I think that to improve the site you may have to almost start again. Consider using a web CMS such as postnuke (http://www.postnuke.com) I feel that this will give the site a much better presentaion and the site will be generally faster as postnuke uses PHP. If you decide to do this i would write a there or 2 for the site to make it look even better. I noticed that your members sign up using CGI, it would not be too difficult to write a script that can automaticly enter into the system the existing site users. Postnuke also contains a number of modules including a members list (updated automaticly) a number of forums ( again a script can be wrote to convert existing posts), a number of IRC front ends and loads more. Only requirments are PHP version 4 installed on the server and also mySQL. If you dont have these i am sure i can give you my bought hosting space that has another 6 months. All that would need to be changed would be the DNS number of the domain name to point to my space. I think this would be a great oppertunity for the site to florish and enter a period of rapid growth.

Metamorphic

neometamorphic@aol.com

There is no CGI in use outside of the mailing list software (which is completely separate). The rest is handled by servlets. I think any speed problems come from the connection to ADSL in Denmark, where the server lives. The presentation is easily changed (see my earlier post here), and I'd welcome concrete suggestions/actual HTML layouts, or more detailed suggestions that do more than mention that such-and-such alternative has features that are either already on this site or could be added without much effort.

very well, i will create a set of themes before hand upload them to my server running the CMS and then send you the link to it and see where it goes from there. Does that sound ok?

Ideas are always good :-)

Done :) ill get working on it right away :)

You do your smilies backwards (:

lol. Psion, is the server capable of parsing php files?

metamorphic, I am mystified as to what makes you think that we would let you use PHP on the server... This system suits our purposes fine... we know how to use it, and it is fully customisable, very quickly and easily.

We do not need PHP!

This isn't hosted comercially. It's running on someone's personal machine. Anything that we would want to add can be added. That said, you really do have some work ahead of you convincing us that some PHP thinger would be better than what is here now. :-)

This system is custom written! It was written specifically for our needs!

look, im not trying to sell you anything, hell postnuke and PHP are all under the GPL. I am only trying to help. Psion went on gamedev.net asking for ways of getting more people to join the TPU. I thought that a way would be to use a better site. Moreover i wouldnt give you the PHP code, i would show you it running on my commercial webhosting and should you like what you see you can download the engine from postnuke.com. All i would do would be to write a skin or two for the site should you want it.

You say your system is customisable, download the latest version of postnuke and try it on your machine and see how custonisable it is. Infact i think everyone with a webserver and PHP 4 or greater should take 3 mins of there time to download a 1.5 meg file and have a play around with it. especially Psion and Gian so that they can see what the administration of the site is like

This isnt BS or anything. Take a look at this site www.4dreamfans.com. It is a commercial site running the engine.

This is just an idea and a suggestion. Im not flaming you or anyone. However i think its a good idea and would benifit the comunity by providing a better organised site and forums as well as a webbased IRC portal.

Dont knock it until youve tried it (: so please try it! if you dont want to download it psion or gian but want to try the admin features i will upload the engine to my webspace so that you can test out the admin features. ok?

I'm with you metamorphic, those girls are hot (:

ok its 00:17 here now, for the next 10 mins or so if you are online and want to see it working go to http://172.188.174.242

im only gonna have it on for about 10 mins as its my PC :)

the admin username is 'God' and the password is 'Password'

I like it but the colors are kinda gay... keep the same color scheme, or maybe make it a little darker

...And where the hell is the message board?

the message board and IRC room are modules that just get put into the directory. As for the colors, thats where making themes comes in.

i will add a forum in a sec

metamorphic, you haven't seen the admin features of this site, either. ;-)

If you dont want to use it, thats fine. I only offered it as a suggestion and an idea to help get more people interested in TPU. At least look at and try it before you discard it.

Right, is it online yet? :-)

I couldn't get to it... TCP error...

ok the main bulk of the site is set up. www.dream-uk.net.

username: God
PW: Password

oh and you wont be dissapointed :)

So what are the features that don't fall into the category of a different look/interface?

How about you make the username and password case insensitive.

