OK thanks, Etherlord -

I could see your article you posted. But only by clicking on the link you posted in the forum. This is something I need to improve. I just came up with a thought on a feed for all posts by guild members. That could be fun! Oh, and really. I can give guild members access to post to our news section as well.

If it weren't for Darth Benbow I wouldn't have known about the link that allowed access...(not that it was any fault but my own; I am not as computer-savvy as many of those here). Nevertheless, I am sure that there are more like myself, and in case you didn't see it, Lord Elrond, I had suggested making the guilds viewable by all, but only members could post in it. I would actually like to modify the thought - in certain guilds, such as the Craftsmen's guild, if there were two methods to post and view. I apologize - I don't know the technical terms, and I don't know if what I am thinking is even possible, but here goes: I was thinking something along the lines where members of the guild could post pictures of their handiwork. These pics would be viewable to the general Rivendellian community, and they would be able to admire and comment (much the same way you have set up for the music). However, any posts and discussion within the guild itself would be viewable and postable by guild members only. As I said, with my limited computer knowledge I don't know if this is possible or if I am asking for the moon, but I would be curious as to your thoughts and input. I am just always astounded when I come here to see on the home page that there are hundreds listening, but yet only 2 or three members online (membership is FREE, people!) I'm just trying to find a way to engage not only Rivendellians who love the music, but also create a venue with which to draw others who love the lifestyle (Ren Faires, larp, sca etc.)

Updated 5 April 2015 (00:25)

I think that what you want is a Gallery of photos where the guilds members can comment.

Updated 5 April 2015 (13:54)

Great ideas Zexetor! When I get the most of the things in order for the next update I'll start the work with the better guild functionality!

Thank you, Lord Elrond! I am always trying to think of ways to get people more involved in our community here - sometimes it's like pulling teeth (but I know I'm preaching to the choir...) And no, Quest - i am thinking that the Guild members can communicate in-guild, but the general population would be able to see our handiwork and admire, comment, and make inquiry. My ultimate thought would be to perhaps be able to sell some of our creations, and have a portion of the price going towards helping Lord Elrond keep Rivendell running - just a thought.

Hi Zexetor, I was wrong in what I wrote, not the guild members can comment but the "general population" can comment on the pictures. I agree with you that Radio Rivendell needs also something visual to atract more people (I don't mean here the graphics of the website wich are great). I mean a picture gallery for example, like you suggested. Another example, to have something like picture of the day (3...10 pictures of the day or 10 pictures of the week). The pictures have to be from different authors so that also more people will get involved from the ilustrators side. I am pretty sure that there are many guys that want to put their pictures here. These are my suggestions, please note that I am not an expert on this

Great suggestions! There should be some sort of showcase for the guilds. After all, it's about showing what can be done and make people interested in sharing ideas, buying and selling their craft, etc. Let's try and make something like this

Phew, I've been hard at work during the weekend with the next chapter of Radio Rivendell. It's coming along pretty nicely! What's been done and going on lately: - One great addition I've made is that when people like things (comments and forum posts) the author of the same will get XP reward as well - The whole site will be mobile and "pad" friendly (at last!) - Chat and community will be brought forward I will present more progress and some screen shots later on! Finally it feels as if I'm getting somewhere. I know I've been talking about an update for years now. But now it feels as if things are progressing at least

Can't wait to see what you are cooking... Some really good suggestions are gathered here, so the result will be great no doubt.

Maybe you could make some beta on subdomain for folks to test?

I think I should! I have a test site for my friends, but you guys are probably more eager and better testers I will look into it and do it! I can also use some orc minds and hands to try and root out bugs and security issues as well

Beta Testing! Sign me up!

Actually... we can just fire away. The beta is up and running already!

BIG DISCLAIMER:

* It's BETA, or actually ALPHA. I.e lots of bugs, plenty of missing functionality etc etc.

* It's currently not for the faint of heart

* It's not even getting close to being semi-finished

* Enter at your own risk!

Head over to: http://beta.radiorivendell.com/ to be scared senseless

Looking pretty awesome so far man! I'll test some stuff and let you know when I find anything crazy lol! Being able to comment on songs is a pretty good thing, I like that idea! I take it the radio isn't working just yet though?

Updated 1 June 2015 (20:32)

old forum will be archived ?

Posted by Vinnie johnsonold forum will be archived ?

Old forum will probably be merged, I would've thought...

