View Full Version : Site Re-Design Coming
Now I know most people look at stuff on the site with the title "coming" as a fairy tale. But this is happening ;)
The main design aspects are already done, its a new look for procooling, and is going to focus more on the forums and chat than the other content on the site.
The first update is mainly going to be a "looks" upgrade and some forums changes. After that I am working on a nice simple way for people to write articles and reviews on ProCooling and in turn get pH off his ass :) hehe The current system that was in place to post articles is so horribly crappy that pH has given up (and I have also) posting articles or reviews with it. Because of that I am going to get it so there are no excuses :)
Also I am working on making the work logs thing a bit more dynamic and more people involved with them.
There’s lots of stuff I am working on for the site, and hopefully early next week I will get the first parts of it online. Heck after this is done I may even write something again hehe.
BillA
08-09-2005, 05:33 PM
I'm still waiting for part II of your roundup
I'm still waiting for part II of your roundup
:drool:
wow forum sabbatical and all.. you still took the time to reply to my post! I feel touched!
and yeh part 2 is coming! it will happen, maybe not in our lifetime but it will happen!!
BillA
08-09-2005, 07:13 PM
I figure you do need some encouragement, referring to the site of course
jaydee
08-09-2005, 07:39 PM
There’s lots of stuff I am working on for the site, and hopefully early next week I will get the first parts of it online.
I assume you mean early next week as in a year from now next week? :dome:
Sarcasm aside glad to hear an update. :cool: Just about given up on ya all. :D
Heres a sneak peak at the new side design:
http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=4763
BillA
08-10-2005, 09:58 AM
nice link Joe
quote
unregistered, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:
Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
unquote
hmm
I didnt think attachments had secutrity tied to them... (Its an attachment link from the staff forums thats why)
I will just post the normal image.
Heres the sneak peak so even bill can see it.
ljohn787
08-10-2005, 10:32 AM
Wow, that new design is impressive. Very neat, organized, and clean. The way the pros ought to do it, nice work. Can't wait to see this "next week" (hah).
allnighter
08-10-2005, 01:43 PM
Me likes!
And wow, Bill is back. Again. :D
Good stuff!
bigben2k
08-10-2005, 02:12 PM
I like the random forum pic feature; I know it's going to come back and bite me... ;)
Nice work Joe; looking forward to it!
BillA
08-10-2005, 02:12 PM
just encouraging Joe
still blue eh ?
didn't some of the euros object ?
(conflicted with the rose colored glasses ??, no - wait, George has those)
hi ho
jaydee
08-10-2005, 07:15 PM
You might be able to sell that script as a VB portal. :D Looking good!
Nother pic.
The worklogs deal is no longer a staff only thing (well at first it will be) but there will be an entire area of the site for people to have their own technical worklogs... or "workblogs" as I have started to call them. I wrote it so it handles your avatar (or not if you don't have one), and a bunch of other data.
You will notice in the pics that the preview text doesnt parse the vbb code yet... I am having issues with the code for that at this point, may just be something I write off for now.
One of the things I want to do with the new site design is work in stuff to let people collaborate, post their ideas, and just give them a technically oriented place to discuss the cooling topics outside of a purely forum env.
Stuff is moving along ok, one of the big things I need to get done is the stripping of all the formatting from all the existing articles and reviews to get them into some template's for the new site. pH is slacking and hasn't hooked me up yet with the source files.
One thing I find funny is I haven't yet had to start populating a site specific database... everything is coming from the vbb DB for the site so far (although I have added a couple tables, and fields in it.)
And Jaydee , hehe nah this thing is being made form fitting for what I think ProCooling needs. Much like the MWL site was for its function. the MWL code was so specific that I am hardly able to use any of it on this project.
For the update I am pondering with the idea of taking down the site for a full weekend to work on it, with the first thing being a reload of the server, then loading the updated site, and updating the forum software, etc...
So on the 20th - 21st the site may be down... I may also just take some "sick" time from work and do it mid week sometime.
jaydee
08-11-2005, 06:02 PM
Looking good. The workblog deal sounds good.
I found some kick ass code parse scripts for doing UBB/Vbb code outside the forums and not depending on anythign with vbb files/source code (a requirement because I hate version lock). it uses the PEAR extention for PHP. Its nifty and hellishly fast! Prolly going to take a week to get it all tweaked the way I want it, but thats a big step forward for this site redesign, and also the article posting system.
