Insanity of Xade

[Xade]

I thought I'd plop a thread here to see what everyone thinks of my site design. I know the archive isn't that pretty, I'll get around to it sooner or later, it works, that's all that really matters. The comic engine itself is BlkKnight's new one that he is working on :)

It's actually cleverly designed in the background and I would be willing to drop some secrets or even a tutorial if you're interested in how I did it. Note, I used what I learned from comicpress to enhance the site design, so I did actually try, and worked with comicpress, I just have an issue with one of the creators. I might tell you about it one day. :P

[Swaptrick]

Ok great site (mine is comicpress also). I like the simplicity and well defined areas. I know where the ads stop and the comic starts which can look jumbled and confusing on some sites with no organization. One main page suggestion i can make is to move the ads below the comic to appear below the navigation buttons. This will benefit the reader so they won't have to jump over ads to get to your next comic. Other than that, the archives need sprucing as youve already stated. Everything else looks good, Im liking the drop down menus. If you could tell me how you got the blog post background (mainly the rounded corners). Take a look at my site, let me know what u think.

[Xade]

The curved borders are pictures. Right click near the edge of the comic and chose show background, or whatever your browser has. I also added some padding, so its actually as little larger than the comic itself to give the appearance that the comic is curved. The drop down menu is my fave feature of the site, that and the auto chapter add that BlkKnight cleverly added into the menu for me :D I can just give it the chapter start tag and it's added.

I'm sorry but my site is not comicpress. No offense to you of course, but I wouldnt use that if it was the last one on earth due to one of the makers getting the -- *searches entire vocabulary for polite terms* -- pickle up rectum syndrome. I had comicpress for the longest time, and before the person rubbed me wrong (I dont think I did anything wrong to him, is a friendly glomp really that terrible?) I actually learned a lot from it like the php include command that I used with awesome results. I did state "comic engine itself is BlkKnight's new one that he is working on" and I thought that would suffice to say that it's not comicpress, I also suggested that I once worked with it but shoved it to one side.

There's a very good reason for having the ads where they are, it is so the reader has to glance at them as they pass them by. There is no room in my design for placing, say a skyscraper on either side of the comic, so I opted for the ad speed bump instead.

[Swaptrick]

Sorry i actually didnt see that u were the same person in the other section. I read your distain for comicpress. Sorry u were treated badly.

[Xade]

yeah, it happens, some people just can't take a good glomp and allow another person to try and start a fresh with them. He actually blocked me on twitter! and don't worry, I'll try not to let my disdain for comicpress mess with anything over here but if that person shows up, I'll be so gone, and deleting any threads I made too, if possible.

[Alectric]

Have you checked your site with Internet Explorer?  There are several issues I'm seeing.  One is that the bottom rounded-corners image frequently shows up near the top of the page instead of where it should be, covering up part of the page.  And your About section is nothing but a few errors for me.  The "Chapters" button doesn't seem to do anything but bring you to the top of the page, and I see no drop-down menu.  Same with the "Links" button.

Then as for my opinion, I'd say that the navigation buttons seem a little pixelated around the outside, and I think it would be preferable to split them up with the first/previous buttons near the left edge of the page and the next/last buttons near the right edge.  Also, I would suggest not having your site's palette be entirely purple, and to try throwing another color into the mix as well, to contrast with it.  Particularly at the top, where the background, header image, and navigation bar are all purple.  But that's just me, and not so important.

And, uh, no offense to BlkKnight, but the site design seems VERY similar to Comicpress, especially the notorious navigation bar.  If he wants to compete with them, he needs to show off some noticably different features.  It's also bad if it's missing some big features that Comicpress has, like a place for blog posts independent of the comic.  Does it work with Wordpress, or does the setup work completely on its own?

Anothing thing I noticed is that there's no footer; nothing that gives credit to BlkKnight for the site structure, and no copywright notice.  Also your only given method of contact seems to be through twitter.  No "Contact" section or information about you is given at all, not even an email address.  Or at least none that I can see.

I hope this is helpful. :)

[Dr. BlkKnight]

And, uh, no offense to BlkKnight, but the site design seems VERY similar to Comicpress, especially the notorious navigation bar.  If he wants to compete with them, he needs to show off some noticably different features.  It's also bad if it's missing some big features that Comicpress has, like a place for blog posts independent of the comic.  Does it work with Wordpress, or does the setup work completely on its own?

