A New TBL Site Design: XG2

Post by **archibalduk** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:42 pm

Progress on the design is going very well and I expect to have completed the initial redesign very soon. Once I have done this I will start adding the new features and pages. Then it will be released online!

As the blogs pages are quite messy in terms of how they are coded, I expect updating these pages will take some time. Thus, to ensure that XG2 is released in a timely fashion I will release XG2 without the updated blog pages design. I will then update the blog pages and release these at a later date. The blogs will still, however, be more integrated into the site with the release of XG2 - so it's not that they'll be neglected all together.

Here are some more screenshots to show you how it's going. Please note that the buttons haven't been updated yet and that the pages aren't necessarily the finished product. Comments, constructive criticism and suggestions are welcome and encouraged!

Threads
Note that the blue line in the top corner of Bruins72's avatar is the placeholder for the new "Mod/Admin" tag.

Polls

General

Challenges

Hall of Fame

Andyjayp · Post by **Andyjayp** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:10 pm

Looking good. Keep up the good work!!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:13 pm

Looks great! FYI, the Hall of Fame thumbnail is linking to a Challenge screenshot instead.

Post by **joehelmer** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:21 pm

Looks great! I really look forward for it to be released!

Post by **archibalduk** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 5:49 pm

bruins72 wrote:Looks great! FYI, the Hall of Fame thumbnail is linking to a Challenge screenshot instead.

Thanks for pointing that out. I've corrected the thumbnail

Post by **McQwak** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 11:58 am

It's really great, Archi.
I like the MSG, PROFILE, PICS, BLOG etc. buttons under avatars instead of under the post text.
And where are challenge achievements? I mean this list
1st TBL Challenge 11.2
3rd TBL Challenge 11.1
1st TBL Challenge 10.3
under bruins72 avatar, for example. It looks like these won't be displayed in new design.

Post by **archibalduk** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:39 pm

McQwak wrote:It's really great, Archi.
I like the MSG, PROFILE, PICS, BLOG etc. buttons under avatars instead of under the post text.
And where are challenge achievements? I mean this list
1st TBL Challenge 11.2
3rd TBL Challenge 11.1
1st TBL Challenge 10.3
under bruins72 avatar, for example. It looks like these won't be displayed in new design.

Rather than listing each individual achievement, we're going to display small gold, silver and bronze trophies somewhere under the user's avatar. Either there will be a number on top or below each medal to say how many gold/silver/bronze medals you've won, or the number will be displayed as a tooltip/bubble when you hover your mouse pointer over the medal.

For every first place in a competition you'll win a gold, second place silver, third place bronze.

Andyjayp · Post by **Andyjayp** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 11:49 pm

Thats a pretty cool idea. Save cluttering the avatar thingy area up.

Will you be listing all the challenge/comp placings with the trophies on the profile page (where you view the users profile)??

Post by **archibalduk** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 12:28 pm

Andyjayp wrote:Thats a pretty cool idea. Save cluttering the avatar thingy area up.

Will you be listing all the challenge/comp placings with the trophies on the profile page (where you view the users profile)??

Yes, we're going to list all those sorts of things on the profile pages. B72 has suggested using tabs for a couple of the pages, and I think this would be particularly useful for this page. By using tabs (you click on the tab to see different profile info) it will tidy up the profile pages and will allow you just to see the info that you want to see.

What I'm also hoping to do is to create a "Challenge Career History" section on the profile page. Not only will this list which challenges you have come 1st/2nd/3rd in, it will list all challenges you have competed in and also you stats for every single season for every challenge. It will be displayed in a similar way to a player's career history on EHM. It will also display your totals (e.g. total seasons played, total goals scored, points, etc) and hopefully your averages (e.g. average goals per season). It's quite ambitious but I think I've figured out in my head how this could be designed and coded.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:10 pm

Oh, I like that idea! It would be cool if we could have a spot on that "career history" page where we could put our very own face card like the players have in the game.

Andyjayp · Post by **Andyjayp** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:47 pm

That would be pretty cool!!

Post by **joehelmer** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:28 pm

The challenge career tab sounds very good, I hope we can get a preview of it soon.

axwel3221 · Post by **axwel3221** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 8:55 pm

nice work and YES I AM ON THE HALL OF FAME

Post by **McQwak** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:31 am

And when will we see new header (incl. new logo

)?