Its still coming, I am just working on getting free time at the end of the week to get everything up at this point.
I havent tracked down pH yet to get the files I need from him, so as of now the new site wont go up this weekend. bit I am putting lots of time in adding lots of stuff to it :)
jaydee
08-20-2005, 03:50 PM
We need to attach a GPS transmitter to pH's ass..... :D
BillA
08-20-2005, 06:47 PM
I have a Trimble Ag114 on a pole ?
As of yet, no word from the Canuk... I know hes read my PM's and my posts to him... The dude must be deep into WoW currently... or still drunk, one of the two.
talcum
08-24-2005, 06:55 PM
He left here (SRC) in good shape (relatively) in June - do not blame us academics for interfering with his job at Procooling.
Talcum you work at the SRC?
I got half the files I need from pH, the other half should come tonight.
Well the other half of the data was corrupt, so I need him to re-zip and re-upload again...
Sooner or later I will get the stuff! I know it, I can feel it ...
Anyway attached is a current pic. The blogs and the site news are going to look a bit different mainly because the site news will also show cooling news coming up, and also the blogs may display only the newest post per user.
talcum
08-26-2005, 03:03 PM
Talcum you work at the SRC?
I sit in attendance here - work is SO over rated.
pHaestus
08-26-2005, 03:23 PM
I will probably never have a "real job"
I am state "worker" myself ;)
talcum
08-26-2005, 03:40 PM
I will probably never have a "real job"
Reality is also over rated....
I found out some stuff tonight when working with the old site data that pH gave me today.
And that is: I cant really move forward unless I get the back end for the online article posting portion done. So this is going to delay me getting the site updated probably a week or two.
But its ok, the longer it takes the more bells and whistles will be online when it does come online ;) infact in 2 weeks I may have the Reader workBlogs ready to go also, since some of the back end uses the same stuff.
Good progress was made this weekend, I am pretty much short cutting the back end design just to get the site up, and I can refine the back end as I get more time to develop it. (as most people who write website stuff know the administrative side is normally more complex than the user side, and this site is no different.)
I am getting close to the point where I could get the site up by next weekend.
pHaestus
08-29-2005, 10:40 AM
Woot!
Joe I have a couple reviews I can hammer out too for when the new site goes live. I assume there'll be a way to preview/edit them for staff prior to the actual public viewing? We can test the site out with the reviews already written then I guess?
Hmm that portion of the site is still a bit off (prolly 3 or 4 weeks maybe less), I am just trying to get the site up with the legacy articles for now, then concentrate on getting the new article posting system up. I have the database structure in place for it, I just need to get the back and front end up and running and figure out how I want to use the vbb system in that mix.
hmm I may do a few head down and write code all night sessions to see how far I can get on stuff, it would be nice to get that system in place sooner than later.
BillA
08-29-2005, 10:44 AM
whew
for just a second there I thought a review was going up
pHaestus
08-29-2005, 10:47 AM
We will turn on the warning sirens well in advance of such
Really this is the first real change for ProCooling in 6 years. It hasnt changed much since it came online back in December 1999. So This is a big thing and I want to make sure I get it right when it goes online ;) I am taking my time on some areas to make sure it looks/works as I wanted it to, and thats slowing stuff down a bit on my end here. Sooner or later we will have this thing up hehe ;)
pHaestus
08-29-2005, 11:15 AM
Hey Joe is there space on the new site for a Pro/Testing banner or link or something?
Yep, in IRC tonight let me know more details about what you want it to link to and such.
Gahh.. I just realized a big issue with the legacy pages... looks like I will need to get them into the DB afterall.. time for some fun code work ;)
I didnt get shit done this week, either I was at work late working or working from home on some new issues at work.,..
But this weekend I am making some progress...
LPorc
09-05-2005, 10:52 AM
Hey Joe,
since you are tweaking things for eventual change, I thought I'd chime in with my biggest gripe about the forums.
