EoFF CMS: Feedback & Ideas

[Loony BoB]

For those of you have yet to notice, when you click on 'Site' at the top left of your screen you will find a brand new frontsite. This frontsite is pretty much 100% integrated with the forums, so we can 'promote' your blogs and posts to the frontsite when we want to and people are also able to leave comments on the frontsite. We have a lot of plans for this baby of ours, and while Marshall Banana, Rantz Rantz Revolution, Baloki, Jiro and others have all slaved away on it, we still need more feedback from you guys so we know where to go next.

Right now, it's a pretty raw look. We're hoping to change that. The primary concern we have is the appearance of the CMS/Site (ie: we aren't talking about the forums appearance in this thread, please focus on the site), as we have a lot of thing we want to do once we have the look the way we want it. So, with that in mind, can you please fill out the following template for as many different styles as you feel like! If you notice any bugs, feel free to mention them, too. Oh, and one more thing - feel free to 'second' earlier comments, as if only one person says something we might not consider it a major thing!

Just copy/paste the contents of this box and add in the appropriate details.

[size=5][b]Style: [/b][/size]
[b]Browser:[/b]
[b]What you like:[/b]
[b]What you don't:[/b]
[b]Ideas:[/b]
[b]Bugs:[/b]

For example...

Style: EoFF Classic
Browser: Internet Explorer 7 (Work )
What you like: Comments, colours, the basic structure.
What you don't: I really think that more images are needed. Not big ones, but perhaps to act as headers for the various blocks around the CMS. Particularly the 'LATEST ARTICLES' bit - that needs to change to something a little more stylish.
Ideas: After looking at the Old Skool banner, I can't help but feel that there needs to be a newer banner for the stretch-width style that is Classic. Something with a bit more colour to it, perhaps something that doesn't have corners, if that makes sense... you know, have a black background for the image so it blends in with the rest of the style and can still work with a stretched width.
Bugs: Nothing to report!

Style: Simplified
Browser: Internet Explorer 7 (Work )
What you like: Everything! It's perfect for when I'm at work.
What you don't: Nothing to report!
Ideas: Maybe remove even more images. If that's even possible. Mwaha.
Bugs: Nothing to report!

[Agent Proto]

Style: Old Skool
Browser: Mozilla Firefox
What you like: Um, everything so far!
What you don't: Nothing so far.
Ideas: None, I don't usually pay attention to the front site, so I don't have anything to suggest. Though, I've noticed that we supposedly could make comments for each page, so when I gave it a try it just links to the bottom of the page where it didn't have a section to write any comment for said page. So why is it there and should it be put to use if it's going to stay?
Bugs: Not necessarily a bug, but in the Characters page for Final Fantasy: TSW, the gender is listed as either scallywag or wench.

[Loony BoB]

Ideas: None, I don't usually pay attention to the front site, so I don't have anything to suggest. Though, I've noticed that we supposedly could make comments for each page, so when I gave it a try it just links to the bottom of the page where it didn't have a section to write any comment for said page. So why is it there and should it be put to use if it's going to stay?

Ah, you should be able to comment and that explains why so far Shlup and myself are the only ones who have bothered to do so - because I guess regular members have not been able to! I'll have to look into that as everyone should have the permission to post comments. Hmm.

Bugs: Not necessarily a bug, but in the Characters page for Final Fantasy: TSW, the gender is listed as either scallywag or wench.

Something tells me that page was recoded for the CMS while we were having a Pirate Day / Week. xD Oops.

[Pheesh]

Style: Old Skool
Browser: Opera
What you like: I like that we have a front site
What you don't: I assume this is due to me using an obscure browser, but I don't think it looks very nice. The main text is just white on a black background; there's an advert covering the entire left side menu; and some of the image links appear broken.
Ideas: Make it work for Opera (or don't; I don't really use the front site anyway >_<)
Bugs: Everything I mentioned. Also, I took a quick browse through, and when I clicked on a character portrait to jump to their profile it redirected me to the forums.

old skool capture.PNG

[Loony BoB]

Many ads should not be visible to logged in members, so we will look into all ad placements that are visible to yourselves. I'm not certain if the ad on the left hand sidebar is supposed to be visible to members, and even more to the point, I'm not sure if it is supposed to be above the game links as that could drive viewers away from the site!

[Jiro]

Style:Old Skool
Browser: Safari (work)
What you like: The layout. I think the three column idea is rocking.
What you don't: White text on black, scrolling all the way to the bottom, the uneven side bars
Ideas:

• Place an avatar or some kind of image at the top of the post alongside the title/author information. A little bit of colour will go a long way, particularly in those articles without images.
• Add a background image a la the EoFF twitter. Or at least create those little box outs for each article so they're written on something other than "space".
• Whatever else I said in my feedback thread.

Bugs:

• The "forum" tab is still highlighted as opposed to the site tab being highlighted.
• Some of the older news articles have html showing, bandaids needed.
• I think that's all I've discovered.

I like the traditional skins of EoFF, I think they make us distinct and stand out from the crowd (as well as, you know, honoring the past). HOWEVER I think we need way more colour on the frontsite. I know most of the articles I have written have images to go along with them. If we can like, attach "separate" avatars to the "news accounts" then we should definitely post using avatars of our favourite final fantasy characters. BoB would be fine but having some FF themed tit showing through even on the most text based of articles will draw people in.

