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.
Really Simple Syndication. Allows for the journal updates and other things to be read from something like reader.google.com or another RSS reader... Makes it easy to keep up with lots of different sites essentially at the same time.
the gray! i like the idea about calculators too, like BMI, maybe another one where you input macros (C, F, P) in grams and it spits out a total for you. not like its that difficult to do IRL. LOL but it'd be nice to have it all in one place.
The more I look at it, the less I like the white frame boxes around each area. I think less defined areas looks cleaner and a bit more modern. If you are going to keep the boxes, maybe round the corners? Or maybe a bit less contrast between the white and gray, maybe two close gray tones? Or I've even seen thin vertical lines only on one side adjacent to the text with the text justified to the lines. Still thinking.
Early redesign critique: I like the look of the redesign and agree the current one, while great, is due for a facelift (and hopefully to become more iPhone aware), but my very impression of the new site was it looked too much like other forums. That is good in one way, as it is easier for newbies to navigate around, but I don't know, it seems to have lost some of the 'JSF'ness' But I'm sure I'd get used to it! I like the current color schemes (the 'old ones'), and like you say you still haven't settled on any of that stuff. (I did read the list of things you haven't worked on yet, really)
Great idea for renewing the trainning area, i always wanted to see your success comments on each phase of trainning, so i would go to the news archive and look for the date where you ended certain phase and read.
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!
Are you going to require various levels of paid support for incremental tiers of value added features? I know I would.
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.
The new shots look great. Really looking forward to this From what I've heard of this so far it sounds awesome. It sounds like an online repository of a persons entire fitness program. Their exercise program, what they eat, a way to document their previous success/trials? oh and a gravatar huh?
*Love* your design of the photogallery. You absolutely nailed that one /edit: But does it use flash i.e. will not work with iPhone? Don't ignore that platform
From the looks of it, he is probably using the lightbox framework, which is all JavaScript. You can do lots of cool flash-like things in the browser without plugins with JavaScript.
What a lot of websites do is specify one version of the site for mobile devices, such as the iPhone, and a second version for standard web users.
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'd make the MY TRANSFORMATION text in the You are here: breadcrumb section lowercase. text-transform: uppercase; is probably on the css class. And I would probably try the blue John Sto on the right hand side text in white and gold. Just my 2p mate, good luck John.
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.