2000 AD Online

[w3bz]

I felt it time to give you all the breakdown of what will be happening with the main 2000 AD Website. There has been quite a change already with regards to the forums, and the website will no doubt come as a shock to some of you. So here’s the reason why…

About a year ago we had a sit down and a discussion with regards to the future of the website and decided that we loved the content, but we wanted to make changes to the structure and the design. The main problem was time…

That’s pretty much the same problem now; only with the recent server move it felt about the right time to give at least some elements a go. So, with that in mind we got our main design underway. Now comes the interesting bit.

We wanted to get the site online as fast as possible, but with limited functionality. I made the point of saying that if a feature was requested for one of the pages, adding it in after might be long-winded. So that’s where you lot come in – get involved!

When the website goes online shortly it will have:

This Week – Front page with latest news, progs, megs and GN details.
History – About 2000 AD
Community – Link to this forum

Which leaves:

News – To include expansion of the front-page news and a forum watch feature
Characters – As you’re used to but with an A-Z and more artwork
Creators – Information on creators, linking to characters etc

The way we’re going to be working it is that on a reoccurring time (yet to be decided) we will effectively be patching the website to include new features in a bundle. What I’d like you all to do is list features that you’d like to see in each section or even in an overall sense.

I stress that nothing can be too big or too small a request to ask for. While we can’t guarantee that ever single request will get added, we’ll be working on the basis of doing the most important or the most asked for requests to be added first and work from there.

As well as this post there are going to be 4 other sticky posts in this topic, one for each heading and a general request post.

While change can be dramatic, we’re hoping that you’ll all want to contribute to shaping the site the way you all want it!

[pauljholden]

RSS feeds everywhere! One for the forum, one for the news feed, one for the latest issue and one for general site updates (for when extra content gets added somewhere).

More multi-media (I know this is a content issue, but still) - a section where youtube videos, etc, can be collected (like early 2000AD tv adverts, etc).

A Direct link to the click wheel from each issue - so if you want to buy it online you can do it instantly...

I'd LOVE some sort of API from the main 2000AD backissues database to allow some interesting mashup style stuff to go on (What? I've no idea, but still)

A Subscriber only section - I want something extra for my subscription groats - maybe featuring each weeks cover without text and in ULTRA MEGA HIGH RES.

More stats on creators - (How many pages of each strip, how much they've written, etc, bra size - I'm not telling...)

Howzat for a start

- pj

[Richmond Clements]

The new front page looks good.
Is the Lawmaster supposed to be 'shimmery'?

[w3bz]

I dunno if I'd call him shimmery, more reflective...in which case I'd say definitely for the sake of the "cool I'm driving fast on a bike" factor  

[pauljholden]

When you click on the cover image for a larger view of the cover, safari hides the scroll bars so you can see below a certain amount. There are two things, I'd suggest: 1) just open the image in a new window/tab/same window, don't bother with forcing attributes for the window (that's a personal hate of mine) and 2) rather like youtube allows you to embed it's content, can we have some sort of 'link to this image' that will give a little bit of code to display the image and link back to the website, so that if people want to borrow covers for their posts then it becomes a viral thing?

-pj

[Richmond Clements]

I dunno if I'd call him shimmery, more reflective...in which case I'd say definitely for the sake of the "cool I'm driving fast on a bike" factor  

Shimmery... reflective, whatever- it's bloody cool!

[w3bz]

safari hides the scroll bars so you can see below a certain amount

God I hate Safari  

Shimmery... reflective, whatever- it's bloody cool!

Glad you approve There'll be more where that came from knowing me!

[IndigoPrime]

God I hate Safari

Still, at least it's compliant. Most of my website hair-tearing is down to IE these days.

Overall, the home page is a decent start, and seems to be no longer missing so many tricks (not least in flogging commercial product). There's not much above the fold unless you've a large monitor, though. I don't care—my display is 23", but anyone on 1024 x 7678's kind of screwed, what with 70% of available space being the masthead.

