New Years Message from your friendly Admin Team

[Tony]

Well ladies and gentlemen, here we are in the sparkly new 2008 and as far as I can see not much has changed.

We have another years worth of hosting just been paid from the DDN fund that was filled by your generous donations last year and there is still some cash left in the pot - but we will eventually need to raise some more to meet next years hosting bill.

When we rejigged the forum, some of you may remember that we ran a competition to redesign DDN which met with a stupendous amount of bugger all happening.

I think it's about time that things moved on in DDN world, and as I've been out of the game for a few years now, having to learn again the bits and bobs under the bonnet of the site is not going to happen given my current workload, I think it's only right that you the members should be given the chance to recreate and rejuvenate the .net breakaway that lasted longer then five minutes.

The principles are the same as what we were looking for in the competition post (not sure where thats gone, I let it go like that bird let leonardo go in titanic and it sunk to the bottom) however this time, rather than a competition I think a designer and a coder or two that actually want to have a go at both the front end and the forum should contact us via PM.

Recompense for this? Portfolio - you can have a link at the foot of each page and you can use it in your portfolio.

The original DDN was built around the forum and the front end reflected this as thats where the wealth of information is, and I think it's about time that we got back to our roots of nearly 8 years ago when DDN was all that.

So, if you're up for a challenge - and you're serious about it, drop any of the admins a PM and we'll take it from there.

Happy 2008!

[Notorious MCSE]

Ill give you a dollar, but only if you ban yawner.

[slaughteredlamb]

Serious question and not one meant to be argumentative or cause offence to anyone.

I'm confused. My understanding was that the 'old DDN' was shut down because to was getting too cliquey and had lost it's focus from web design/hosting/Internet and had 'just' become a general discussion arena.

So the new DDN was born with promise of new area's, new content and a greater focus on the front end rather than DDN being primarily, as it pretty much always has been, a forum. X months later we have a forum.........and that's it.

Now that's not meant as a criticism of anyone in the admin team or indeed anyone else for that matter it's just that's where we all are. So we now have and have had requests for people to get involved in designing the new site, new logo's, new colour schemes etc etc and that's all great and all that but does it really matter?

What I mean is that if the main point of the new DDN was to become more than just a forum then lets talk about content. All the pretty graphics can come later but without new content the new DDN is 'just' the old DDN just with a couple of extra forums.

My point is why not just go with an off the shelf CMS, install it, whack on a forum, create the sections etc that people want, Tutorials, Code Banks, Downloads etc etc and let everyone start adding content. At the moment the focus seems to me, and apologies if I'm wrong, to make no content look beautiful. That's all well and good but isn't Content King?

Like I say, not meant to cause offence to anyone, apologies if it has.

[sarahA]

Why not use WordPress to power it all? It's easy to template, easy to upgrade and I think a fair few people here know how to use it, and it's simple.

Looking at the existing site you could set up WP to have categories (design, develop etc) and then subcategories. To control content you could assign an editor to each category, then if someone wants to submit content they can have an author account, write their content and the editor of the category checks it over being setting it live. A few plugins thrown in to the mix can keep counts on each post (article) view. You've got static pages for your static content eg. contact page. Anything a plugin can't cover (which will be rare) can easily be done in a plugin. If you want to allow comments on articles you can have them, if you don't then you can remove those.

Of course the editors need to be established in their field(s) but I think it's fairly obvious who's good at what around here, providing they're happy to be an editor. WP has bridge plugins for SMF so you'd keep the forum as is, just alter the template to suit any new design. This method will mean that anyone who wants to contribute can do so directly on the site, it just won't go live until an editor or higher has authorised it. You may get more offers of new contributions which then will aid in the whole new content issue. Of course the old content can easily be imported over I'm sure.

Just my 2p. Sorry, I'm a useless designer so that's my input

[Curry]

My point is why not just go with an off the shelf CMS, install it, whack on a forum, create the sections etc that people want, Tutorials, Code Banks, Downloads etc etc and let everyone start adding content. At the moment the focus seems to me, and apologies if I'm wrong, to make no content look beautiful. That's all well and good but isn't Content King?

