Playing around with a design

[Dazzla Veteran]

Man those tabs are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sweet!

Agree about the icons though, something more longhorn-esque would suit it perfectly! And I hate to say it, but the neowin logo looks really dated next to that, a nice fresh version to match the black would be sweet! Here's a couple of different icons, just pulled out of longhorn which might look cool.

[configure Veteran]

The Tab structure should be IMO a Dynamic Flash Applet. That way the user can click on a tab and it'll to the right and letting the topics appear.

Agreed

[Rahul]

wow this looks sooo sweet , amazing stuff man !!!

[Chadwick]

Agreed

ok, and what about non flash users? are htey just forced to not be able to see these headlines?

Tab's are a good idea, but not for this site.

Does anyone else see the complete lack of flow in this design, nothing goes together, you are mixing colors that dont mix and trying to do many things that dont coincide.

If you redo hte top to be dark, the logo now has to flow with that, as does hte rest of hte page in terms of colors used.

[shockz]

ok, and what about non flash users? are htey just forced to not be able to see these headlines?

Tab's are a good idea, but not for this site.

Who doesn't have flash installed anyways?

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

Lots of people, in which case you have a fallback for those people. I actually installed Flash Pro MX 2004 last night, so if I have some free time I'll see if I can mock something up.

[Steven]

Tim this is what i'm trying to describe for the flash the tab's should slide left and right revealing or hiding the topics.

[Zetter]

According to macromedia 98% of internet have flash installed BUT when you look at the latest version it drops down to 50-60% (my collage hasn't got it which makes playing games in lessons very difficuilt :pinch: ) It would be important to make it backwards compatible or have the ability to show some html alternative.

And much more importantly flash can have some swishy transition animations when each tab is selected :D

and Dazzla, I agree that longhorn icons are they way to go if we can find enough of them...

[Dazzla Veteran]

Tim this is what i'm trying to describe for the flash the tab's should slide left and right revealing or hiding the topics.

Ah yeah, I like that concept, click it and the superfluous segments move to the outside (left or right) to reveal the headlines of the point you picked. Sweeeeeeeeet concept!

[Storm]

WOO FOR NEOWIN V4

[Chadwick]

If your gonna go longhorn style, do it right :)

The current page will be displayed under neowin.net, the nav might as well be flash so you can get smooth mouseovers and easily change with icons are visible (if you are on software news, it will be displayed under neowin.net and not be one of hte visible icons).

meh i like it better like this, but i cant speak for you guys.

[.will]

http://www.chadrichard.net/other/neowin.jpg

If your gonna go longhorn style, do it right :)

The current page will be displayed under neowin.net, the nav might as well be flash so you can get smooth mouseovers and easily change with icons are visible (if you are on software news, it will be displayed under neowin.net and not be one of hte visible icons).

meh i like it better like this, but i cant speak for you guys.

omfg :omg:. that is ****ing amazing!!!!!!

[.will]

Man those tabs are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sweet!

Agree about the icons though, something more longhorn-esque would suit it perfectly! And I hate to say it, but the neowin logo looks really dated next to that, a nice fresh version to match the black would be sweet! Here's a couple of different icons, just pulled out of longhorn which might look cool.

i like all the icons, except the gaming one :(

psp :cry:

[Dazzla Veteran]

http://www.chadrichard.net/other/neowin.jpg

If your gonna go longhorn style, do it right :)

The current page will be displayed under neowin.net, the nav might as well be flash so you can get smooth mouseovers and easily change with icons are visible (if you are on software news, it will be displayed under neowin.net and not be one of hte visible icons).

meh i like it better like this, but i cant speak for you guys.

