing and trying out some different things, but we're starting to close in on what we want.

We will be looking for additional help for the site shortly. What we need are people who want to contribute, want to write, interview and write an article, tech articles that you may want to write, news/rumor editors, media gathering(pictures/video), and the like. We will have areas for writers, editors, etc. I'll work with anyone who wants to break into this field...

The beta is operating at our .net site at

http://stangcrazy.net

Please let me know if you have any comments on layout, content, sections, categories, or anything like that...

Thanks again for the support and sticking by us through catastrophe...

Thanks,
Frank

[Florida Dave]

Frank,
It looks great but one thing really nags at me as I view the page and that is the offset banner ad...I know it is nitpicking but it really just throws the look of the page out of balance in my opinion(whatever that is worth) other wise I think the redesign looks fantastic...hope you get it up soon! V Bulletin is nice and all buts gets kinda boring :)
Dave

[Frank Peterson]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the feedback. Kelly and I have been playing around with the banner ad and placement. We've looked at them all and are still evaluating. The current placement was made to give space to provide room for a graphic to be made(the car). Centering it ate up room making that tough. We're still going through some ideas on that though and feedback is always helpful.

I am looking at the options to integrate VB into the overall site. I want people to be able to log in once and be done. There are some good bridging programs to do this but I haven't fully completed my research to see if it's something I want to do...

Thanks again!

[SwillRacer]

I like it!! The new color scheme is hot/modern.

I would like to see a special forum added that would be called "Hookers & Beer," the topic of discussion is pretty obvious.

But that's just me....:)

Seriously though, I can't wait to see the finished product!

[Frank Peterson]

I would like to see a special forum added that would be called "Hookers & Beer," the topic of discussion is pretty obvious.

But that's just me....:)


I thought that was an implied subtopic of the Swill Board :) Perhaps it's too important a topic to not have its own forum though...

[vrtical]

I am looking at the options to integrate VB into the overall site. I want people to be able to log in once and be done. There are some good bridging programs to do this but I haven't fully completed my research to see if it's something I want to do...

Thanks again!

Personally I think using VB as a content management tool is quite a PITA. I tried it briefly when I built MWF, but found that trying to integrate the board and site was difficult. Its takes a lot of low level coding to get it there, then the managing of it is as bad. Using a central DB for all the info/content is a great idea, I just think using the right tool for the right job will work better.

Oh BTW, new site looks great.

[Frank Peterson]

Personally I think using VB as a content management tool is quite a PITA. I tried it briefly when I built MWF, but found that trying to integrate the board and site was difficult. Its takes a lot of low level coding to get it there, then the managing of it is as bad. Using a central DB for all the info/content is a great idea, I just think using the right tool for the right job will work better.

Oh BTW, new site looks great.

Thanks Doug...this is what I am looking into myself. I am not using VB or VBportal or any VB derivative.

I am using Joomla for the CMS and have been very happy with it so far. I researched a lot of the common CMS's out there, Mambo, Joomla, VBAdvanced, VBPortal, the Nuke products, and came to Joomla as what I thought would be the best solution. There are some bridges out there to integrate VB into Joomla, but I haven't decided I would do this or use a different board. I know many like VB and are familiar with it, so that plays a part, but in the end, the most important things are stability and maintenance. All of the forum packages are similar enough in that it's not too difficult transfer from one to another.

Thanks again,
Frank

[chris tuten]

the new site looks killer! like swill said, modern and up to date. doesnt look like something that has just been sitting around. good job!

[frog]

Awsome Job Frank. Site looks excellent!!

[jackchan]

hey I just installed the new stang crazy skin........I know it's new because I also have a forum (that noone visits I might add lol) but i changed the skin, and tried on here before and it wasnt but one. So today I tried again, and bam....a new SC skin! kewl Frank keep up the good work......

[SwillRacer]

New skin?

where?

[Frank Peterson]

Hi,

Actually it's not really a new skin. It was the design direction we were going in at one time, but has since changed. I left it there as it wasn't hurting anything.

I will likely be switching to a new forum software. That will entail a temporary shutdown of the forums when I make the switch. I should be able to port over all the usernames and posts so nothing is lost, but haven't tried it yet. In any event, I will not do anything that causes any loss of meaningful data.

As for the skin, bottom left of the page, you can select...

[jackchan]

here is a picture of where a forum skin can be changed. It can also be changed on my websites forums!
Jack

http://www.geocities.com/xtremben/skin/newskin.bmp

[SwillRacer]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......I see.

[jackchan]

other sites like stangnet.com have serveral skins availible. The dark planet is the one I use at stangnet.com. Check it out sometime. I often wondered how someone could just look at a website that was drab. But when you change up the skin it changes faces (more or less).

[frog]

Hey Frank..........how bout a forum for pics/video?

[Z-MAN]

Hey Frank..........how bout a forum for pics/video?

That sounds cool! :cool:

[George Klass]

Frank, the new site looks great.