If we are going to make a gigantic change lets just use vBulletin, look here www.forumoc.com

>> How about you make the username and password case insensitive.

they are

>> If we are going to make a gigantic change lets just use vBulletin, look here www.forumoc.com

vBulletin is JUST a forum, this is an entire site wide change.

>> So what are the features that don't fall into the category of a different look/interface?

Not quite sure what you mean here. If its whats extra comparied to this site that isnt related to looks/ interface well theres:

A better quality forum than vBulletin
Organised News articles
Users can easily send news articles in
Users can comment on current news without having to use forum
Automatic members list
Users may send PM messages to each other
Searchable downloads database
Searchable Links Database
User selectable theme (ok interface related, but still a nice feature)
Poll
Comments can be placed in polls
FAQ section that can be catagorised where you can host FAQ's on programming
Multi Lingual
Many interface improvments that make the site look better
An IRC gateway saving members the burden of downloading and setting up an IRC client (when i put it there)
Completly customisable through themes and admin menus
Stable and fast Backend
Easy advertising capabitities
Recommend the site to others using built in feature
Site statistics.
One registration gives you access to ALL the site, not just the forum (:

I think thats a good enough list!

In response to your earlier point Psion. I dont know how good the admin features of this site are, however the site i have shown you is COMPLETLY customisable by admin and themes and the current system cannot beat that, only match it (:

k im done

Oh also the site contains dynamic meta keywords and the links are generally search engine friendly.
Also its completly community run as it would generally be users that submit news and contribute links or downloads to the site

Might as well respond to each!

It's easiest to list all of the things you listed that we already have going here.
Things supported by this very web site engine: (Those that you may not see on this site are just because no one has asked for them. The little work on page templates that must be done to add them has generally already been done while I was developing the site software in the first place)
Organized news articles
Users can easily send news articles in
Automatic members list
Searchable downloads database
Searchable Links Database
User selectable theme (currently in here only partially, through stylesheet selection, but it is possible to have whole different template sets among which users can choose)
Completly customisable through themes and admin menus
Stable and fast Backend :-)
Site statistics (courtesy the Webalizer)
One registration gives you access to ALL the site, not just the forum (: (all TPU sites in the last 4 years have had this :P)

Now, onward:

A better quality forum than vBulletin. This is subjective, and the technology in use here allows for easy addition of any particular new features requested. There is really nothing revolutionary in vBulletin or any of these. Improvements people cite are just small, easy to implement, individual things.

Users can comment on current news without having to use forum. I don't have any vision of a TPU web site being centered around news items that people would want to discuss. We hardly have any news now. It would be easy to add this if anyone thought it would be valuable.

Users may send PM messages to each other. Ever heard of ICQ or AIM, or even this cool new "e-mail"? :-)

Poll; Comments can be placed in polls. A lot of people vigorously clamor for "polls," but I don't see how they have any use. My personal opinion is that people just want them because they're used to seeing them.

FAQ section that can be catagorised where you can host FAQ's on programming. I don't think that having programming FAQ's here would be all that beneficial. We're not trying to supplant the already existent resources on this topic. TPU is more of a communication tool between people who might otherwise have trouble finding others with whom they have such a chance of sharing common interests.

Multi Lingual. Come on! Everyone speaks English now :-)

Many interface improvments that make the site look better. Hey, you know, I'm all for that, and waiting for someone (or someones) to design an awesome layout/interface for this site.

An IRC gateway saving members the burden of downloading and setting up an IRC client. People traditionally hung out in #TPU all day. If it's a "burden" to download and set up an IRC client, then chatting may not be for you. Staying on IRC most all the time is a big part of many, many people's online itineraries.

Easy advertising capabitities. Paid advertising is not something that will ever happen here. Free advertising can use any of those free banner exchange services that are out there and easy to add to any page.

Recommend the site to others using built in feature. Way to add that personal touch!

As to your second post, I've made sure all links that should be search engine friendly here ARE, and your second sentence completely applies to this current site as well.

lol ok. You mentioned that my test site is news orientated. Its not. It is article orientated. Look in the sections link. Also on the front page it says you are continually trying to evole and make things better this is why i think it should be up to the community if the site gets changed. my POV

The idea for the site is one that centers around ease of communication (IRC gateway, PM, forum), articles and user projects thats why i though it may benifit the community.