Posted by ElrondHead over to: http://beta.radiorivendell.com/ to be scared senseless

There's not much there yet, so there's not much to test. We can see the layout, showing the main concept for the site – I'll comment on that.

At first, as always, when the layout is changed, I miss previous Radio Rivendell features. I miss the golden logo, but I also missed the cartoon logo. I'll probably need to take a week or so to give a mature review. however, as soon as on the second peek, I notice prettiness of the new logo: it's a simple use of an elegant typeface. It's like a promise, that Radio Rivendell is not just for listening, but also for reading. Further, unfortunately, the layout doesn't follow typography rules, but that's most probably because it's not polished yet.

Anyway, I think it makes some things wrong:

1. There are two horizontal bars, and some buttons have duplicated functionality,

I would just remove one. The topmost bar doesn't fit the layout very well, and if you change it's color to something subtle like the second bar, it won't bring visitors' attention, because it stacks with browser toolbars. So remove it and just design the menus for a single menubar.

2. The logo takes a lot of space, and it's function is useless.

Whoever comes to Radio Rivendell, either clicks a link or types an URL, so if you know how you've came here, you know where you are! On the other hand, I think there's some magic to the big logo on a webpage. If it was a site designed for reading, then by all means the logo shouldn't take so much space. But it's an artistic site, so some compromises should be made. In fact, you already made the first compromise – changed colorful, intense picture into a very simple, subtle, white Title – it works great. Another compromise I propose is to only show the title on the first page (index.html) and significantly decrease its size in all other pages.

3. The background draws attention too much; the title doesn't have enough contrast with the background.

I recommend decreasing the contrast of the background, as you want to expose the body text of your site.

4. There are multiple fonts specified in the CSS file, but since CSS 3 you can just embed your own font; if you own no license to put fonts on the web, I recommend Charis SIL, which is free.

5. Your columns are too narrow. It may work in the newspaper, where the body text is revised after each reflow and hyphenated manually; in web, where people scale the page up and down, use different browser and settings, it may not work. For the reserved space, three columns seem too much. For the alternative layout, that fires up below 1200 px horizontal content size, there should be only a single column.

6. The playback options are not exposed enough. The Radio Rivendell site is mostly about music. When someone enters the site, most probably he wants to launch the radio as soon as possible. I believe the current layout is nice, where you have playback info clearly separated from body text by another column. I think that there should be one or two columns of body text, depending on a resolution, and right from it, a column with:

– play/pause button, and volume

– title of the current song

– author name of the current song

– five stars for voting and a small tooltip icon to comment the track

(in contrast to the current state of the non-beta, there should be no picture of the album, because it unnecessarily clutters the space)

– a hyperlink or hover menu "listen in other ways..."

– "last chat messages" caption

– 5 last chat messages, shortened to take 2 lines each: first line for nickname, second for as much message content as fits in the limited space; on hover, a tooltip could show the full message

– "open chat..." hyperlink

– "Last forum threads" caption

– the list of forum threads, sorted by date from newest. Ideally the list would be limited by the vertical space of the page, not by a constant value (it would need to be populated by javascript).

Here's an example of what I mean:

See full size

The right column should have it's horizontal width reduced to 2/3 or even 2/5. This will give enough space for remaining two columns on left, even though I increased font-size. While I darkened the background on purpose, I somehow desaturated the pages texture by a mistake. It may be a positive or negative effect, I'm not sure.

Other thoughts:

– the player should start automatically, maybe with a low volume, just in case,

– if the player is embedded on page and not opened in a popup, I think it would be nice if clicking on any link on the page wouldn't change the page, but instead just load the content into a frame/div on the left, using Javascript (Ajax), though it's tricky: Ajax URL hash

– of course I may be partially or entirely wrong, these are just my thoughts; I'm not even sure about most of them myself.

Updated 1 June 2015 (22:24)

Posted by KNJRA (Conjurer)Looking pretty awesome so far man! I'll test some stuff and let you know when I find anything crazy lol!Being able to comment on songs is a pretty good thing, I like that idea! I take it the radio isn't working just yet though?

Song commenting will come (or actually return, it was there before in the player). And the radio player doesn't really work, or it does but there are things missing for it to work Oh, did I say Beta?

Posted by Vinnie johnsonold forum will be archived ?

Yeah, when I do the transition, the beta site will be wiped and reinstated from the current live site's data. So all posts, comments, rates etc will be there. You should not enter usefull stuff into the beta site that you want to keep. Everything in the beta will be wiped.