JSF Main site redesign and other new features

Thanks for the positive comments everyone! I think it's going to turn out pretty nice.

There is no estimated completion date at this time. I am working on it during practically every spare moment I have available. If I had to take a guess, I'd say 1-2 months (but don't hold me to that).

Mick, you can read up on RSS here.

 

I agree, it looks terrible. But....

I welcome any and all suggestions.

 

I've been struggling with an image gallery problem for a few days now, and this frustrating issue has been in the back of my mind the entire time I've been working on other tasks.

This evening while I was working on another area of the site a possible solution hit me like a bolt of lightning. My idea worked, and the problem has been solved!

So, I thought I'd celebrate with a couple new screen shots!

In this first screenshot you can see how a basic photo gallery will look (in this case, it's my 2009 misc photos). Mousing over a thumbnail will highlight the entire image (this is done with a cool gamma trick) and will also show you the date the photo was taken and a brief description.

Also in this shot you can see some additional design elements and features. For example, you can see the breadcrumb trail just below the sub-nav bar ("You are here:"), the new "jsf logo" article heading graphic and you can see the top of the new comments section ("Speak your mind"). Also visible is the "share/save" feature: mousing over this section opens up a menu that will give you the ability to share that particular page over literally dozens and dozens of social networking sites, email it to your friends and/or simply bookmark it.





This next shot shows how things look when you click on a thumbnail image: the entire background goes semi-dark and the desired image is expanded to full size. The date the photo was taken along with a caption is shown. At the very bottom of the screen you'll find a simple set of navigation icons that allow you to move around the gallery (or you can close the expanded image and return to the thumbnail view by clicking anywhere on the image or the red "x" in the navigation menu).




I hope these new screenshots help add some dimension and texture to the front page screenshot I posted a couple days ago. I will continue to post screenshots as I progress with development.

Man, this is a huge project!

 

While membership upgrades are vital to the survival of JSF (and very much appreciated), they are optional: the new JSF web site will continue to be 100% free of charge to all members and visitors.

The only new feature that will require payment is the JSF BodyShop (currently under development).

Although the JSF BodyShop will be run on my servers and administered by JSF, it is an entirely new business venture. BodyShop is a highly unique and an extremely ambitious project. The development costs are proving to be very high, but the per-user costs will be extremely low. It's important to note that BodyShop membership will be tied to JSF forum accounts (although other subscription options will likely be added).

The pricing for BodyShop has not been finalized, but I can say without a doubt that all existing Platinum and Lifetime Platinum members will have full access to BodyShop (in addition to all JSF Forum VIP benefits) at no additional charge for the life of their subscriptions.

 

What I'm using is similar to Lightbox, but it's leaner (less than 10KB) and doesn't require any external libraries. Even if someone has JS disabled the links will still work, just without the fancy effects.

 

I've not worked on much styling below the navbar yet. The breadcrumb is actually just reading the navigation bar text (which is in upper case), but I'm going to force that to either all upper or all lower case when I start polishing.