I never said your site was news oriented. I think a site would NEED to be news oriented for comments on individual news items to be useful.

Communities can make the best decisions when pros and cons of different options are discussed. I would love wide participation in deciding where TPU should go from here, but, as I've said elsewhere, this just isn't out there at the moment. If you or anyone else would like to take issue with any of my responses, or bring up any other ideas or views, that's great. From my side, it seems like I've shown that your proposed solution is not as revolutionary as you made it out to be, and that switching to it would only be a result of a matter of taste.

And why aren't you authorizing me on ICQ? :-)

alright then, i will design and create a set of kick-ass themes for my test site. Then will everyone take my idea seriously?

I will design a site as well... humm... but I need an inspiration...

Very well said, Psion. I agree with you completely. (Now gian will assuredely say something about a dictatorship...)

Metamorphic and Dake, this site probably could use a facelife. This much I could do myself. (The bad aspects of the new front page layout aside.) But a change in front page layout and color scheme aren't going to change anything. Not even little features like polls.

If there's room for improvement, it's in the way we are implementing our "mission statement."

"Our goal is to help people who fit into this growing category...."

----- "meet each other" For this we need to attract more people - easier said than done. Psion is always working to do that. We need a way to get people into #tpu, since that might be the best way to get people to really (virtually) meet.

----- "exchange ideas" Our forums and #tpu are probably the best way to do this. I can't imagine a better way. And what we have for forums now works very well. If it needs more than the forums, it should go to email or sourceforge.

----- "perhaps work together on something" In the past 4 years I think there has not been one successful group project that came from this site. At this point I don't really believe it's possible, since the site is directed at young amateurs. If there were enough people really interested it would happen on its own.

----- "and learn" Aside from the above, we have some articles. But, what we have is and should be directed at novices. There's room here for more, of course. L-Shells would help too.

A suggestion needs to be clearly and obviously able to contribute to one of these four things. Design issues don't.

- taubz

ok all i am going to say now then is that by using postnuke it will INDIRECTLY effect all 4 of the areas mentioned above.

meet each other - Look at the front of this site and the front of my site. Once you have atracted the people initially, if they both were about the same subject (teenage programmers)which site(honestly) would you rather sign up to? People like nice presented sites!!!! It is a fundemental issue in getting people to participate. you have to keep them interested, you do this by having a well presented and thought out site.

exchange ideas - The forums i have shown you have better featres, the site will also have an IRC portal. I didnt mean that earlier that ppl shouldnt download a client in favor of a gateway. what i meant is that NEW visitors to the site should get a preview at the IRC channel before downloading a client. This will encourage even more people.

work together on something - there is a space on my site for the listing of users projects, moreover, you will beable to find a module that you can add in to postnuke that enables group work

and learn - my site has a section of articles that are catagories and all of which have a printable version. if people can print the articles no problem then they can learn better.

on top of all this *it looks much better*

Ask everyone on the forum, see which site they would rather use.

> if they both were about the same subject (teenage programmers)which site(honestly) would you rather sign up to?

There's only one TPU. :)

> The forums i have shown you have better featres

If you feel we could benefit from those features, they could probably be implemented here.

> the site will also have an IRC portal.

That is a good idea and in a few hours we will have it.

> there is a space on my site for the listing of users projects

I don't think many people here are working on group projects... but that's a good idea.

> if people can print the articles no problem then they can learn better.

We can of course do the same thing on this site in just a few minutes, tho I don't really see the need.

- taubz

The aesthetic deficiency of this site is obvious and universally agreed. Everyone with web design skills, please come up with better ideas, as asked in another obviously-topicked post. :-)

As far as aesthetics goes, I think the fact that the dreamuk.net color scheme bears a close resemblence to vomit might turn a few people away.

Um, yeah, I agree, if the site looks ugly nobody will sign up...

I only signed up, cause I am gullible ;)

I must say I take the stance of Psion and Taubz in this...

