Website Ideas Options

[Hoodstock]

Was scrolling through the website and had a few ideas:

1. Update the Pics section by adding Live's facebook photo's that they occasionally post.
2. Add Alive and The Gracious Few albums to the Lyrics page.
3. Open up the Setlist section to include both EK and TGF setlist submissions and reviews.
4. Add some new music to the MP3 section.

Just ideas. I totally understand if they don't happen because I'm sure doing any of these would be time consuming.

[Merica]

Although it's not greatly difficult to manage, the problem with the website is that it's all just basic HTML. There's no content management system behind the scenes, which could greatly help in making changes and introducing new and different features.

If Dan REALLY wanted to make a go of FansOfLive, I think he should convert it all into a CMS of some sort, fill in all the content (like that suggested above), and maybe have a blog where fans write features or something. Could make it THE hub for Live fans. Obviously, there'll be whatever new site CCP come out with. But this would be the oldest Live franchise on the web, just about?

Just thinking out loud.

[PillarOfDavidson]

Although it's not greatly difficult to manage, the problem with the website is that it's all just basic HTML. There's no content management system behind the scenes, which could greatly help in making changes and introducing new and different features.

If Dan REALLY wanted to make a go of FansOfLive, I think he should convert it all into a CMS of some sort, fill in all the content (like that suggested above), and maybe have a blog where fans write features or something. Could make it THE hub for Live fans. Obviously, there'll be whatever new site CCP come out with. But this would be the oldest Live franchise on the web, just about?

Just thinking out loud.

One of the biggest hurdles to converting this website is probably using CSS as the foundation, instead of HTML. The point of CSS is to separate the content from the style. It gives you the flexibility to maintain and customize the look of the website without hurting the content. With HTML it's very tedious.

On the flip side of that, for someone who is used to coding in HTML and is used to how hands-on it is might have a hard time letting go of it. There is a learning curve there and it may be steep. I would recommend immersing oneself into this website: http://www.csszengarden.com/ There are some great examples on that site for what you can really do with CSS without having to resort to javascript.

If the website is changed I would suggest, as a way of taking pressure off Dan, making the forum the primary focus of the site and upgrading the forum software. And as for the rest of the site I would maybe make it into more of a blog-style site.

Basically, take a "less is more" approach with the design. The simpler the better. Don't overthink/complicate it.

Here's a site that offers a look at a number of different sites: http://speckyboy.com/2009/02/12/51-amazing...le-web-designs/

This post has been edited by MrSheptical: Oct 19 2011, 9:39 pm