The search function requires part of the user name, and won't take wildcards. I know you've got a nice new post query, but sometimes like a dumbshit I close the browser window or hit the back button too many times. It would be nice if I could just do a search for all posts in the past x days.
pHaestus
09-09-2005, 12:10 PM
Progress report Joe? For my part, I mostly plumbed a test loop sans dP xmitter, and otherwise haven't done jack
jaydee
09-09-2005, 12:54 PM
I pretty much found out I am broke. The money I thought I would be making on this new job just isn't there. I guess employers have to do a PR job to hire new people aswell.....
So all I am doing this weekend is rebuilding my test bench with what I have and going to have to call it good for now. The only thing I will try to buy soon is a dP transmitter if I can find one cheap (as in dirt) on ebay.
BillA
09-09-2005, 01:19 PM
~ $25 - 40 + shipping
I'll e-mail you next time I see one
I guess pH also as his seems inop
jaydee
09-09-2005, 02:01 PM
~ $25 - 40 + shipping
I'll e-mail you next time I see one
I guess pH also as his seems inop
That would be good.
I am plugging along, doing more reading than coding though trying to learn some new ways to do things. But I have also been a lazy ass and been distracted with some R/C stuff this week. (actually more distraced, selling lots of my R/C stuff to pay for real car stuff.)
Just posted something for pH to give some input on as far as new article posting goes. I had to give up on some higher end things I wanted to do for now, just because time is becoming tight again, adn I want to get this damn thing posted.
pHaestus
09-19-2005, 09:44 AM
Joe could we have a Procooling "free stuff" forum where all the spammers can post their crap? And then when they create a post in that forum it autobans them? Just a thought :)
hehe nice, Sure I can make a "free shit here" forum ;)
I got a big part of the new system done tonight. Its the system to bring in the old site into the new one so the site becomes 100% database driven (well the legacy data is just flat data being pulled from a DB, but it still not in a flat file :))
takes some work by me but with this working in a week or so I can start looking at getting the site up in some capacity. Just gotta keep work off my back for a bit here..
jaydee
09-26-2005, 10:46 PM
Bump for update?
I havent been able to put much work into the site since the last update. all last week I was working lots of overtime. This week looks better but I cant tell for sure how much time I will have free.
jaydee
09-28-2005, 12:01 AM
I hear ya. I been working 10hr days (+ 2hrs of driving) and have the 8yo daughter on the weekends. Seriously limits my hobby time.
Well today I got some time to work on all this. And I have gotten this done:
Gone through all the HTML pages for the entire legacy site, stripped all header info, and cleaned it up to just be HTML code for the body of the articles/reviews.
I have the legacy site importer script working so that I tell it what files went to which articles, who wrote it, when, and categorize it. Then it imports the HTML files into the DB, and outputs a file named the same as the orginals but empty with only a PHP HEADER refresh to forward people going to the old HTML files to the DB generated version.
Really those are the main things I needed to get written and tested to let me get all the old site data into teh new site. Now it will take me a few nights of work to import all the old site data into the DB. Once that is done I will work on the article display portion.
Once I can get the article display function to work as expected with the Legacy articles, then I can get the site posted, and work on the new article posting action after that.
This whole deal is stupid complex for what I was expecting it to be... but atleast its a long term solution. It just sucks having to semi manually get 600 pages of HTML code into a DB! And getting 6 year old HTML formatted to a way that it will work with a new database driven app.
just another small update,
I got the first article to show up in the article display side. very crude static code behind it, but it was a proof of concept that the importing HTML will be functional, and it seems its all good. There are some tweaks I need to take care of, but so far it looks like its all just cleaning up and making the system work good!
The back end on this thing is UGLY nasty shitty code, but I am skipping most error checking steps because I am the only one who is going to input this stuff (legacy stuff) and its not worth the time to write elegant verification scripts if it isnt going to be used.
the front end though will take some time to get all the error checking in place and make sure its solid enough for prime time :)
attached is a pic of the old DHII article being pulled from the DB.
Because the old site is all static width everything i takes up a good bit of room that I could do without... I may turn off the random pic and voting items when people look at articles/reviews to save the page width... as you can tell its pretty happy eating up a full 1280x1024 in that pic.
Oh and because the old site uses static sizing for tables and such, that pic is off center. it was basing its "middle" on something thats a different size now.
Also there will be an info box at the top of the articles giving more data on the article itself and some control items to logged in users. It will also give a note about which articles are legacy imports and that some links in them may not work or colors may not be very visible in some parts.