Anothing thing I noticed is that there's no footer; nothing that gives credit to BlkKnight for the site structure, and no copywright notice.  Also your only given method of contact seems to be through twitter.  No "Contact" section or information about you is given at all, not even an email address.  Or at least none that I can see.

There's no credit to me for the site structure because Xade was the one that designed the site. My engine is designed around the concept that you can make your website look like anything you want and simply plug in the needed features to make your comic function. My comic uses the same engine, and I highly doubt you can liken it to ComicPress.

[Alectric]

You're right, my bad.  But does it just let you structure the site the way you want, or does it also automatically create an RSS feed, let you upload comics straight from an administration site rather than having to go to your file manager, generate thumnails for an RSS feed and any archive pages that use them, allow you to schedule updates to happen at specific times, come with a plugin that protects you from spam, notify you of new all new comments and incoming links on a convenient dashboard page, etc.?

[thedugs]

This may be something to do with my settings, but there's a white border that runs through the upper part of the top panels that obstructs the reading.

Also, the archive and chapters links seem to be the same, and 'about' and 'links' didn't work.

Having said all that, it's a very easy to navigate framework and a simple, easy on the eye site. Just a couple of minor technical things that can easily be updated. Nice job!

[Xade]

There has been some replies since I was typing this up, despite me being a fast typist. Alectric, blkknight is the best one to tell about the engine itself but yes, the rss does update automatically. I admit I was ranting, but after studying it for a while I cannot think of a way to rephrase it quickly. I am taking the time out of making a bush that I need for the next comic to answer, which I really need to get back to.

Have you checked your site with Internet Explorer?  There are several issues I'm seeing.  One is that the bottom rounded-corners image frequently shows up near the top of the page instead of where it should be, covering up part of the page.  And your About section is nothing but a few errors for me.  The "Chapters" button doesn't seem to do anything but bring you to the top of the page, and I see no drop-down menu.  Same with the "Links" button.

I have checked it in IE, IE 8, it displays correctly. Actually, I had to fight with IE to get it to display right, there are various IE fixes that I had to hunt down as well. The chapters "link" is supposed to put you up on top of the page, it must be a link or it will break the css menu. Speaking of the menu, there is a code that I included that allows IE to correctly use it.

Code Select Expand

<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
body {behavior: url(csshover.htc);}
</style>
<![endif]-->
I suppose it is possible that your IE does not recognize that little fix, I will add a note to IE users to turn on compatibility mode, (despite mine not making a difference) although I do not wish to detract from the design.

Thank you for pointing out the About, I think I might have messed something up on my last site update, (when I added a commissioned art link) I will take a look at it and fix it if I can. Edit: Temp fix, apparently I forgot about it, I need to find it.

Edit2: I looked at it with my laptop and I cannot understand why it does not display correctly when my desktop does, other than IE showing off its special needs again. I would try updating the laptop's IE but I want to fix this because not everyone updates IE when it wants to be updated
Edit3: I had an outdated csshover.css file, the desktop displayed it right because it was older for some strange reason O_O. the menu is fixed to the best of my knowledge.

Then as for my opinion, I'd say that the navigation buttons seem a little pixelated around the outside, and I think it would be preferable to split them up with the first/previous buttons near the left edge of the page and the next/last buttons near the right edge.  Also, I would suggest not having your site's palette be entirely purple, and to try throwing another color into the mix as well, to contrast with it.  Particularly at the top, where the background, header image, and navigation bar are all purple.  But that's just me, and not so important.

Those are just temporary buttons, I deemed it more important, for now, to work on the comic, they serve their purpose and stay with the purple theme. The theme is supposed to be purple, due to my own personal preferences, I did break it up, I chose white for the comic itself. I might consider changing the color of the purple title text to break it up, but once again, it will have to take a back seat until I get a small buffer going.

And, uh, no offense to BlkKnight, but the site design seems VERY similar to Comicpress, especially the notorious navigation bar.  If he wants to compete with them, he needs to show off some noticably different features.  It's also bad if it's missing some big features that Comicpress has, like a place for blog posts independent of the comic.  Does it work with Wordpress, or does the setup work completely on its own?