There needs to be a way for people to easily search between news and features. Having both is awesome, but a lot of members join us to find out news and stay because we're sexy. Let's not scare them off with essays about why Mukki is the true hero of FF7 (mental note: write that).

I'll take a look at how the other skins look on there, especially the comparison between full-width and not, because I'm sure it'll make a difference to tit visually. But you can wait for that.


Style:Kupo!
Browser: Internet Explorer 9 (class)
What you like: The texturing works to make the articles easier to read.
I got signed out and the advertisement on the side bar works very well because it doesn't just go over the top of information like it did for Phil.
Here, images
What you don't: There's no "clear" columns. It could appear messy.
Ideas: as before
Bugs:
(SPOILER)

[Shlup]

Style: Kitty Fantasy, sometimes Under the Sea
Browser: Firefox, Android
What you like: Everything
What you don't: Your lack of apostrophe use. Member profiles are kind of poo. I don't like the order of the tabs. I think it should go Site Forum Blogs Chat Wiki Triple Triad, and What's New? should go underneath.
Ideas: More indoor children with outdoor names.
Bugs: None that I've noticed.

[Loony BoB]

xD the PHP code tag must destroy the apstrophe, because it's there when I hit edit!

[Shlup]

Don't throw bulltrout excuses at me, you illiterate chump.

[Loony BoB]

Your face is a bulltit excuse.

But as for your other stuff, I agree that the ordering of the tabs should be as you suggested. Or at least move What's New? to the end, rather than destroying it... not sure if anyone uses What's New at all!

EDIT: I have now fixed it so that the 'comments' should be viewable by all and postable by all registered members. If there are still problems with that, could someone let me know? Also, I have set it so that there is a forum where you can see all the latest updates, further increasing the forum-site integration.

I like Jiro's ideas for seperating news and articles. At the moment we have categories for Square Enix, Final Fantasy and Community. I think we should add the various game titles to that, along with 'News' and 'Articles'.

[Jiro]

People had better not smurfing ignore this thread. This is the single greatest opportunity that they have to influence an important and large thing here at Eyes on Final Fantasy and three non staffers participate (EDIT: ONLY ONE NON FORMER STAFFER!!!!! We should knight Happy Noodle Boy (that's ee, BoB) just to make this right). Pathetic. I'm going to go and abuse people via every means once I get to work.

[Freya]

Style: Kitty Fantasy
Browser : Chrome
What you like: It looks nice?
What you don't : A lot of text. Just so much text. x_x Besides what a few others say, I also kinda don't like the articles.
Ideas : It's not that they are bad articles, they are just boring. I think you'd have more people interested if you had a bit more community involvement. Yeah Final Fantasy is great but EoFF is more about who is here than what is here. The one I like the most is WK's 6 things post. It's fun! Which is what EoFF is about. Possibly allow some microblogging from users be allowed on the front page. I mean not everyone is going to write a blog that's gold but it would make the community seem more open and you could just have someone approve whatever so something gets in or doesn't. That way all the attention whores/junk blogs stay where they should and those hidden gem awesomes get through! With the incentive of possibly being on the front site it might increase the quality of said blogs and give that area more focus. Which I say is win/win!

And the picture thing. It's a lot of text and it just seems, boring because of that. Maybe just tack on a picture at the beginning of an article or something.
Bugs: Just that comment thing you already took care of.

[Loony BoB]

I've actually had someone else mention getting non-FF stuff put onto the frontsite (by way of interviews with members) but we have to remember the audience we're trying to 'capture'. That kind of thing is probably more suited to the forums than the frontsite, which we're hoping will be a go-to place for all things Final Fantasy. Having said all that, there are a lot of things like the WK article you mentioned that aren't so news-y but more article-y, and having been sent a bunch of works that will go up on the site once we're happy with the look. And having read them, they are all top quality and I'm hoping we'll see not just news on the new CMS, but also a lot of articles, perhaps weekly styled articles, maybe polls (I think we've yet to test that!) and of course the odd community event will get posted up.

But yeah. Articles, be they member-made or staff-made, will definitely be on the increase. A large part of what made us go for the CMS is the ability to promote posts and blogs to the frontsite. Fingers crossed it all works nicely.

[Jiro]

aw damn it I just remember polls and thought I could break the idea but you already mentioned it you feathery bastard! POLLS. GET 'EM UP THERE. POLLS ROCK.

[Freya]

I think you misunderstood my community based comment. I was not insinuating that it has nothing to do with FF. It could be like what Del had posted from the Contest, FF Haikus! That's still something we, the community, made that was FF related and interesting. Of course we should put FF related content on the frontsite of an FF forum, that's a no brainer, but you have entire force of bored fans here that you could get to do something constructive. Be it a post monthly of community FF artwork, or a well thought out blog post of why blue mages suck rocks. You then become not just an FF fansite but an FF community. Fansites are a dime a dozen. They are everywhere. What makes this place, this place is our community. With it being so important, why are we skimping on it now? We the members are what makes EoFF, EoFF. Why not show the world how awesome we are?

As I said, you can get someone a mod or admin or whatever to monitor and approve certain things that can and can't go up front. It would show that while we have news, we also have a community that still talks and cares about FF, so why not come along and join us!