405th Community Software Update!

[Chernobyl]

Art Andrews I could do with that Archive link and some help with the format for the new Resources page. I don't seem to have any control currently on how to manage categories or do administrative work with it, so some help would be very much appreciated. Otherwise, the site looks a lot better with the new width.

 

[Art Andrews]

For mentions, just type and @ and then start typing the persons name and a list of names should come up as you type.

 

[Art Andrews]

Adjusted secondary content link color (previously light grey) to a more legible grey.

 

[ODST Stryder]

Can you be more specific? We have made some MASSIVE changes to the how images are handled here on the site and I am very excited about it, but, sadly, there are almost 20,000 externally linked images that members have posted over the years that are no longer valid. This is not an issue from the migration, but simply the long-time issue of external links becoming invalid. Not a lot we can do about that retroactively, but we have you covered for the future.

Sorry, Art Andrews. I'll retract my statement on image URLs not working on old posts. The post I was referring to was my ODST Dutch build. The images I used were uploaded through the site. Minor thing, no real biggie.

 

[Crimmson]

Crimmson the mobile issue should be addressed and the page should automatically resize for mobile appropriately now. While I was at it, we increased the max width to 80% which should give the content a bit more room on desktops.

Art Andrews thank you thank you, man that was quick. I literally live on my phone due to me working out town. I dont post as often as i visit, but i run amok here when ever possible.

 

[Mesh]

Personally, I liked the look of the old site better. It was much softer. The front page now looks too, round? If that makes sense, it looks too simple. I much prefer the more, basic - here's what there is as opposed to the look at the fancy message symbol next to this forum.

Also what's the deal with 'Grunt' and stuff?

On the flipside, None of my images in my thread were removed, and navigating through images on a thread is awesome!

 

[Art Andrews]

Personally, I liked the look of the old site better. It was much softer. The front page now looks too, round? If that makes sense, it looks too simple. I much prefer the more, basic - here's what there is as opposed to the look at the fancy message symbol next to this forum.

There may come a point where we add some minor visual enhancements, but for about 5 years now, "flat design" has reigned supreme (Microsoft, Google, and Apple use it extensively) largely due to having to support many platforms, ie mobile. One of the BIG pushes for us in making this move was to create a fluid site that worked with mobile WITHOUT forcing you to use a third party app. In the past, to use this site on a phone, you pretty much HAD to use tapatalk and we didn't want that. Now the site natively rearranges itself to fit your device. With that, we are forced to a more simple approach, which I actually appreciate because it feels less cluttered. Whether you like flat design or not is simply a matter of personal taste, but as far as its usefulness in providing greater flexibility in supporting mobile, there is no question.

 

[Strider]

Long time coming for this update! Thanks Art Andrews!

I've found that the response time for threads/pages loading has become almost instant, with no hanging or causing issues for browsers. The added information regarding staff currently online, current members online being pushed up from the bottom of the webpage to the top, plus forum statistics helps us consume much more information than before! Great addition. The media tab is also an awesome addition - an always active galleria containing imagery from 405th members showing off their WIP, finished builds, and members at conventions. Brings a little bit more accessible content than the prior website.

As others have noted, the front page (as well as header/sides of the webpage) are quite simple/plain. If it's alright, I'd like to suggest a few ideas as to make it a little spiffier.

• Bring about a return to the header image (ala 405th-2015 website). However, another possible idea would be applying different images of 405th members.at conventions/featured builds. Additionally, if possible, to fill the blank space would be to use the background used for the rpf.com. Possibly recoloured to a nice shade of blue. Example is below.
  
  
  
  
  

• Change the title of the webpage from '
  '405th HALO Cosplay and Prop Maker Community', to
  '405th Infantry Division - Community Forum'
  The reasoning for this is to ensure that the description of the website fits the social media pages in use by the 405th, as well as the all CAPS title of Halo not being so jarring compared to the rest of the title.

• Edit the status bar to be similar to the former 405th-2015 website. Image linked below (however, changed due to new labels of website. Ie; File Archive becomes Resources, Members becomes Community, etc.) Additionally, the Regiments tab is no longer present, as are links to the social media pages of the 405th. Necessary information for those looking to become a part of 405th Regiments, and following our social media presence.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Another suggestion would be a full tutorial/writeup to explain all new features, that can be somehow pinned to the front page. There are a lot of new additions to the website, and not all of them are visible on the surface! The trophy system for an example.
  

That's about all I can think of right now. While I'm sure some of these ideas are already being worked on to be implemented, I'm sure minds are always open to further suggestions!

 

[Art Andrews]

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Let me address some of your concerns.

Header - I agree. The logo on a black background is not as impactful as the previous iteration, but here is the reason we (for now) have dropped the background image. Our previous design was a static width and the background image worked with the logo, sliding behind it smoothly. With the new site being a fluid design, a static background image isn't as easily workable (unless it was a simple repeating pattern, not an image) because of the infinite possibilities of width. We are looking into other solutions, but that is the reason there is no longer a background image. It was a technical decision due to the fluid design, not an aesthetic choice.