As for the nav bar itself that is entirely my own design, I happened to like comicpress's menu, but do not like the idea of all the flyouts (child menus) so chose a simple drop down instead, and tried not to copy it too much. Blkknight has already replied to this issue, in stating that his engine simply plugs into the design and handles the comic itself. I would be very interested to know why you assume that it is very like comicpress, there is no blog function, no sidebars on the sides of the content when you are on another page, and despite the comment function (which is part of the engine itself) it does not have any links to an external system, like gravatar. Furthermore, although it uses php includes, that is not a cp exclusive command, cp has simply made that command popular and it is really a nifty command so you can update sections of the page without wading through a whole pool of code. You can just update the little file and any pages that has the snippit as an include will echo the change.

I do not think there is any plans for a wordpress merger, and I highly doubt if there will be one planned any time in the future. I dont think a good comic should run off a program which is piggy backing on another. For one it wastes valuable server space and even more valuable shared database resources. A simple streamlined engine would work best.

Anothing thing I noticed is that there's no footer; nothing that gives credit to BlkKnight for the site structure, and no copywright notice.  Also your only given method of contact seems to be through twitter.  No "Contact" section or information about you is given at all, not even an email address.  Or at least none that I can see.

The footer is there, it is currently filled with an ad and sitemeter but it is there. Why would I credit Blkknight for my own work when the site structure, and even the entire design that you see before you is my work. I was the one who researched how to do what I wanted to do. I was the one who hunted down notepad++, a very good raw html and code editor when all the wysiwyg editors failed. I was the one who spent hours testing, and getting it to look the way I wanted. And I was the one who made each and every background picture that went into the borders, just so the special needs browser called Internet Explorer would display the curved borders I wanted so very much to echo the curved borders on the comics themselves, which actually change color depending on who is starring in that comic.

I'm sorry for sounding annoyed and ranting here, and I am a little bit because I greatly dislike another (even if it my best friend) person getting credit for my hard work.

I do credit BlkKnight's engine in the links page, by having a big eye catching banner with a hover text noting it. Ands the reason I don't have a copyright notice is because I forgot, simple as that, I will take the time after this post to do so.

The reason there is no contact besides twitter and facebook, along with a forum link (both that you forgot to mention) is because I am a very private person who once had a chat and her own forum and her email address posted on her site before only to get it slammed with spammers and other lowlifes who simply wasted her time wanting her to buy things like male enhancement. I also used to have a contact page but the engine is still beta, or perhaps, more accurately described as alpha, and you cannot comment on pages but rest assured I do check the comments often so that is actually the best way to get a hold of me.

I will make a FAQ page, with link at the top for all to see and read, even if they dont' have the most recent Internet Explorer. I will eventually add a site map page as well for the IE people.

@thedugs
Turn on compatibility mode, which is near the address bar, there is an IE fix I had to do because of a break in every little div header and footer there.

[Alectric]

Sorry, I guess I don't quite understand what BlkNight's engine does exactly.  You mentioned all the hard work and knowledge you needed in order to make your site, but most people use Comicpress to avoid all that.  BlkNight has stated that his engine is in competition with Comicpress, but if it requires a lot of work and knowledge, I'm not sure they have the same market.

[Xade]

Well, it will eventually have templates and stuff. as I mentioned it's more of an Alpha release then a Beta release. There's only a few of us testing it in fact, besides BlkKnight himself.

I didnt have to switch from Comicpress, I was once quite happy with it in fact, but I was treated badly by a developer and got so ticked off that I went back and chose to join BlkKnight's testing team. (He had offered it to me a few days before when I expressed distaste about the way CP was heading.) Before BlkKnight could make a template for me I dived in head first and made my layout and insisted that he plug it in on another section of the site. Once it was ready I moved the CP to a new place and moved the new layout to the root. To make my layout work I had to draw upon the knowledge that I learned from previous versions of comicpress, learn new things and iron out bugs, which is what I found myself doing today for some strange reason.... ;)

Speaking of bugs, I swatted some, and even added an faq section based upon this thread and other things I have found wrong with the site in IE, so please take a look ^_^

[Xade]

I thought I would inform everyone that I have, with help of Comic Reef, redid my archive page. It's now nice and spiffy, just waiting on me to decide on the graphics behind the text