DakeDesuDx, metamorphic: This has been done before... by me...
At one time I was not happy with the (then) current TPU... I tried to create a new one, and it fell apart due to lack of support, also I discovered that by asking people to do stuff (like getting rid of that insane threading system), it got done, and the result was a much better site.

There isn't a need for a new site, when this one works... you haven't seen the back end of this, it is completely non specific. There are no hard coded styles or anything! We are completely open to suggestions, but as of yet all we've had from you is telling us that we should use other forums, and what other software has... without any justification as to what things about these forums you like...

>> There isn't a need for a new site, when this one works... you haven't seen the back end of this, it is completely non specific. There are no hard coded styles or anything! We are completely open to suggestions, but as of yet all we've had from you is telling us that we should use other forums, and what other software has... without any justification as to what things about these forums you like...

like wise. NOTHING is hardcoded. not even text. thats is ALL variables, becasue its multiligual


>> This has been done before... by me...
At one time I was not happy with the (then) current TPU... I tried to create a new one, and it fell apart due to lack of support, also I discovered that by asking people to do stuff (like getting rid of that insane threading system), it got done, and the result was a much better site.

If you cant finish a project, dont start it. Ive started and i intend to finish

>> As far as aesthetics goes, I think the fact that the dreamuk.net color scheme bears a close resemblence to vomit might turn a few people away.

That is the default colours set by the engine, completly customisable, just ask anyone in the forum yesterday that saw the image i showed them. Im working on a theme at the moment that is blue/grey and white.

I am not complaining about the coding system... I even asked for the source to look at so I could work within it... I like that better that PHP... seems so much cleaner without all those inane "$"'s that have no real meaning (unlike Perl).

I am also reading the Tea Manual as we speak... I am not here to reinvent the wheel, I just think that the layout sucks... the average person coming to the site would not care if you have the Quake 2 engine as the backend (well.. THEN... maybe), just the way things are arranged, kind of is not good... seems kind of amatuer like, and that could either be comforting or scary. You can have hyperlinks to other sections... similar to how gnu.org does it.

The first page of a website is suppose to look like a magazine cover to the site, not the first chapter.

I don't agree with that last bit. The problem now just comes from large text and somewhat haphazard layout. My long experience with this suggests that the TPU site should have very few pages. There is simply no need for exhaustive resources of any kind; sites just dedicated to programming can handle that. The very few things that TPU offers should all be visible on the first page. Any presented attempts that try to basically just minorly change the look of the canned types of software that are so popular for "community" sites will be flat out rejected. This is a different beast entirely.

About the Tea stuff, that's fine, but I would ask you and anyone else interested in making the site look better to just create HTML mockups of how the pages of the site should look. There is no need to write any new program code, and it just wastes time, from the viewpoint of getting the site looking better as soon as possible. I'm not asking for any coding help, just layout help. If new features come into play, then there might actually be a need to even know what the underlying dynamic content system is, but we're certainly not at that point now. If you want to help TPU, then it would be better to put off learning about the behind the scenes stuff until we have a decent front.

Mock ups, eh?

You know, now that I have the Mozilla sidebar, I've rarely looked at the main page. I will play with the mock-up things in Gimp (I REALLY wish I knew a better graphics engine.).

Meta, It wasn't that I didn't finish the project, it was that there was no support for the project, and like Taubz said, there is only one tpu, and I believe that "teen programmers unite" is copyright, is it not?

metamorphic: I don't believe that this is a suitable platform for this discussion. What you are effectively trying to do is stage a coup, not suggest ways to help develop TPU. You are being aggressive and militant, as opposed to logically and reasonably explaining things.

All you have done is tit-for-tat, you tell us that PostNUKE (or whatever) has xxx feature, then we tell you that devlocus (the current system) has it too, and then what do you do? You tell us another thing that postnuke has.

Frankly, I don't care what Postnuke has... are you trying to sell it or something? I don't understand why you won't just be sensible and tell us what TPU needs, not just that we should replace it, and this system should go out the window. Tell us what you want incorperating into this system. I really don't understand your apparent obsession with "other" systems... we have one that you have very little idea about, and you are simply rubbishing and belittling it, just because it is the not the "other" system that you want.

