JavaGameDev: Daily News

General Discussions
#1

I was wondering, whether the Java Game Dev Community, is big enough for Daily news?

I mean, if there was one blog/news system where most news are posted, would these be on a daily basis? Like blendernation.com for example.

The news could be about releases of Libraries (LWGL, jOGL/jOAL/jInput, jME, Xith, Slick, FengGUI, …), games (Java4K, mobile games or those like TT…) and all other related stuff.

IMHO, such a site would be really nice, what do you think? Or is there even s.th. liek that around, about which I don’t know anything?

#2

I think focussing on devs might narrow your target-audience way too much. The target should be propaganda for Java, something that javagamesfactory.org had the potential to become.

It would be good to have a website with headlines, news, articles, dev-stories, showcase, ect. supplied by the (java) indie-community, targeted at both the gamers and the indies. To make the gamers feel they can make new games too, and make the indies browse around the hacks other indies published.

#3

Ye thats pretty much what the site will be about.

It will be Drupal based with a custom from-scratch theme. Here is some sorta old screenshot, which shows the basic block formatting and the color scheme (I was pretty bored of blue-ish sites… so orange/gray it is). Fixed width centered layout, no horizontal scrollbar in 1024x768 and above, primary content column completely visible in 800x600 (w/o scrolling), css driven and the other default bells n whistles.

I actually wanted to add some more new things before I post here, because the #lwjgl guys know that screenies already. Heh. Well, I had a bit too much fun with NSIS and now I’m way too tired. :stuck_out_tongue:

So… now you know. There goes the nice the surprise.

#4

Yeah, it would be good to see something happen that picks up where JGF was heading. I just still can’t find the time to get JGF back on the road - too much work.

#5

yeah, I mean why not target users and devs. positive propaganda and make a bit more professional/organized look is definitely what it should aimed for.

“headlines, news, articles, dev-stories, showcase, …” sounds all great (though most like dev stuff :)) - I was mentioning news only, because this can be done almost without any effort and easily extended later on. many tend to want it all, I would be glad to have something (good) but now/soon ::).

Anyway, most important things are a great looking site (I could spend some time in making a logo, images and a theme, if there is interest?) and regularly (daily for headlines/news) updates. Also, It should be avoided to put too much effort at managing/creating the site. Using an existing CMS like Drupal could be a solution, if it doesn’t end up with more work. Other features (IIRC jgf created webstart files automaticly) are for sure a nice ideas/features, but nothing to work on until one has a well running system…

#6

This is a good plan

Two suggestions:

  1. whatever you do, make sure its running on j2ee. That way, I can hand over the clever bits of JGF and they will Just Work. Having a major java site that doesn’t run on J2ee, given how its basically the worlds best (approximately equal with c#/.NET) web framework, seems … silly.

  2. if you want to pick up the pieces of JGF, you could take it over right now if you like. I’d like to help someone else make this (kind of) thing work, and would be happy to backup whats on there, take it all down, and replace it with a simple j2ee container and whatever you like in terms of standard apps (CMS’s, forums, etc), and linux user accounts as needed. Having someone else run it would also free up enough of my time that I’d be able to concentrate on taking each of the useful j2ee apps (like the JNLP generator), spruce them up, and plug them in to whatever main site you were building. I expect you probably just want to start afresh, but on the off chance you don’t, the offer is there.

#7

My quick and dirty smashup

The PHP*-backend calculates all the positions, so it’s pretty reusable.

This layout (newspaper style) is designed for the frontpage only.

* I never worked with J2EE

#8

actually I think game dev site targeted at developers would work. If you take the compotions, releases of api’s, darkstar news, level up, chris and others around here blogs, papers tourials submittions I think you should well be able to stick something on there adleast once a week. else you can always cheat a bit with hey I stumbled upon this discussion at the JGForums.

I am freeing up time at the moment, quited one job, tieing up loose ends now and other project has a deathline (a real ‘death’-line as failure in this fase will kill the whole project) but after that I should be able to lend a hand.

#9

I’m very glad to see all the reponse and motivation :slight_smile:

I agree that J2EE would be the best as its promotion for java (though in a different area) and we can integrate pure Java algorithms (like ws generation?) easily. On the other side php is probably ideal for a jump start and I don’t think both are mutual exclusive, e.g. headlines/articles could be php, some J2EE webapplciations and even other deceentralized things such as blogger for news… as long as the design is equal to all.

Riven’s ‘quick & dirty smashup’ is a great start! I’ll design s.th. like this in the next days too. Maybe some other designs will be posted and we can discuss each pros and talk a bit about them and also the inital content categories…

#10

I think J2EE is severe overkill, and PHP fits the bill quite nicely. As long as we don’t have 10 hits per second, over an extended period of time, PHP+MySQL should be up to the task.

Another argument would be the hosting-costs, which are a lot higher for J2EE enabled servers…

Maybe it is because I have a natural tendency to avoid everything bloated... Maybe it is because I just learnt PHP a few weeks ago and I love the simplicity...

Last but not least, zero, thanks for the nice words, but why would you design something like this, when it’s already there? I somehow have the feeling oNyx, zero and I are all trying to launch our own thingy :slight_smile:

#11

I’ll throw my .02 in here. What about assisting in building on the Javaunlimited.net site by Woogley?

-Chris

#12

If we want it to make it a propaganda-site, we have to take this into account:

"Java is slow" + "java****.com" -> less visitors

Much better to have a good site, appearantly looking all-round, until you see all/most tutorials and articles are for Java.

My $0.02 :-\

#13

Might be worth waiting to see what Onyx has, he’s been working on it quite some time as I understand.

However, ChrisM point well taken, the important thing is to all get behind a single solution.

Kev

#14

i wouldn’t mind the collaboration, as I wrote the CMS 2 years ago anyway. a news section can be created with a click of a button. all I really need to do is create a comment system (which isn’t hard, I made one for the mario contest this past summer with RSS and everything)

if you’re are willing to submit news headlines, i can prepare a news section asap.

#15

yeah, building on top of javaunlimeted would definitly be an option. I especially like the idea, because it’s already there and known!

however, I think the site’s design is a bit too Java4k / Classic Games style. Don’t get me wrong, it fits well to the current content and this type should be part of the java games propaganda as well, but IMHO it should not look like its dedicated to it.

I think lots of sites would be a bad thing, because I don’t want to check them all myself. :wink:
I’d love to have only one site, but on the other hand I’m not sure whether this works with one creating it. I mean the single developer must know the visitors’ and potential controbutors’ wishes in case of design + content (categories) + features… If visitors don’t like the site they won’t come back, and without contributors the site (like javagamesfactory unfortunately) may not be upgraded/updated due to a lack of time of the single developer.

Without think much, two approaches are floating in my mind:

  1. Each one who likes creates a design and/or porpose content categories / features and we hopefully have a healthy discussion and finally agree on that or find suitable compromisses.

  2. Everyone creates a own site and time and user experience shows off the individual strengths and weaknesses. Ideally the these would murch into one/fewer after some time. (the tiimefactor point may be a good reason again).

#16

design for the 4K contests is very 4K-oriented, yes :wink:

but the site was overhauled some time ago, not yet released. i think there is a thread here with a logo or something i posted.

i was planning to release it before the 4K contest, but decided not to, but in the wake of this thread, i might just go ahead and do it.