Like I say, not meant to cause offence to anyone, apologies if it has.

I agree and can we drop this f*cking board as it's crap compared to IP board, this board is the one of the main reasons I don't post here much anymore.

The off the shelf CMS sounds like a plan, I'd be happy to add as much useful content as I have.

[Notorious MCSE]

I agree and can we drop this f*cking board as it's crap compared to IP board, this board is the one of the main reasons I don't post here much anymore.

to be fair, it aint a bad board, its just missing a quick reply.

[Rosco]

I agree and can we drop this f*cking board as it's crap compared to IP board, this board is the one of the main reasons I don't post here much anymore.

to be fair, it aint a bad board, its just missing a quick reply.

it has got a quick reply box

[Ben]

I agree and can we drop this f*cking board as it's crap compared to IP board, this board is the one of the main reasons I don't post here much anymore.

I don't see that happening, a lot of works been put in here. And there is a quick reply box. I'm using it now 

I don't mind this board personally... anything other than sodding PHPBB

Is there a (site) plan for the front-end, that would be useful to know before you try and 'dress' it.

[Matt]

I agree with Sarah, lets use something like wordpress, get some people writing stuff, and find someone to theme it. We can even start a small pot to give a thank you to a designer from the board. If no one wants to do it, lets just be lazy and vote for a theme we all like. Bingo, one site.

Im very interested in helping where I can, but Im no designer or coder, just a general tinkererer.

Why not use WordPress to power it all? It's easy to template, easy to upgrade and I think a fair few people here know how to use it, and it's simple.

Looking at the existing site you could set up WP to have categories (design, develop etc) and then subcategories. To control content you could assign an editor to each category, then if someone wants to submit content they can have an author account, write their content and the editor of the category checks it over being setting it live. A few plugins thrown in   to be established in their field(s) but I think it's fairly obvious who's good at what around here, providing they're happy to be an editor. WP has bridge plugins for SMF so you'd keep the forum as is, just alter the template to suit any new design. This method will mean that anyone who wants to contribute can do so directly on the site, it just won't go live until an editor or higher has authorised it. You may get more offers of new contributions which then will aid in the whole new content issue. Of course the old content can easily be imported over I'm sure.

Just my 2p. Sorry, I'm a useless designer so that's my input

[Notorious MCSE]

I agree and can we drop this f*cking board as it's crap compared to IP board, this board is the one of the main reasons I don't post here much anymore.

to be fair, it aint a bad board, its just missing a quick reply.

it has got a quick reply box

Wheres the box then? I could post harder, and faster with a quick reply box!

[BenDJ]

Of course the editors need to be established in their field(s) but I think it's fairly obvious who's good at what around here,

Are you blowing Hurris trumpet again?

[Charisma Bypass]

One of my core businesses is supplying one-off wordpress designs (usually adsense optimised), but can obviously be done without.
 
Can sort a template out for nothing if wordpress is going to be utilised.

[Whatever]

You have to enable it in your profile MTT

[Toxteth OGrady]

Wheres the box then? I could post harder, and faster with a quick reply box!

Might have to set it up in your preferences "Use quick reply on topic display:" second bottom option

[Jeewhizz]

I agree and can we drop this f*cking board as it's crap compared to IP board, this board is the one of the main reasons I don't post here much anymore.

to be fair, it aint a bad board, its just missing a quick reply.

it has got a quick reply box

Wheres the box then? I could post harder, and faster with a quick reply box!

Profile --> Look & Layout --> Use quick reply on topic display

[Jeewhizz]

pwned

[Notorious MCSE]

I think everyone is pwned, because I have a quick reply box now!

[sarahA]

Of course the editors need to be established in their field(s) but I think it's fairly obvious who's good at what around here,

Are you blowing Hurris trumpet again?

He's too far away

I was actually thinking that JasonD or Khalid are good on the PHP, Mike on the SEO etc. Of course providing they're happy to do the job.