Post by **CatchUp** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 3:31 pm

McQwak wrote:And when will we see new header (incl. new logo )?

Logo is done. A small version is in the Challenge 15 Announcement graphic on the front page.

I might have some preview header images done next weekend. We'll see...

Post by **archibalduk** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 9:43 pm

Just to let you know that the new design is still going on - it hasn't ground to a halt. I have finished the first draft and am now working on adding the new features and polishing things up. Hopefully the new site will be ready within the next few months.

Post by **archibalduk** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:02 am

Check out my latest post on my Facebook profile. As you will be able to see, it is now possible to post threads from TBL over on your Facebook profile. Clicking on the "share" button located next to the "quote" button will open a new window in allowing you to enter a comment. This will post a link to the thread, the thread title and your comment on your Facebook page.

Unfortunately I can't get it to link to a particular post on TBL, it will just take you to the topic. However, it will take you to the page of the topic you shared. E.g. if you click on the "share" button above a post on page 7 of a thread, the link posted on Facebook will take you to the top of page 7 of the thread on TBL. The reason I can't link to the exact post is because Facebook doesn't like the # symbol in the link (to link to a specific post on TBL you have to use a # in the URL).

Also, you can now add your Facebook username URL to TBL and this will appear as a link below your avatar. You can find your username URL by logging into Facebook and going to this page.

Post by **archibalduk** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:32 pm

Update: It is now possible to link to specific posts within a topic to Facebook. It is also possible to link to the topic generally. This gives you the option to either post a useful topic or a useful post over on Facebook. I will also add the ability to post a particular file hosted on TBL to Facebook so you can share your favourite addons or just your own work.

Post by **archibalduk** » Sat Feb 06, 2010 7:58 pm

It's been a little while since I've posted some screenshots of how the new site design has progressed. In between working on the site there just hasn't been the time to post updates or screenshots. However I will continue to post updates every so often. Anyway here's a quick update.

The site is really taking shape now and there isn't too much to do now (still a good few months work though!). I've added several significant new features (such as the ability to share posts on Facebook, multi-quoting, and also being able to thank a user for a useful post). There are also some big improvements and additions I've been working on for the Challenges and user profiles. Some of these make it easier for the Mods to run the site whereas others will hopefully add a new spin on the Challenges.

So on to the screenshots:

1) Here is how the User Profile screen is looking at the moment. Note that this screenshots shows the Moderator privileges so not all of this will be available to the user (and I've also blanked out my IP address on the screenshot):

2) As I have mentioned before, here is the user Challenge History. This will be available in the user profile section. Note that this is just a draft design and is not final. It shows season by season stats as well as totals, averages and how many times the user has made it in the Stanley Cup. This screenshot shows Batdad's performances:

3) Within the Challenge Stats section we now have an improvement page. This shows how each user has improved upon last season's stats. The improvement is shown as a percentage increase/decrease:

4) This shows the new Trophies system (they're under the avatar, in the bottom left corner of the screen). Gold/Silver/Bronze are awarded when a user finishes 1st/2nd/3rd in a competition (note all of the buttons are placeholders and are not final):

Círyatan · Post by **Círyatan** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 11:33 pm

Hi Archi, I don't know if this is the suitable place to put suggestions, but I thought about a small thing that may come in handy. While quoting a post, I think it would be a good idea to put a link to it, and (though it's less important) the date and time of its posting. I've seen it on several forums and now I noticed it's missing here. Let me know if you know what I'm talking about.

Keep up the good work!

Post by **archibalduk** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:12 pm

Thanks for the suggestion, Ciryatan.

I'm not sure if the date and time of the post is too important, but I can see the value of being able to automatically link to the quoted post. However it may be complicated by the multi-quote feature that I have added. I'll see what I can do.

It probably won't be included with the first release of the new site design but it would be included afterwards (I plan to release the site once the initial design is completed and then I will work on some extra bits and release them at a later date).

DJP19 · Post by **DJP19** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:57 pm

looks awesome.

Post by **archibalduk** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:11 pm

It's been quite some time since I've posted an update about the new site. This is because I'm working as hard as I can to get it all complete and online. I'm reaching the final stages of the design and I hope to have it online well before the summer.