I just looked at the main page, and thought... what really is TPU... I guess the only problem is information overload... Perhaps allow the user to decide what appears on the main page when they are logged in? To make this simple we would put anchors in the top right corner of the boxes with a "X" to show that it is to close it. Then it takes them to the appropiate serverside whatever, to save in their file that they do not want to see it?

New Sections would appear by default.

If the user wanted to see a box they just click a link at the bottom of the page.

Hmmm... I like that idea....

>> I just looked at the main page, and thought... what really is TPU... I guess the only problem is information overload... Perhaps allow the user to decide what appears on the main page when they are logged in? To make this simple we would put anchors in the top right corner of the boxes with a "X" to show that it is to close it. Then it takes them to the appropiate serverside whatever, to save in their file that they do not want to see it?

I have already sugested to Psion that the front page contains to much infomation, however he said he designed it that way and said that the way that the blocks are with the infomation are a need (which i dont agree with). Also why write this system with preferences when it already exists? Dont forget you would also have to take into consideration older browsers such a netscape 4.x

>>metamorphic: I don't believe that this is a suitable platform for this discussion. What you are effectively trying to do is stage a coup, not suggest ways to help develop TPU. You are being aggressive and militant, as opposed to logically and reasonably explaining things.

i have tried to explain various methods of how to improve the site to Psion and Taubz. both of which have told me what needs to be done. basicly they just want the block on the front page in a different order. That is not a redesign, thats a re-order. I think that TPU needs to go futher than a re-order.

>>All you have done is tit-for-tat, you tell us that PostNUKE (or whatever) has xxx feature, then we tell you that devlocus (the current system) has it too, and then what do you do? You tell us another thing that postnuke has.

Yes ii have told you what it has, i have also shown you it, i am trying to tell you that Postnuke will be a better system to run. Ignore the current grey/yellow colors and look at the layout. Which looks better?

>> Frankly, I don't care what Postnuke has... are you trying to sell it or something? I don't understand why you won't just be sensible and tell us what TPU needs, not just that we should replace it, and this system should go out the window. Tell us what you want incorperating into this system. I really don't understand your apparent obsession with "other" systems... we have one that you have very little idea about, and you are simply rubbishing and belittling it, just because it is the not the "other" system that you want.

how can i sell something that is GPL and avaliable freely? not possable. I have told you what TPU needs, a Re-design of the ENTIRE layout, not just the front blocks. I think that 'the other' system will create a much better site. it is much better ordered and presented. I am trying to get you to use it because it is much easier to use something already there than it is to redesign the site.

Metamorphic, you lost the point on whether to switch to PostNuke or not. The current system is staying because there's no reason to change it - no functionality would be gained from PostNuke that we don't already have or could have.

"it is much easier to use something already there than it is to redesign the site."

Precicely why the current system stays.

As for the layout, your new layout along with anything that anyone else suggests will be seriously considered by whoever decides to voice their opinion of the layout. *However,* Psion and I are speaking from experience with various layouts over the years and we have a good idea of what works for TPU and what doesn't. (And I leave the conclusion open...)

- taubz

>> As for the layout, your new layout along with anything that anyone else suggests will be seriously considered by whoever decides to voice their opinion of the layout. *However,* Psion and I are speaking from experience with various layouts over the years and we have a good idea of what works for TPU and what doesn't. (And I leave the conclusion open...)

Exacly, you should know the current layout doesnt work. Putting all the infomation all on one page doesnt work. I can understand why Psion says having everything on the front is good, because its a resource site. But i have been making websites for 5 years, and i can say that infomation overload DOES NOT WORK. You cant put everything on the front page and expect people to stay and read it all. This is why i am designing a new layout that can easily be converted to whatever is used. It wont use postnuke becasue you wont use it, and that in my opinoin is your loss. This shouldn't stop the site reaching its potential that i think it so rightly deserves.