Page Title - This is another technical choice and is focused on drawing new members to the community. From a search standpoint, "405th Infantry Division - Community Forum" has no words of value for the typical HALO fan who is looking to build their own costume. No one would ever look up any of those words if they didn't already know who we were. However, people who are looking for the terms "Halo, Costume, Cosplay, Prop, and Maker." As this is the title of the site, Google and other search engines place a lot of weight on those words so we must make them count. With that being said, I do see that we made an error in the title as it should be "costume" instead of "cosplay." With regard to HALO being all in caps, Microsoft used to write it that way on all their pages, but I see that has changed, so I have changed that per your suggestion.

Navigation Menu - We are looking into this but have not found a solution we are happy with yet. I would like to see that back as well.

New Additions - We did give consideration to this, but felt, at least for now and until we have things finalized, that we wouldn't go into too much of it and instead would allow members to explore on their own. It might seem lazy, but my experience, allowing people to look on their own seems to be more productive than giving them an exhaustive list of mostly technical things that have changed. For the most part, the forum is still a forum (although it should be functioning much more smoothly now) and has all of the same characteristics that most forums do. If you have specific questions, I am happy to answer them (will get to trophies later).

Thanks again for the feedback. This is very helpful!

 

[FANGS]

I'll add as well that the old site is still there for you to read. At least it is for me. It won't be for much longer though as I said before so please if you need something from there you feel like is missing from here, tell us what it is specifically and grab what you need.

Any broken image links were broken BEFORE the migration. Not because of the migration. If they were broken before they are broken now. If you have a post that you use often and there are broken links, let us know and we'll see about contacting the original poster to get new images added. However, I'm guessing for the most part that they've been broken for a long time and the person is no longer around to fix them.

The trophies are a new way of showing member activity. They show all kinds of things beyond just post counts. The tags are associated with the post count and are as follows:

Recruit - 0
Grunt - 50
Drone - 100
Jackal - 200
Brute - 500
Hunter - 1000
Elite - 2000
Prophet - 5000

As for the narrowness of the screen this is to make it easier to view on mobile devices. My home 501st Garrison page switched to this about a year ago and I agree that at first it was a big difference. However, you do get use to it and I appreciate it being more mobile friendly.

The old format was really not working for us at all in a lot of ways and needed to be replaced. What I hope for you all to remember is that Art has put a ton of time and effort in trying to improve our home and Chernobyl will be putting in oodles of time in training to learn the new system with Art as well as getting the archive back up and running. Whether we did the archive first and then moved the forum or moved the forum and then the archive it changes nothing about the archive needing to be down for a time while we get this done properly. And as I've said, it's still up on the old site FOR THE TIME BEING so please go grab what you need asap.

 

[Reclaimara]

I've been thinkin... for those 'cloud' icons, would it be possible to change them to 405th logos?
I guess it's been off to me, weird seeing such generic icons so suddenly.

Also, as for the post counts and those 'ranks', would it be able to add rather UNSC ranks like Recruit, Marine, ODST, Spartan?
If it wouldn't be enough, you could do it similar to Waypoint, adding Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc.

Just a suggestion as I guess most here relate rather to the UNSC.

 

[Reclaimara]

It's very bright and disorienting, since it's more narrow, so harder to navigate and all... BUT, I guess it'll just take time for us to get used to.
Also, a solution to logging out - it redirected you to 'www.405th...', change the URL to '405th...' without the 'www'. It will stop.

 

[Art Andrews]

I've been thinkin... for those 'cloud' icons, would it be possible to change them to 405th logos?
I guess it's been off to me, weird seeing such generic icons so suddenly.

I believe we can do this. Just need to look into it a bit more.

Also, as for the post counts and those 'ranks', would it be able to add rather UNSC ranks like Recruit, Marine, ODST, Spartan?
If it wouldn't be enough, you could do it similar to Waypoint, adding Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc.

We initially had the ranks as USNC ranks but were concerned that it might create confusion with the ranks we have within the club. I am not familiar with Waypoints approach. Got a link?

 

[Reclaimara]

I believe we can do this. Just need to look into it a bit more.
We initially had the ranks as USNC ranks but were concerned that it might create confusion with the ranks we have within the club. I am not familiar with Waypoints approach. Got a link?

Oh, didn't think it could create confusion.
Each rank starts as Iron there. However, in multiplayer there are even more ranks like Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Onyx...

