Re-imagine CB's interface (Second Thread) (in Contests)

The initial thread has been closed due to the 30-day limit.

The contest will be ending tonight at midnight, so here's the thread for you to submit entries (if you choose to do so).

I've previously submitted my entry to Jonathan. If it is a requirement to post my work here, I will do so, though I like to keep my work concealed for now =D

Concealer! When I have this CSS-tool done, everyone will be able to make themes and interfaces for CB, MUHAHAHAHAHA in your face!

oh.. I'm so sorry, I really need to lay off the kool-aid. ;)

I can't wait to see your stuff! :)

Nuts... not done yet....

I wonder if the site itself is going to be changed.

No additional submissions were received. (Sheesh, see if I allow extensions again. :P)

I promised at least $5M for the winner and $40M if I like it enough to take live. PixelSage was the only one who completed a submission, so he sort of wins by default. Fortunately he does good work, and I'm pretty sure he'll get to the "enough to take live" point, so I'm sending him $20M now and the other $20M after he fixes some stuff I'm going to talk to him about. :)

... also, sent Verifex $3M as an Honorable Mention prize for his (paper! how old school) mock-up of his Vision for CB, which does have some useful ideas.

w00t! I was wondering if it was good enough, since I didn't have time to redo the sidebar. Maybe I'll spend a day to quickly redesign it if I can, and see if Jonathan likes it.

Hmmmmmm what to do with the money? Keep it for loans? Make a super pair of AG's? Sell it and fund myself for a new macbook? Sell it to lower the price of cards when I make them? Choices choices....

Thanks again Jon =D

Do you think we could get an updated shot (or whatever was last done) from the entry (the one that was submitted to Jon)?

Personally, I'm quite disappointed that I didn't see any other entries. Maybe I was too hyped up about this contest. I saw Verifex's layout this afternoon and got excited about seeing it in actual form. Unfortunately, I guess, not enough time was available for him. :(

Doe'th! I will rise again, I'm sorry people, I know you wanted the best from me, and I could totally offer it, but I can't rush it. I only wish that I had started on this last month when Jon initially opened this contest ;)

I will still work on this even though the contest is over though, just because I want to see this thing live someday possibly.

Jon can I ask something? The method of making a fully CSS capable site means we could re-align and design the site if we need to. Do you think themes could be re-imagined as free-form crazy fests now? I know that the template: the rawsidebar.html I sent you would be great to have this in. I think it would be cool to redesign with whatever Pixel has, I just hope the background framework is flexible enough to let me use my interface as well.. on top of it ;)

BTW: Thanks Jon!

Here is the picture for all of you who are curious!

My official entry was this.

Verifex, your layout was similar to what I previously had planned out on paper (though I never finalized it nor brought it to code). I'm really liking what you have, so I may talk to you about the design on it and all. Jon did ask if I had redone the sidebar, and I regretfully told him I started but did not complete. However, it seems he'll allow me a bit more time to do so, which is good news. We'll see =D

I'd really like to see the full power of the CB design folk brought together on this stuff...

Just for your knowledge, I'm building a CSS generation tool that should help to make this stuff come to life. And I hope it can possibly inspire other people to build CSS interfaces. :)

can't verifex just work on it and just give it to jon for the sake of the community or does he want a prize? :P

What in the hell? Flamey do you know how to read?

Verifex, is that EXACTLY how it's going to look? Hm...it might look a little messy. LOL...

no i can't read.

Yeh I guess I should apologize I didn't get my entry done. But didn't have time, hey that's no excuse ey? ;)

I included a SC of what I had thus far, I did do a mock up.

Congrats to PixelSage though, seeing as I failed here, possible I could start making a theme for this new engine :D

No offense Pixel, but I find that the various fields in your interface are jumbled together and difficult to distinguish from one another. You need to add some more formatting (e.g. tab them over into columns). I assume that's one of the changes Jon requested?

And how about a neutral theme? One that doesn't attract attention, for those that CB while working ;)

If I have to go without modern mono I'll be hurting...