Infomation needs to presented clearly but not in large amounts.

i should finish the basic design soon so check back

Don't presume to know more than we do about what's best for TPU. I've designed many websites as well and we've been in TPU a lot longer than you. *At best* a categorized layout is *as good* as the current information overload layout. The drawback to your scheme is that there will be very very few items per category. There aren't enough users to have more forums (we've done that), and there's not a reason or enough effort to have extensive articles. Etc etc. It's just a question of judgement. There's no one right answer.

In most cases, your layout is without question the best. Most sites use some form of it. Most of mine have. Here there's room for something else.

- taubz

>> Don't presume to know more than we do about what's best for TPU. I've designed many websites as well and we've been in TPU a lot longer than you.

You have been here longer than me, and i dont presume to know what is best for TPU.

I do however know what is not best, and that is to keep the same layout. This is a suggestion forum and i am sugesting you change the layout to something less infomation intensive

>> The drawback to your scheme is that there will be very very few items per category.

Less is better, the less users have to scroll vertically the better

We run into the same problem metamorphic was having earlier when we discussed this on IRC. I said it was important that all of the features on the front page now be exposed on the new front page, and he's still going on with the laughably uncreative idea that each "box" there now needs to be preserved verbatim and somehow rearranged. I certainly clarified that this was NOT the case, and I hope some others can be more creative and come up with a way to handle this.

And another point of irony: you're right, there's no need to create a new system that allows users to save their interface preferences, because they're already in use here. :-)

i think i have the perfect thing to solve this problem, it complys with Psions requirments, but also looks damned good too :)

visit www.dream-uk.net/layout.html soon

I can't access that or the root page of the domain.

Please Note: I have dropped out of this insane race to find a new layout and am a supporter of what gain (however it is spelt, I am new here) has came up with in the General forum.

Race?

Apparently Dake Desian Confusion is here to stay... the layout is not even in "General" either... I blame the Mozilla sidebar.

I might post something on Dake Desian Confusion some time :D

http://gian.expdev.net/tpu.html

Metamorphic, let me tell you a bit about the templates:
The code itself is not in the pages, the pages are practically just html, they look a bit like:

<html>
<body>
..... content, tags etc....
<% do_your_dynamic_thing(); ?>
.... more content and html etc.
</body>
</html>

try it now, my host was having some problems.

www.dream-uk.net/layout.htm

I kind of like it, but how would you get the boxed to appear after you've closed them? That is ofcourse if you want just ONE box to appear.

My main quip is that is uses JavaScript, when after GameDeveloper.net upgrades its server, and stops using JS, I will have that disabled in my browser. Also if I was in Lynx, Amaya, or Opera, I would not be able to use this feature properly, later due to bad ECMAscript support, and the first two lack of support. I would prefer that serversides were used for this, cause I still like the quote from EvilIdler in #sdl on irc.openprojects.net "ECMA is the eruption of the browser," making a pun on AMCE (or which ever one is the epidermous problem, and not the company Wile E. Coyote gets his products from).

It seems a little on the flashy side... reminds me of hotmail... hummm... might be good, I am not sure...

you cant only open one box, another problem is that when the windows are loaded, and the content is toobig for the window, the scroll bar doesnt appear untill you resize the window. Im not sure about browsers, its WC3 complient to my knowledge and i know it runs in IE 4+, Opera 5+ and NS 4+ so browser wise unless you using a text based browser there shouldn't be any problems

Um, JavaScript is not run by W3C... so I were using say... Amaya, W3C's offical browser, which due to ECMAscript, as the standard is called, not being a W3C standard, the JS is rendered useless. I would use Amaya, for other than a quick check of validity, but unfortunately forms do not work properly in the versions I've used, and it does not support absolute position'ing in CSS.

JS also is a known security risk.

JavaScript is a gimmick, and nothing more. I could not care if I can move or resize those miniwindows, that is just a feature that I could care less about in a website. All I want is to be able to close or open a single window, using a serverside, so that it might keep track of my settings, so I do not have to do it again next time.