Now that neowin logo fits in a lot better. A nice funky fesh one would be cool as well though :cool:

[Chadwick]

whatever u think, i dont think the logo part flows exactly, but i like the overall look of that layout, and having hte name/page to hte right, it deffinantly needs a better flowing logo though :)

[Dazzla Veteran]

it deffinantly needs a better flowing logo though :)

Yup, without a doubt :yes:

[matt74441]

http://www.chadrichard.net/other/neowin.jpg

If your gonna go longhorn style, do it right :)

The current page will be displayed under neowin.net, the nav might as well be flash so you can get smooth mouseovers and easily change with icons are visible (if you are on software news, it will be displayed under neowin.net and not be one of hte visible icons).

meh i like it better like this, but i cant speak for you guys.

Now thats nice. Although I don't think the font you chose really fits. I know its the Longhorn font, but I really don't think it works.

[Chadwick]

you also have room to do a non-tab version. And if you wanted to go with flash, the "my menu" could be drawer style ;)

if hte N was italisized alone it would flow better because than it would "point" toward hte name neowin.net and than to hte nav, which is what you want, right now its a distraction.

[Toxicfume Veteran]

Tim this is what i'm trying to describe for the flash the tab's should slide left and right revealing or hiding the topics.

I personally don't prefer that style. A better way IMO would be to have the tabs remain at the same place, and as you click on one..only let the content part (which shows the latest newsposts) be changed. This way it's more convenient to click different tabs.

Like I said earlier, we want to cater to people who are new visitors/not as experienced as us forum people/etc to be able to use the site conveniently too, and tabs may not be as obvious to some as opposed to the rest of us. That's the only reason I'm not as much for tabs.

And I'm not particularly for Flash either, but I really don't mind it.

[sys32]

http://www.chadrichard.net/other/neowin.jpg

If your gonna go longhorn style, do it right :)

The current page will be displayed under neowin.net, the nav might as well be flash so you can get smooth mouseovers and easily change with icons are visible (if you are on software news, it will be displayed under neowin.net and not be one of hte visible icons).

meh i like it better like this, but i cant speak for you guys.

You've definitely got the right idea. I also agree with you that the nav bar might as well be flash. Check out rr.com. Those are the types of subtle effects we should be using.

[John Veteran]

I like this a lot, but I would have to insist on a button at the top for the forums. You have the homepage (main news), software news, gaming news, articles, and the file database, but NO FORUMS?!?!? :wacko:

Also, I'm not sure what I think about the tabs underneath those buttons yet. I like the idea, but I don't like being able to see only one section at a time... And why would we need to use flash for the tabs? Couldn't we use collapsable DIVs? When the user clicks a tab, just hide all the other DIVs and show the one he/she clicked on (Y)

[sys32]

I like this a lot, but I would have to insist on a button at the top for the forums. You have the homepage (main news), software news, gaming news, articles, and the file database, but NO FORUMS?!?!? :wacko:

Also, I'm not sure what I think about the tabs underneath those buttons yet. I like the idea, but I don't like being able to see only one section at a time... And why would we need to use flash for the tabs? Couldn't we use collapsable DIVs? When the user clicks a tab, just hide all the other DIVs and show the one he/she clicked on (Y)

The whole idea behind using Flash is that the news feeds would be delivered in real time. You wouldn't have to refresh your browser. I do some Flash scripting and would be willing to help out in this area if needed. I'll put together a little demo of what I think this Flash thing should look like when I get home later on tonight.

[Frank]

I don't know if flash would be the best thing. Flash makes some cool effects, but I would rather have it load fast, and be all code.

[sys32]

I don't know if flash would be the best thing. Flash makes some cool effects, but I would rather have it load fast, and be all code.

Well depending on what kinds of optimizations that could be made, Flash would be just as fast, if not faster than a purely PHP-driven site. When you create a Flash-driven application, there is a lot of code to be written, the only difference is, it is not editable unless you have access to the .fla file. What would be the benefits of having Neowin 4.0 made purely of "code" anyway?

I think that we should implement some Flash technology into Neowin. This version change could be a milestone. Not only would Neowin receive a facelift, but it would also get some new technologies as well.

[matt74441]

Doing it all in code would probably be a lot more effecient and easier on bandwidth.