[Notorious MCSE]

Of course the editors need to be established in their field(s) but I think it's fairly obvious who's good at what around here,

Are you blowing Hurris trumpet again?

He's too far away

I was actually thinking that JasonD or Khalid are good on the PHP, Mike on the SEO etc. Of course providing they're happy to do the job.

I am very good at trolling people, especially smokers and people who dislike quality pens.

[Idoru]

I'd go with sara on this one, i'd be happy to have some of my blogs content here, either duplicated or 'exclusive'. It's the fastest way to go about it and if it doesn't work it wasn't time lost.
Plus if it works you can then think about something grander.
Also as sara says if WP connects with SMF then it's great.
Just my 2 rappen

[Chris H]

Or Joomla. SMF can be integrated into it.

[slaughteredlamb]

I'd definitely go with Joomla over Wordpress, more powerful and more suited to this kind of application IMHO.

[Idoru]

i'd go for the easiest to integrate and get running
No point in having an overkill system without content.

[Mr Anderson]

I'd go with Wordpress over Joomla every time. Joomla is overkill and Wordpress can be made to do pretty much anything that Joomla can, and without the bloated crappy code. I'd also be happy to take a design and turn it into a WP template if someone came up with a suitable one.

[Notorious MCSE]

Or Joomla. SMF can be integrated into it.

As can Wordpress, via the SMF bridge plugin.

[slaughteredlamb]

I'd go with Wordpress over Joomla every time. Joomla is overkill and Wordpress can be made to do pretty much anything that Joomla can, and without the bloated crappy code. I'd also be happy to take a design and turn it into a WP template if someone came up with a suitable one.

Don't forget the Joomla 1.5 is expected to be released in the next few days which doesnt suffer from  'bloated' code even if I can't say that I've ever been aware of this in Joomla 1.0, and yes many of the skins are written entirely using CSS so no more horrible tables. The only time I've ever really heard anyone complain about the code of Joomla it's actually been about 3rd party modules or components but as Joomla 1.5 is very different to 1.0 many of these crappy components won't be supported in 1.5 anyway.

[Notorious MCSE]

Truth be told, Joomla is a bag of shite.

End of Joomla V's Wordpress discussion.

[Mr Anderson]

Don't forget the Joomla 1.5 is expected to be released in the next few days which doesnt suffer from  'bloated' code even if I can't say that I've ever been aware of this in Joomla 1.0, and yes many of the skins are written entirely using CSS so no more horrible tables. The only time I've ever really heard anyone complain about the code of Joomla it's actually been about 3rd party modules or components but as Joomla 1.5 is very different to 1.0 many of these crappy components won't be supported in 1.5 anyway.

It's still a monster in comparison to WP, and for what would be needed here it would be excessive and require far more work to customise than WP.
Also, 1.5 has been touted as getting released in the next few days for a year or so, it still hasn't been released. And even if it's released "soon" it would require waiting for it, taking the time to familiarise ourselves with any changes over previous versions (or for some people learn it from scratch), alternatively don't wait for it but potentially have to redo everything when changing from the current release to the new one. Wordpress is far more flexible with mulituser contributions, it's simpler when upgrading, and it's far easier to template, and if you're familiar with the plugin system then creating plugins isn't a major hassle either.

[Jeewhizz]

Another recommendation for WP here...

No Joomla for me!

[Chris H]

I'm using Joomla 1.5 on some sites at the moment and it's reasonably transparent in use when compared with 1.0.13.

Upgrading isn't an issue. Usually a case of simply overwriting the core installation. I've got one site I've upgraded all the way from Mambo 4.5 to Joomla 1.0.13

1.0 components and modules are usually ok in 1.5, just check the legacy option.

Component and module creation isn't especially difficult in 1.0.13, not looked at 1.5 but I would expect it to be easier.

Multi-user? Don't see WP being more flexible meself.

My own thoughts are that for a multi-user site Joomla offers more flexibility and roles for users.

Joomla bag o' shite? Nope.