New Website design Discussion

[spaceemotion]

I just wanted to say that I am ready to recode the website. Coming with the recoding it will also get a new look, so I created a new theme/template for the looks. This time it will be a dark one, fitting the game style a lot more than the light and bright one we now have!

This issue should be some kind of "question thread" because it seems that the github people are more active than over at the forums ;D

Now it is your time to ask or suggest anything that should be put on the website - If it is a good idea i might implement it!

I thought since this is an open-source project everyone should be part of the actual online representation. The old design was coded in rather quickly just to get rid of the very old design it had.

New Design Shot:

[kylecbrodie]

I like it. I think there should be a page that links to the github issues and allows for forum users to submit issues/bugs and discuss them (like a "Forum User" github account and put the forum name on the first line then their message or issue). Also so the issues page will have the same theming and will tie the active development into the community.

[kylecbrodie]

Have a web IRC client so it may become more active. And this is up to what the development team wants, but a more 4chan/github issues like threading for the development discussions would work better than a vBulletin forum IMO.

[spaceemotion]

I already thought about writing my own forum, since then the user do not have to reregister in the forums.
to play online they will need to get an account - multiplayer is a website thing then, handled by a big database and an api (see #975).
The irc client can be put at the end of the list - its not that high priority i think, but may be a cool addition.

[kylecbrodie]

Well there is existing web-based IRC clients that will generate a nick and connect the user to the IRC channel of your choice (#catacomb-snatch in this case). I have seen this one used a lot on websites http://qwebirc.org/. I doubt they are hard to set-up and would be a nice edition. But I fully understand putting it last; it is a nice-ity not a necessity.

[godleydemon]

I think a really nice button in the bottom right hand corner that simply reads "submit bug" would be awesome. I wonder if we could use the website for the user to be able to type out the bug and then have the website translate that to a github post here. That would basically notify us immediately of bugs and keep us up to date and would provide for the user a simple way of turning in bugs.

[spaceemotion]

Something like a bug bot then?
Should it only commit bugs to the site or also get the existing bugs from github (if possible - i have to check that) so everyone can see bugs on the website directly?
This too is a thing that can be added later - the bug report button first will redirect to github commits i think ;)

[Maescool]

We also need a page: how to report a bug..
so the user knows what information we need.. like version and build number.. etc.. (we need to add build number to main page of the game btw :p, i think i can force jenkins to add that value to a certain file in the jar, forgot exactly which one)

[spaceemotion]

yep great idea +1

[ghost]

So when will the new Design got to be used?

[spaceemotion]

When I coded everything in ;)

[zorro300]

Yeah a 'report bug' option would definately be nice and then maybe ingame have a button in some corner as well (only for the beta builds or something). If people would click that button they'd be linked to the page to 'report a bug' on the website. I LOVE the new website design in the screenshot btw 👍

[spaceemotion]

Ehm, I just want to let you see this:

[zorro300]

That's amazing!

[tyler6699]

The MoJam 2 got people looking at previous projects!

[Maescool]

Yep, looks like we have to try and start up again xD

[zorro300]

@Maescool +1

[aplandreneau]

I've been keeping track of this project since the beginning and have been very happy with how you guys have still kept this game alive. Any plans to start a repository for some of the new Mojam games? I've been playing around with the code for the Nuclear Pizza Wars game for a few days and it has some potential.

[godleydemon]

Currently we aren't looking at revising any of the current Mojam games. But I do have to say, some of them have a ton of potential that was lost due to the time limits. I would love to be able to set aside some time and program on it, but with the current project (Catacomb Snatch) and everything left to do yet. I'd hate to get any to distracted, lol.

[aplandreneau]

True, I definitely wouldn't want this project to die. Still a lot to do with it.

[Maescool]

We are trying to find some time

Actually, I'm looking at the pizza wars to, have the repo ready, but I'm not pushing anything without changes to the original source..
There is a lot of work to that one ;)
For me a prior one is a config for key-mappings...
Also Auto loading of GDX needs to get fixed.

[zorro300]

+1 for the config key mappings and maybe sound/music volumes in that config as well ?

[spaceemotion]

we are already working on a VERY IMPROVED input handling - it will support all systems (OUYA, android, computer) using keyboard and mouse as well as a gamepad.

[zorro300]

Yeah for Cs but not for pizza wars unless I missed something.

[spaceemotion]

yeah of course ^^

[aplandreneau]

Just out of curiosity, what does everyone here use to push to GitHub? I've never actually used git or GitHub for my code and I've been wanting to start using it. I've been using Eclipse as my IDE since I started Java coding 2 years ago, so EGit was my first choice. Any other ones you guys might suggest?

[spaceemotion]

well, I am also using Netbeans - it has a build in integration for GIT (very good!), but I also prefer netbeans over eclipse because of the simple maven integration. But eclipse + egit is still a very good solution ;)