[radiator]

I took the shimmery effect as being the engine of the bike revving. Can we have slightly bigger icon pictures please? They've always been so tiny it's hard to make out what they are. Well done on the new site so far - it looks great.

[Bad Andy]

Good start!

Good luck with it all.

[skurvy]

Without wishing to upset anyone I think it's good the site is live again but I think it's a real shame it's been down at a time when SFX are giving away the playing cards and the new Meg launch is being announced etc. Even when you look at the news section now those things aren't even mentioned, it's pointless having a new section if it isn't up to date. I don't think this is the fault of the designer though!

I'm probably missing a huge obvious button that says 'home page' but I can't see an easy way to get back to the home page from this forum.

Also, I'm currently getting obsessed with making sure all our clients sites are optimised correctly, so I guess my question is do you have that covered?

Damn this is all a bit negative - sorry! I think the new look of the site is great actually and I understand that it's obviously a work in progress.

[Pete Wells]

Will we get the Cover Zone back, or is it somewhere else online? I love that section.

Great work on the rest of the site, by the way, it's great!

[Pete Wells]

Hmmm, didn't know how to edit my previous post, sorry folks!

Just wanted to agree with PJ on his brilliant Subsciber's Section idea. Especially if it includes a high res, no text version of the weeky's cover. Well done that droid!

[w3bz]

Yum! Feedback!

Ok, answering in an all-over-the-shop kind of way:

Most of my website hair-tearing is down to IE these days.

Haha, will that ever change?? You know I constantly wonder how, with current prices and all that, some people are still hanging around on 1024 rez. Ho hum, there's going to be skins based on such in about 6 months time from what I gather. People will be able to choose how they want the site to look...

Can we have slightly bigger icon pictures please?

I assume you went from talking about the site to the forums there, if you mean your avatar sizes then that's over to giving Wake a shout...   ).

Subsciber's Section idea. Especially if it includes a high res, no text version of the weeky's cover

Subscriber section is definitely happening! As for the covers, I have no idea as of yet. I know backgrounds are happening and that might play a part, but other than we'll have to see.

[IndigoPrime]

Haha, will that ever change?? You know I constantly wonder how, with current prices and all that, some people are still hanging around on 1024 rez. Ho hum, there's going to be skins based on such in about 6 months time from what I gather. People will be able to choose how they want the site to look...

In all cases, it's down to basic usability, though. I see (and end up repairing and redesigning) a LOT of sites created by graphic designers on 23"+ monitors who've never thought to check what their work looks like with a smaller fold/view area.

With 2000 AD, I suspect more of the target market than usual with have large monitors; however, laptops are increasingly common for a home PC, rather than a desktop, and the popular sizes for screens are from 13"–15", which largely have about 500–650px vertical view area using defaults. Even with larger monitors, it's not a great idea to take space for granted anyway—most users I've seen with 20"+ monitors don't surf full-screen.

As for standards support, I see you've shifted everything over to CSS (something that I tried to push during my last meeting with you guys a few years ago, but that didn't happen for all sorts of reasons), and that means you should be able to get the site working across Opera, Safari and Firefox with zero problems (bar, perhaps, minor font-size issues across Win/Mac, due to antialiasing differences). IE 8 should be largely a happy bunny, which means conditional comment over-rides for 7 and 6. That said, if your code's clean, such over-rides should be very minor, bar, perhaps, issues with hasLayout, which is the thing that causes most of my IE layout problems these days. (That said, hasLayout can usually be dealt with by either specifying a height of 1% via a CC or a zoom level of 1.)

And, uh, I'll turn off the web-head now.

As for the covers, I have no idea as of yet.

I think that's a really good idea. A lot of major mags do that, including IFX, CA, etc., and it could add real value to be able to see the cover art devoid of other junk. Not that 2000 AD tends to have that many coverlines, but it's still a good idea.