Looking for some feedback on my website
by Lukas Joergensen · in General Discussion · 04/22/2014 (2:28 am) · 14 replies
Hey guys! My website is really coming together, and I'd love some feedback on the website.
First a little introduction, Illusional Games is the new brand that I define myself under. Nothing fancy here, not starting a new business or anything, I just wanted a brand for releasing some of my work like tutorials and articles, and all the websites based on my real name that I liked was taken by domain-parking websites like Godaddy etc. and as I hold an extreme hatred towards these kinds of businesses (I find the concept an abomination of the free web) I refused to deal with them and came up with a brand where the domain name was not taken.
Anyways, backstory gone the website contains blogs, sort of my online CV, articles and tutorials.
It has a registration and comment system, but remember it's still under development.
I've translated my coin-collection game tutorials from LaTeX to BBCode and added the tutorials to the website, and I'd love to get some feedback on those tutorials as well.
Anyways, here is the link to the website:
http://illusionalgames.com/
And you can find the tutorials under the tutorial tab:
http://illusionalgames.com/Tutorial
Edit:
Forgot to point out exactly what parts of the websites that are functional atm:
The "Works" part of the website is not functional, and that includes all links to product-related pages.
The functional and under-test parts are registration, login, blogs and tutorials.
First a little introduction, Illusional Games is the new brand that I define myself under. Nothing fancy here, not starting a new business or anything, I just wanted a brand for releasing some of my work like tutorials and articles, and all the websites based on my real name that I liked was taken by domain-parking websites like Godaddy etc. and as I hold an extreme hatred towards these kinds of businesses (I find the concept an abomination of the free web) I refused to deal with them and came up with a brand where the domain name was not taken.
Anyways, backstory gone the website contains blogs, sort of my online CV, articles and tutorials.
It has a registration and comment system, but remember it's still under development.
I've translated my coin-collection game tutorials from LaTeX to BBCode and added the tutorials to the website, and I'd love to get some feedback on those tutorials as well.
Anyways, here is the link to the website:
http://illusionalgames.com/
And you can find the tutorials under the tutorial tab:
http://illusionalgames.com/Tutorial
Edit:
Forgot to point out exactly what parts of the websites that are functional atm:
The "Works" part of the website is not functional, and that includes all links to product-related pages.
The functional and under-test parts are registration, login, blogs and tutorials.
About the author
IPS Bundle available at: https://www.winterleafentertainment.com/Products/IPS.aspx
#3
I'll look for it, can you say on which page you got that message?
Edit:
@Joao thanks for the feedback! I'm very happy that you found the CoinCollection tutorial useful, I hope I can deliver some more articles and tutorials that can help people with getting into game development.
04/22/2014 (7:52 am)
@Steve I don't believe I have a single flash-player dependent element on the website...I'll look for it, can you say on which page you got that message?
Edit:
@Joao thanks for the feedback! I'm very happy that you found the CoinCollection tutorial useful, I hope I can deliver some more articles and tutorials that can help people with getting into game development.
#4
"This page is under development."
I should get a list of products/work so I could click on a link to "IPS for Torque3D" etc.
As it is now I can only get to "IPS for Torque3D" by clicking on the drop down menu link.
Either make the "Works" n header unclickable(just made that word up :o) ) or make sure one get to see a list(or something like that) of your works when clicked on.
Otherwise pretty fine website(some other small linky issue issues though with your "Compilable Graph Format" read more button).
04/22/2014 (7:58 am)
If I click on Works in the header menu I get"This page is under development."
I should get a list of products/work so I could click on a link to "IPS for Torque3D" etc.
As it is now I can only get to "IPS for Torque3D" by clicking on the drop down menu link.
Either make the "Works" n header unclickable(just made that word up :o) ) or make sure one get to see a list(or something like that) of your works when clicked on.
Otherwise pretty fine website(some other small linky issue issues though with your "Compilable Graph Format" read more button).
#5
Yeah thats on purpose, the "Works" button is going to lead to somewhere, it's just a CSS mess atm.
And I don't have a "Works" page for CGF yet, I'll have it up ASAP but atm I'm prioritizing Blogs and Tutorials, I guess I should have pointed out which parts of the websites that is still unfinished :)
04/22/2014 (8:01 am)
@Dwarf KingYeah thats on purpose, the "Works" button is going to lead to somewhere, it's just a CSS mess atm.
And I don't have a "Works" page for CGF yet, I'll have it up ASAP but atm I'm prioritizing Blogs and Tutorials, I guess I should have pointed out which parts of the websites that is still unfinished :)
#6
Eller helt fint :O) Som vi siger p(aa*) vores breddegrader :O)
Edit:
Looks like you are using WordPress with a kenburn slider plugin... Neat :O)
*I swear that this GG site do not like Dansih letters or Chinese characters...
04/22/2014 (8:04 am)
Roger roger :O) Eller helt fint :O) Som vi siger p(aa*) vores breddegrader :O)
Edit:
Looks like you are using WordPress with a kenburn slider plugin... Neat :O)
*I swear that this GG site do not like Dansih letters or Chinese characters...
