Website Improvements

General discussion about this forum or "The Re-Volt Network" websites.
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Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Mon Aug 27, 2018 9:34 am

I'd like to invite you to think about the future of the website with me (yet again).

[hide=Log]
Top: latest | Bottom: oldest

Thu Oct 15 11:29:27 CEST 2018
Installed a mail server so the forum can send out mails again
RVIO now displays the correct names for event classes (Semi-Pro, etc.)

Tue Sep 25 16:50:11 CEST 2018
Fixed the session parser
Reinstalled pagination and file-content add-ons to grav to fix issues on the main site
Fixed the page feed to include the forum again
[/hide]

Recently, I've been feeling like something is missing. I know I've taken many parts off maintainance (creations, archive, ...) but I just couldn't allocate any time for caring about them.
The website isn't simple and accessible enough, it's not clear where to download the game and the screenshots are also somewhat hidden. My schedule is somewhat full already (RVGL, add-on, ...) so starting this all on my own might be a bad idea.
Still I'd like to think about ways to improve the website. The biggest problems I have right now are the following:
  • The server is too slow. We'll probably move back to DigitalOcean when I can afford it. Right now we're paying 3 Euros per month but people from America can hardly access our website at all.
  • The website is too complicated: Too much information scattered around too many pages.
  • The design is inconsistent across browsers, especially with dpi scaling. Does it look alright for you?
  • The design is kind of messy in terms of the backend. This is only something we admins notice.
  • The website is not optimized for search engines: RVIO is too far at the bottom on Google and other search engines.
  • The documentation/tutorials need to be finished and finally need to mention how to work with my add-on. A car tutorial is missing.
  • I'd still like a place for people to share their creations. Someone might be working on something so we'll see.
User avatar
Pyves
Posts: 49

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Pyves » Sat Sep 01, 2018 5:42 pm

The website could definitely be improved. Typically depending on which part of the website you're on, the sub-menu bars are either horizontal or vertical, which is confusing. Nevertheless, I've never actually noticed it being slow.
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Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Sun Sep 02, 2018 9:45 am

I started giving the pages a more uniform look. Main pages (the ones that are not in the drop down menus) will act as landing pages for their category in the future, so that people who can't see the dropdown (mobile) can reach the sub-pages better.

I started with the downloads...

https://re-volt.io/downloads/game
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Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Sat Sep 08, 2018 12:58 pm

You might have noticed that the website has undergone some changes. I'll try to list all I can think of:

The game downloads are a bit more structured.

The events now work on a post-based system (they used to be a static page).
Most recent events can be accessed on the home page itself (and will be displayed up to 6 hours after they have begun. After that they can still be accessed via the /online/events page.

The CSS has been cleaned up a bit and the style looks a bit cleaner now.

I put some work in SEO-ing the website so it's further up the Google results. You should already be able to see the results.

To do:
I want to transfer the tutorials to an mdbook page (the same I use for the Blender Add-On docs) so that I can work on it better (with git).

Icons in the home page header for downloads, community and tools/creations.

Icons on the main Downloads page.
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Santiii727
Posts: 80
From: Maybe in your country

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Santiii727 » Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:35 pm

is a possibility to add more languages to the io page and add local time and keep the UTC time?
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Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:04 pm

Santiii727 wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:35 pm is a possibility to add more languages to the io page and add local time and keep the UTC time?
I'm not sure if the time thing is possible but adding multiple languages definitely is!
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Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:23 pm

I'm moving re-volt.io to a faster server.

To do:
docs.re-volt.io and some minor things


Done:
rvgl.re-volt.io
distribute.re-volt.io
files.re-volt.io
www.re-volt.io
forum.re-volt.io
User avatar
Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Sun Sep 23, 2018 5:09 pm

The forum has been transferred to the new server!
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kiwi
Posts: 557

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by kiwi » Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:04 am

Thanks for your work Marv, the forum feels much faster now. :)
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Instant
Posts: 35

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Instant » Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:14 pm

Well, even if it's obvious, the forum is much faster than it was. Thank you very much for you work!
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Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Tue Sep 25, 2018 2:25 pm

Glad it works well :)
I added a log to the top post. Hope it'll help you to keep track of changes.
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Marv
Developer
Posts: 236
From: Europe 2

Re: Website Improvements

Unread post by Marv » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:30 am

Yooo, updated the log with some minor fixes. It already happened on monday but I forgot to post.
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