*new* xith.org site redesign

Engines, Libraries and Tools Xith3D Forums
#1

Announcing the all new, much sleeker and twice as shiny as before: xith.org

The site uses the excellent TikiWiki Wiki/CMS PHP software. This software provides so many features I had to turn most of them off. Ones relevant to us are the wiki which the site will mainly use, an article and image gallery section (which I may setup later) and an FAQ system.

It uses templating thankfully (so I retain my sanity when I upgrade it in the future…) - and I have made many modifications to remove some of the confusion and bulk that you get with the default design. I hope you like the styling :slight_smile:

The great news is that now it is possible for anyone to edit the site (if they have the relevant permissions). So Java Cool Dude can update his demos :wink: The front pages (Intro, Demos, Docs, Download, Credits, Links etc) will only be editable by a few people. The remainder (of particular note the installation docs) I will allow registered users to edit (of course we can undo any changes we don’t like…). People can also recommend FAQ questions and answers which is a cool feature. Any registered user who wants a page in the Wiki however can make one and they have full control over it. For example if you want a place to list your demos - then xith.org can be that place.

users.xith.org will continue to house independent xith related pages.

If you want to compare the old site - visit http://xith.org/old/ for a limited time only :wink:

Cheers,

Will.

#2

It looks quite nice. :smiley:

#3

nice nice nice :slight_smile:

#4

Lookin good :slight_smile:

Couple of things that I noticed real quick.

Kevs name is still spelled wrong on the credits page, I think I told someone about that a long time ago. It’s currently “Keven Glass”, should be “Kevin Glass”.

The Source Page doesnt include the header, or any header at all. Maybe at the min have a similar looking header with a back button or something.

On the FAQ, Question 1, “is this cool” the answer is “A: yes1” which is totally not cool! I assumed it should be “yes!”

Maybe there should be a a seperate section for “articles” or subsections under docs. When I think of docs I think of reference docs. API’s, and such. Maybe this is just me. But perhaps a breakdown of the docs by category would help clean it up. Especially if we get more documentation (hopefully !!!)

Looking good otherwise :slight_smile:

#5

thanks for the comments.

hehehe sorry about the FAQ thing - there’s actually a bug with tiki (or just my install) - I can’t remove or edit questions, and that was my testing one :slight_smile:

I agree with you on the articles point - in fact that feature is currently hidden. Articles are different from the wiki - they don’t have the wiki features such as anyone can edit them, changes can be viewed etc - they are owned by the submitter (site “Editors” have to approve submittions and can edit them).

I’ve corrected Kev’s name too, thanks (just a quick edit of the wiki page, no ftp/scp needed ;D).

I’ll get around to adding a header to the source page too.

The site is only young - there’s more work to be done like expanding the FAQ - wikianising the Demo and Installation tute pages etc. Please sign up for an account and recommend FAQ questions and answers. If you want to create a new Wiki page - just go to the URL http://xith.org/tiki-index.php?page=YourNewPage where YourNewPage is the name of your page - then click “create page”.

Does anyone want to lend a hand with the converting of the old site? I did most of it yesterday but one or two pages remain. First on the agenda is this page: http://xith.org/tiki-index.php?page=Installing

Cheers,

Will.

#6

[quote]Announcing the all new, much sleeker and twice as shiny as before: xith.org
[/quote]
As soon as the links have settled down, could you mail me the new ones? Or are you planning to update / fix all the old URL’s so that they point to their new location (which would be a very good idea since then Google links and bookmarks would continue to work).

I didnt’ look too carefully (on a text-only browser right now!) but it’s seems that URL’s do not point to the new site but to the old?

#7

thanks for reminding me, it was quite late when I released the new look - I do intend to redirect the old links to the new ones. I’ll do that very soon.

Will.

#8

the old links should work again now - please tell me if you see any errors.

Cheers,

Will.

#9

[quote]Does anyone want to lend a hand with the converting of the old site? I did most of it yesterday but one or two pages remain. First on the agenda is this page: http://xith.org/tiki-index.php?page=Installing
[/quote]
I did the conversion (quite some work), but the links are not working yet.

#10

Jens,

great stuff, thank you very much!

Will.

#11

I’ve fixed up the FAQ system.

If anyone has some questions to contribute - please login and add them as a suggested FAQ. In time, myself or the other editors will get around to reviewing it and then moving it to the main FAQ page.

Anything is ok as a question - if you see someone ask something, feel free to add the answers.

And feel free to start writing wiki pages to - don’t worry too much, changes can always be undone.

Will.

#12

The new site looks excellent :smiley:

I was trying to download David’s user interface examples, but I keep getting a Forbidden error : “You don’t have permission to access /download/extras/xith3d-gui-demo.zip on this server.”

Any chance of sorting this out as I would really like to have a look at the demos…

Keep up the great work!

#13

try again now.

That demo is not new by the way - I just finally uploaded it to xith.org :slight_smile:

However, it is a very good demo, and worth a look.

Cheers,

Will.