Stuff's moving at a snails pace. No I am not into the next great MMORPG (Since I do believe those games blow) I just have other hobbies and some long hours at work I am doing.
pretty much I feel no real rush on this, I am doing it when I have spare time. I pay for the site 100% out of my pocket so I have no responsibility to sponsors, other staff, or vendors(since no sponsors actually pay for anything on the site).
Naturally the lack of site updating, lack of staff activity and new content will cause the forums to dip down quite a bit. Which has happened expectedly. Sorry for that, but really the site update is a one person show and I dont feel much pressure to put more work than I am already putting into this.
On the flip side about half of the articles are imported into the new system. I spend 3 nights doing that last week. It's a bitch of a task.
I got some work done on the site in the last day, and then made a list of all the things I need to get done before posting the site. it came down to like 7 things I need to complete still, some are large, some are small and just tedious. But atleast I have a list now of what to work on when I get free time.
ahh just fixed a bastard of a problem that has been killing the site re-design. it was slow as hell on initial queries- up to 15 seconds waiting on the DB to return a random value.
Turns out in MySQL using "ORDER BY RAND()" is very evil on large row length tables. I was running it on a table with 10,000 rows and it would just ass pound the system.
By offloading that logic to PHP and having it do the random picking of items, the total query takes .1 sec to run down from 15 seconds :)
I have imposed a deadline of November 28th to have the new site up and running in some form.
I have vacation from today through then so I shouldnt have much of an issue hammering that out.
jaydee
11-14-2005, 07:12 PM
This year or next? j/k :dome:
Looking forward to it. :)
pHaestus
11-14-2005, 07:50 PM
Everyone buys Joe a beer if he has the new site fully up by Nov 28, 2005?
It's a celebration, bitches!
bigben2k
11-14-2005, 09:06 PM
Everyone buys Joe a beer if he has the new site fully up by Nov 28, 2005?
It's a celebration, bitches!
I'm in for that! :p
thats deffinitely motivation!!
BillA
11-15-2005, 12:07 PM
I'll join Ben, when you gonna be down in the sweat zone ?
I will be in Jamaica this coming weekend, does that count? :)
if you want to really help, one of you guys will sell the PC I just listed in the FS/FT forum! :)
I gotta sell that thing.... I love the lil box but money issues means its gotta go.
I am making some serious progress in the new site. Most of it has to do with making it look better, but I just got all the items I needed finished to start importing all the old site data into it. (which is a horridly manual process).
I wanted to get everything done that I can before I leave for vacation.
Lots of work I had to do has to do with the back end to get the articles input'd the right way, thats been pretty much taken care of now, so now I can start importing data, and once that is done go back to cleaning up the articles/reviews/front page and how those pages display the legacy/new data.
Theres also a few announcements that will come out right around when the new site is launched... so stay tuned.
Heres a pic of the categories that are in the system:
http://clegg.procooling.com/pcv5testc.jpg
oh and one feature that wont be on the site right away is the Search feature... I mean the ****ers busted now... so no big loss ;)
Ok now there are some damn funny moments when I am working on the new site.... this was one that I just started laughing at.
The random picture display from the forum can be quite entertaining at times.
I am back from vacation and am hammering hard core on getting all the legacy site data loaded into the new site. I am planning to have it all there by the end of tomorrow (it takes a shitty long time to do it, about 15+ minutes per article/review.)
But its all going very smooth now and I have all the bugs worked out. Once thats done I can focus on the final cleaning and setup of some pages on the site.
I should be good to go getting this up by the 28th.
The plan is on the 28th the site will go down for a short while, while I cut over the new site, and test everything.
Whooo hooo, I got all the articles into the new site... now just time to do the reviews. Took me around 5 hours to get all the articles in (larger articles go much faster than single page ones in comparison).
the articles look good in the new system, One thing that I have made sure is that all existing URL links to procooling will continue to work. One thing the system does when I import the HTML content from the old site it exports a file the same name as the orignal file, but with only a PHP Header refresh sending them to the correct article in the database.
I am all giddy now ;) I may just hammer out the reviews tonight... then its just time to do some final clean up on the site, and some more testing, and then I can get it posted!
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