Thread "Forum, Homepage Format" in forum "Dragon Doctors Discussion"

Posted at 9:02AM, Feb. 24, 2009

Okay, here it is, homepage format, new forum, new style. I hope this works better.

Man, I really need a webmaster or something to help me make an "about" page and all that.

Posted at 2:02PM, Feb. 24, 2009

First post! Owned!

Heh… sorry about that. Anyway, like I said on the comic page, I'm liking the new set-up.

Posted at 4:02PM, Feb. 24, 2009

I personally think that the new format is great.

One… TINY thing that could be done to make it better is make the comments Veiwable without the extra click….. its so much harder to comment when you can't see what others have said…

Posted at 2:02PM, Feb. 25, 2009

I agree with Legolos, the extra click is a bit of a bother. Doesn't feel as accessible, simply put. But otherwise, things look great. And such a prompt and decisive response, too :-)

I wish I was a webmaster. I'd have loved to contribute :-(

Posted at 2:02PM, Feb. 25, 2009

Not much I can do about the extra click until I get a better grasp of what I'm doing to fix that. On the plus side, there's now a table of contents and such on the main page making it easier to get to the chapter you want.

Posted at 12:03PM, Mar. 25, 2009

Speedball,

I like the new page design overall but there are a few minor aesthetic details that could be fixed to polish it up.

First, the current front page (http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Dragon_Doctors/index.php?) lacks a title/logo. A minor detail, but it gives the page brand recognition the same way a business letterhead does on a letter. Doesn't have to be fancy, could just a simple banner stating 'Dragon Doctors'. The one thing I would suggest you avoid is making it larger than say, the ad in the Drunk Duck banner, so it doesn't push the comic too far down.

Second, on the front page there are two buttons on the top left of the comic. One says 'first' with an arrow pointing to the right. Aestheically, a left arrow and right justification of the text would be more consistent with general web-comic practices. Now, the other says 'latest' but points the user to the previous comic. It makes more sense to me to re-name this button 'previous', 'yesterday' or 'last' to indicate to visitors that they can go to prior comics without going to the start of the chapter.

Third, you lack any contact information on any of the pages. I would have sent this to you via email instead of posting in the forums.

Finally, in the archives, it would be nice if the navigation buttons were above the banner ad, instead of below it.

Posted at 6:03AM, Mar. 31, 2009

Kimichi, a lot of those elements are hardwired into the Drunk Duck hosting system, and not under Speed's control. It's the case with the nav buttons (which, you are correct, are utterly demented): if you look at other DD comics using this template, you'll see they all use the same buttons.