#7
Anyways, I'm actually not using a CMS I wrote the whole website from the ground and up. I always find Wordpress and other CMS's to have too many features or work in mysterious ways that I don't like.. I always custom-write the back-end for my websites. (Btw BB codes and automatic paragraphing are a hell to implement lol)
04/22/2014 (8:40 am)
They are just jelly!Anyways, I'm actually not using a CMS I wrote the whole website from the ground and up. I always find Wordpress and other CMS's to have too many features or work in mysterious ways that I don't like.. I always custom-write the back-end for my websites. (Btw BB codes and automatic paragraphing are a hell to implement lol)
#8
Lol!
Well I used to write my own website styles in css and then implement small php and JS scripts until I found WordPress. Kind of saves time not to have to code everything from the scratch. However I do understand why you would write everything from the ground and up. Life(CMS systems) is like a box of chocolate you never know what you get(hence lots of hacks and twists to the code are needed).
Den video er mega sjov, har helt klart tilføjet den som favorit :O)
04/22/2014 (9:06 am)
@LukasLol!
Quote:
I always find Wordpress and other CMS's to have too many features or work in mysterious ways that I don't like.
Well I used to write my own website styles in css and then implement small php and JS scripts until I found WordPress. Kind of saves time not to have to code everything from the scratch. However I do understand why you would write everything from the ground and up. Life(CMS systems) is like a box of chocolate you never know what you get(hence lots of hacks and twists to the code are needed).
Den video er mega sjov, har helt klart tilføjet den som favorit :O)
#9
My code is really simple and theres not even a lot of it.. With frameworks like that, CMS's really just end up giving you more works and problems than the time you save on it.
Ja den video er min standard taunt til amerikanere :P
04/22/2014 (9:20 am)
@Dwarf King, tbh I just started developing websites in ASP.net MVC 4 and it really does a lot of the lifting.My code is really simple and theres not even a lot of it.. With frameworks like that, CMS's really just end up giving you more works and problems than the time you save on it.
Ja den video er min standard taunt til amerikanere :P
#10
I like the site - very good example of the modern layout fashion for big boxes and images. Those CGF screenshots are fantastic but the IPS ones look a little stretched on my monitor.
On the 'About Us' page, I'd make those links in the sidebar load content into the main frame using Javascript, rather than a page reload. IMO it's a nice mental conception of navigation - clicking the links at the top will cause a page reload, but once you're on a page, you click around it as usual. Maybe it's just me, but I feel page reloads conceptually separate sections of a site. Maybe I'm weird.
04/22/2014 (4:25 pm)
For a simple 'CMS' I really like Jekyll. Out of interest, why did you go with BBCode instead of the far superior (...IMO I guess) Markdown?I like the site - very good example of the modern layout fashion for big boxes and images. Those CGF screenshots are fantastic but the IPS ones look a little stretched on my monitor.
On the 'About Us' page, I'd make those links in the sidebar load content into the main frame using Javascript, rather than a page reload. IMO it's a nice mental conception of navigation - clicking the links at the top will cause a page reload, but once you're on a page, you click around it as usual. Maybe it's just me, but I feel page reloads conceptually separate sections of a site. Maybe I'm weird.
#11
I like BB Codes more, I've never really liked MarkDown, I find it confusing to use and it's often cumbersome to write on scandinavian keyboards.
Markdown also seems a bit restricted in what you can do intuitively. It works fine for basic mark-up like bold text or headers. But if you want some custom tags (like the accordion I use here) and many of them, then markdown begins to be a lacking a bit in terms of intuitive syntax.
Markdown might be fine for the comments that doesn't need these advanced features tho, I'll note that down.
Yeah I'll have to work with the resolution of the IPS images.
Good idea for the 'About Us' page I'll look into it when I begin the client-side scripting.
Thanks for the feedback!
04/23/2014 (4:00 am)
@dB one is not really superior to the other, they are equals just different syntax.I like BB Codes more, I've never really liked MarkDown, I find it confusing to use and it's often cumbersome to write on scandinavian keyboards.
Markdown also seems a bit restricted in what you can do intuitively. It works fine for basic mark-up like bold text or headers. But if you want some custom tags (like the accordion I use here) and many of them, then markdown begins to be a lacking a bit in terms of intuitive syntax.
Markdown might be fine for the comments that doesn't need these advanced features tho, I'll note that down.
Yeah I'll have to work with the resolution of the IPS images.
Good idea for the 'About Us' page I'll look into it when I begin the client-side scripting.
Thanks for the feedback!
#12
04/23/2014 (7:58 am)
Working right now but takes time to load.
#13
04/23/2014 (12:50 pm)
@Steve thanks for confirming that it's not just me thats crazy.. I'll make some benchmarks and try to figure out what causes the slow load (tbh it kindda happened ever since I moved to a Windows-based webserver so I might blame it on that lol).
#14
One of my favourite Markdown features is defining link URLs outside paragraphs. Such a good idea.
04/23/2014 (4:56 pm)
The different syntax is exactly the point. I find it awkward typing [] characters around things, it's like hand-writing HTML. Lists are especially annoying. Though I can't say anything about Scandanavian keyboards... fair point! Depending on your markdown renderer, you can just plain add HTML tags to your document for using custom things. I've never seen a BBCode implementation that does that. Maybe I've just used the bad ones :P.One of my favourite Markdown features is defining link URLs outside paragraphs. Such a good idea.
Joao Sousa
Your website is well-organized and looks good, in my opinion.
By the way, your tutorial on collecting coins was one of the first one that I studied when I started with, to learning torque scripting programming.
Thanks, it was very helpful to me in that moment some time ago.
Greetings,