Sure you could do it with Cookies, but what about computers with paraniod network admins who have disabled cookies? That is one of the reasons I favour sessions over cookies on langauges that have decent support.
It would be simpler to code as a serverside... no attempts at cross-platform crap that features in ever Javascript. You could also cut down on bandwidth by saving not only the download of the script, but guess what, not sending the user the stuff they do not want.

So summary as to why not to do it with JS:
1: It is NOT W3C standard... rather ECMA standard.
2: JS is a security risk
3: All JS is good for is gimmicks.
4: I do not want to have to redo my settings everytime I come here, and I would prefer if it stored my settings on the server.
5: Even if you did try cookies, they are not supported widely.
6: A serverside would have better uses for this.

A possible idea for moving windows:

There would be a way making windows priortised. With the server setting default priorities which the user can override. There would be two buttons on it: Up and Down.

We could expand in the future to allow the user to decide, "I want X number of box s in row Y and A number of boxs in row B," making user able to decide thier own layout simpliscitally, without the various annoyances that JS brings.

>>There would be a way making windows priortised. With the server setting default priorities which the user can override. There would be two buttons on it: Up and Down
We could expand in the future to allow the user to decide, "I want X number of box s in row Y and A number of boxs in row B," making user able to decide thier own layout simpliscitally, without the various annoyances that JS brings.

I would like to say that that already exists in postnuke, the side the blocks (windows) are on, who they are visable to (registered, non-registered, admin, custom user group) and what weighting (how high or low) they they are.

Just a point

Also on your previous post: I didn't say to use javascript to do it. All i wanted to do was find a script that did impliment it so that people could see what your idea would look like.

Well, you can quit selling PostNuke, nobody really cares what the backend is, and what I suggested could be easily coded into the current one. Everybody but you would agree that the goal is not to scrap the current engine, remember :-)?

As for the script being what I ask, it was not. I asked that this be done on the server side, not the client end. That in my (deranged) mind, makes it so that the script you came up with, was not what I (thought) I had asked for.

Though I liked the colours and graphics, we can use those, if the admins agree to it. It sort of reminds as how hotmail would look, could I click the "Agree," somewhere on their ToS agreement, rather than start blankly at the page, wondering if Bill Gates does not want me as his towel boy, clicking randomly hoping it will get me into hotmail, but sadly being exclude from the apparently exclusive service, that I long to join, cause I have three Yahoo Mail boxes just about full, and would prefer to be a little bit nice on using Yahooo's server resources without having to pay. (But I am not bitter :-).

well as far as the colors go, i was looking at the existing blue/purple scheme here and took it and 'jazzed' it up a bit by just using blue and white, which IMO go well together. The header image is cool i though i made a footer image to go with it also should they want that

The issue of managing boxes is irrelevant at this point. What we need now is how the page appears to an unregistered user when he first visits. Obviously he won't have customized anything. The usual MS Windows size control things in the upper right hand corner of the boxes seem like extra glitter with no value to me. This site should be as simple visually as possible. Presentation techniques that are unusual among commercially oriented sites, but still useful, are a plus. We're trying to ATTRACT people who like to tinker with things, so having to work some to get to other features is not anathema here to the degree that metamorphic told me earlier. However, I really think the boxes would be better done in the style of Slashdot, where you can just choose from a list and they are laid out for you, if they should be used at all.

Overall, having boxes worked in could be good, but it means nothing until it can be shown how it all comes together to create the page a user first sees, and then the page for a logged in user, the various forum pages, etc..

You have just witnessed Dake Desian Confusion yet again (my hindsight is more 19/20 than 20/20 :-) I took the topic from making a new first page, to a feature that I think would be nice...

HAHAHAHA if only I could control this... then I would RULE THE WORLD.

Kidding aside, I guess we should get to the task at hand.

>>I really think the boxes would be better done in the style of Slashdot, where you can just choose from a list and they are laid out for you, if they should be used at all.

Does that mean that the news can be in the same format as slashdot? (like from the "if you like eating monkeys dept")?

That doesn't make any sense for TPU.

I just noticed this thread had something like 63 posts for it... most of it is petty bickering over which backend to use.

Just a note: When I have to take of my shoes and socks to figure out the number, then I will get it wrong... make that 75 Posts....