GarageGames.com Site Update, May 20th
by Jacob Fike · 05/20/2009 (2:33 pm) · 57 comments
New Features
- Front Page: The front page has been redesigned to present more information, but in a better way than before. You will now see a preview of the most recent employee blogs, links to some awesome games made with Torque, and a twitter news feed designed to inform you of new products, updates to existing products and other interesting news.
- What's New Page: The community what's new page has also be redesigned for the same reasons as the front page, to show you more information and in a better way. Now you will have a complete snapshot of the most recent information on GG.com at a glance. The what's new page now shows recent employee blogs, spotlighted blogs (presented similarly to the old dev snapshots), recent forum threads, resources, and product news from twitter.
- Blogs Page: We've added a sidebar to the blogs page that gives you several different options for viewing blog content. The default is still all blogs sorted by date, but we've now added ways to view all employee blogs, all spotlighted blogs, and the most recently active blogs. Based on feedback and suggestions, new options will be added to this sidebar.
- Best of Torque: The best of Torque page is back and better than ever! Enjoy eye-popping screenshots, watch videos, and read developer interviews for all the best games made with Torque.
Other Changes
- Searching individual locations in advanced search should be working again.
- Some new RSS feeds have been added to the RSS Feeds page to correspond with the new blog viewing options.
- You may have noticed the new banner at the top of the community page and the best of Torque pages. Hopefully you will find this new banner less annoying and more useful. The plan is to change the developer store and the my account pages to have a similar banner, complete with relevant actions for the 'What can I do here?' button.
About the author
As the CTO of Avalon Labs LLC, I am responsible for the technology behind Fellowstream, our team-based to-do list.
#2
05/20/2009 (2:36 pm)
Jacob, looks good, but I think that the blogs on the Whats New and main pages need a bit of visual separation like in the Blog feed page. Other than that, it looks nice. 
#3
05/20/2009 (2:41 pm)
Wonderful. Much less mouse fussing to reach info. Also much less screen space consumed by empty space. 
#6
05/20/2009 (3:00 pm)
I love the front page again! Nice work! 
#7
05/20/2009 (3:03 pm)
Big improvement. Nice work, web team! 
#8
05/20/2009 (3:12 pm)
Yes, huge improvement indeed! Site is becoming more useful all the time. I do, however, sorely miss the Dev Snapshot section. Really wish that could be brought back, I always loved seeing people's work there. 
#9
05/20/2009 (3:14 pm)
@Travis: If you notice on the "What's New" page, we've included a section where we can feature community blogs, called "Spotlight." This is a replacement for the "snapshots" feature, since most of the cool stuff gets written in blogs anyway. 
#10
05/20/2009 (3:30 pm)
Very nice! Thanks for your hard work. 
#11
front page - IE8
All the other headlines are ok - but when it's too big to fit the white space this happens
05/20/2009 (3:36 pm)
Bug foundfront page - IE8
All the other headlines are ok - but when it's too big to fit the white space this happens
#12
Not loading time, but lagging during using.
05/20/2009 (3:52 pm)
Is it just me? Or are the pages going slightly slower than normal?Not loading time, but lagging during using.
#13
Also, pages don't seem to be lagging and seem fine for me.
05/20/2009 (4:02 pm)
Great job! Place is getting even more streamlined.Also, pages don't seem to be lagging and seem fine for me.
#14
Yes, searching individual locations works. Thanks!
Searching all documents works as it always has I believe.
But it seems one can't search a combination of locations.
For instance if one wanted to search Site Feedback and Torque 3D (Private) it would only return results from Site Feedback, perhaps because it comes first in the top-down list of locations.
05/20/2009 (4:09 pm)
Bug:Quote:Searching individual locations in advanced search should be working again.
Yes, searching individual locations works. Thanks!
Searching all documents works as it always has I believe.
But it seems one can't search a combination of locations.
For instance if one wanted to search Site Feedback and Torque 3D (Private) it would only return results from Site Feedback, perhaps because it comes first in the top-down list of locations.
#15
I do like the rest of the update though :)
05/20/2009 (4:11 pm)
Personally I'm not a fan of the underlined links. It seems like it's already pretty obvious via the color. Maybe an underline when *highlighted*, but always underlined to me looks weird and detracts from the overall look of the site.I do like the rest of the update though :)
#16
05/20/2009 (4:11 pm)
Oooh, perdy
#17
05/20/2009 (4:37 pm)
@Gerry - I see what you mean, and it is now fixed. You will also notice a 'Sort results by date' option on advanced search, which is an often requested feature.
#18
05/20/2009 (4:37 pm)
@ Deborah: Ah! I see what you mean. I needed to wipe my temporary files to see the change. Much better, this is great! 
#19
05/20/2009 (4:52 pm)
add me.... 
#20
05/20/2009 (5:19 pm)
Pretty damn good job Jacob! 
Torque 3D Owner Chris Cain
Everything seems to be even better to use.