Recruit
Requirement: Starting Rank

Iron - Bronze - Silver - Gold - Onyx

Marine
Requirement: 100 Posts

Iron - Bronze - Silver - Gold - Onyx

ODST
Requirement: 1500 Posts

Iron - Bronze - Silver - Gold - Onyx


Spartan
Requirement: 6000 Posts

Iron - Bronze - Silver - Gold - Onyx


Here you have the link to the full guide of Waypoint ranks - https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/ranks

 

[Cadet]

Mara, the thought was that it might create confusion to give someone the title of "Marine," "ODST," or "SPARTAN" if that was not their costume. Someone might think those titles were related to what costume they were making and not an arbitary forum reward rank. Covenant races were decided on because they demonstrate an already familiar hierarchy system to Halo fans, as well as the fact that while the vast majority of members do UNSC related costumes, all Halo costumes are welcome here, including Covenant ones, and this seemed a fun way to acknowledge that sector of the Halo universe That does not get as much "love" around here.

 

[Art Andrews]

There were some questions asked in THIS thread that I wanted to address:

Is this move temporary or permanent?
This is a permanent migration to an entirely new software platform. It is a HUGE move and took a lot of effort. Why did we make the move? The software we were using has simply become outdated and the company supporting that software isn't keeping up with modern technology so we have moved to a company/software that does.

I feel like the old site worked better.
It didn't. We were all used to it and comfortable with it because it had been in place for years, but on many levels it worked very poorly. Now... everyone's perception will be different and we can't make you LIKE the new approach better, but again, from a standpoint of infrastructure and usability, this is a far better foundation than what we had before.

Why fix something that isn't broken?
It was broken. You might not have felt that way, but again, it was actually VERY broken and as technology continues to march forward, the cracks were showing more and more.

Did the site change ownership/management?
No.

Why the color change?
For the most-part, this is the default color pallet for the new software. It has been deemed the most legible on multiple platforms and the least fatiguing on the eyes. It does FEEL like a strong contrast from where we were, but that is more an artifact of the change itself than a downgrade. Again, aesthetically, everyone's opinion will vary, but from a technical standpoint, this is a superior choice.

Was this change made for the sake of change?
No. We never change things JUST to change them. We have neither the time or manpower for that kind of thing. This change primarily centered around what I have already written above. We were running on VERY outdated and clunky software that did not work well across multiple platforms. We want you to easily be able to access the 405th whether you are at your desktop, on your pad, or on your phone, and now you can.

Will graphically based regiment badges be back?
I don't know, but it is doubtful.

On a final note, I will remind all of you (and the posts are still here to prove it) that when we implemented the last the design, the one everyone is now claiming to love, everyone HATED it and thought it was the end of the world. Change is uncomfortable, but is often needed. This was needed and we will continue to work to make it better, so please be patient with us and give things a bit of time. We have had some great suggestions already and are implementing them when appropriate for the overall direction of the community.

 

[Reclaimara]

Mara, the thought was that it might create confusion to give someone the title of "Marine," "ODST," or "SPARTAN" if that was not their costume. Someone might think those titles were related to what costume they were making and not an arbitary forum reward rank. Covenant races were decided on because they demonstrate an already familiar hierarchy system to Halo fans, as well as the fact that while the vast majority of members do UNSC related costumes, all Halo costumes are welcome here, including Covenant ones, and this seemed a fun way to acknowledge that sector of the Halo universe That does not get as much "love" around here.

Maybe then we could get some Covenant ranks? :O
Like, Shipmaster, Arbiter, Minor, Ultra, Chieftain?

I have nothing against current ranks, they are nice! Just thought we could expand the idea.

 

[Cadet]

The current Forum Rank system is set up for 8 "ranks." With one set aside for Recruit, that left seven, the same number as the primary Covenant Races, excluding Engineers. It seemed like a good fit, and almost serendipitous to use them. The idea of Covenant ranks was considered, but since the Covenant Races fit so well with the current rank system set up they were decided on.

 

[mblackwell1002]

In terms of the header: could we have something that cycles images, say, every minute or so?
I think that for newcomers who are interested in Halo costuming, it would provide inspiration, and show them the amazing things that we can help them create.

also, could we do a 'featured member' every month or so, that would appear in the header?
such as: (this is just an example, I just made an example really quickly)

Of course, this would not actually be what it looks like, but you know what I mean.

 

[Art Andrews]

Again, the issue with the header is a matter of it being able to expand and contract with the fluid design. I am not saying it can't happen, but it is going to be tough to be consistant.

With regard to a featured member... I know several people have asked about this or something like this. We have tried that before with other communities and while it seems like a great idea on the surface, our experience has been that it is a great way to cause more hurt feelings than good will. Again, not saying "no" but it is unlikely.

In terms of the header: could we have something that cycles images, say, every minute or so?
I think that for newcomers who are interested in Halo costuming, it would provide inspiration, and show them the amazing things that we can help them create.

also, could we do a 'featured member' every month or so, that would appear in the header?
such as: (this is just an example, I just made an example really quickly)
View attachment 237775

Of course, this would not actually be what it looks like, but you know what I mean.