Maelstorm, they definitely should be tabbed and all. I coded it as clean as I could. I'm also going to create a theme documentation that explains how the engine works and all, hopefully that'll help out.

Novice, I'll try to port as many themes as I can to the new engine ;)

Building off Verifex, I mocked up this. I'll probably stick the "All" for recent battles back in.

What would be the most efficient way of coding this tab system? As of now, I'm thinking of using subtle non-scroll mini frames. That may limit the theming capability. Another way is javascript, which I'm a bit less familiar with.

I totally forgot the Home/Train buttons. I mean, its not like we need them, right? =P

Thats why I was unable to finish my entry Pixel. It would involve JS. However, I believe there are some CSS menu interfaces out there. Here are some examples for the curious:

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/tutorials/testMenu.html

http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/menus/demo.html

What I'm talking about is primarily a windows properties dialog box for these things. Also Pixel the interface you designed, you need to keep in mind the SIZE of the tabbed box cannot change, so it would be best to fill out each box as necessary (i.e. your community box would need to contain more 'community links')

I will make a mock up of the tab menu interface later on, I really wanted the CSS tabbed interface more then anything. :)

"If I have to go without modern mono I'll be hurting..."

Seconded! ;)

Would it have to be the same? I'm sure there are ways around it ;)

the essence should be the same, a simple plain interface with a default grey theme so as to not be at all interesting to look at as your eyes pass across the persons screen. I would say you could tone it down a bit even, less black in the left hand side.

In an aside, the first coder to commit something that makes any use of a properly spelled handle in forums or cm into a link to that persons user page will be my hero forever.

hey Jon & Pixel....

not sure if this would be done through the interface, or through Jon's side of the program....

Is there a way we could add edit fightlist functionality through the 24hr battle summary page? Not sure how difficult it would be to implement, but it would be extremly helpful, I think, to be able to check a box next to characters names on the 24 hour battle summary and add them back into your current fightlist.

I find myself toggleing back and forth between the two pages many times throughout the day to keep my fightlist full of 3 point clan members, whom I have a 100% win percentage with, and I assume I am not the only one doing this. Obviously this feature would only be available to supporters.

VP, I think that would be Jon's job, since I would have no clue how to do that. That is, if he's even willing to do so, haha.

I'm thinking of trying the sidebar tabs with PHP! Or another option, I think there's a pretty useful function in java I can use to change the content of a div.

velvetpickle, have you tried my script? It actually already HAS that functionality and more.

You could definitely code the sidebar tabs with Java, but considering the trouble people have with the Java chat, that probably wouldn't be a good idea...

You guys, what the hell? Code the sidebar with Java? PHP? Do you guys understand the basic principles of websites? Come on! :)

Those things are simple Javascript doohickies. In a couple minutes I'll see if I can post my "tabular" menu set thingy.

Here is something almost exactly what I want: http://www.defhoboz.biz/tabtest.html

(might need to tweak it for IE vs FF looks, since the IE one has spaces vs the FF not having spaces below tab buttons.)

Oops, I meant javascript, haha. Verifex, that's looking spiffy.

Something like this

Sorry for the triple post and to post so soon after my last one... if only I could edit my posts. I found an excellent tab script I can just mooch off this site. Will work perfectly =D. It depends, either this or what Verifex already has will probably work. I'll see if I can implement this into the sidebar.

That script is great, uses images which is cool. I could put images in mine if you want. Actually I like mine a little better simply because it is less code.. :)

You could do all this w/out any javascript or DHTML, using just CSS positioning. No?

The good thing about CSS is you could make the theme 'engine' by just setting out the general layout. Themers can just alter the CSS, the end result being highly customizable themes.

I like idea of just pure CSS and HTML, a lot of potential in terms of theming.

That said, I don't know much about Javascript/DHTML. But I hated the fact we couldn't change the colour/look of the 'hover' menus in the current engine. :)

I suppose you could make a menu in pure CSS, but it would be difficult, look at the CSS for this page for example: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/tutorials/testMenu.html

I'll check into this more in depth later. Whatever the solution, I know we'll have one. It just a matter of picking which one to use =D