Need website help.

I am wanting to start a new site… well, actually it will be a port of the site that I have right now (www.devmaplab.com), and a few additional features. One of the additional features that I want to incorperate is some dynamic content. Like php or asp or jsp, whatever. The only prob is that I dont know one single thing about dynamic web stuff.

I dont think that I will be needing tremendous amounts of help… Just some simple fit-to-screen functions and what not. I got forums covered cause I will be using ezboard.

If you would like to help me out or at least point me in the right direction, that would be much appreiciated. And, of course I will give credit on the new site if you lend a helping hand.

Thx.

Oh and btw, I do plan on having some killer stuff on this site to try and lure vast amounts of peeps. I also will have 1000mb of webspace and 20gigs of bathwidth allowence (per month)… So holding the traffic wont be a problem.

And just fyi, the intention of the site will be two-fold. First it will be a place to show off my work, and second (and more importantly) it will be a level-designing community mega-metropolis featuring tutorials and community based forums. The ultimate resource for mappers. Or something to that effect.

Give me a shout if your interested in helping.

CGI / SSI / PHP / MySQL will be avialable.

Edit1: Some of this info is OLD… please read further down the thread.

Edit2: Note from below: “The more Im getting into this the more Im seeing that my personal site and this community site will need to be seperate. So scratch everything that I said previously about my personal stuff being in there…”

check PM box

I have setup some forums via proboards.com. These forums will be the forums for the new site.

http://leveldesigner.proboards21.com/

Any and everyone is welcome to sign up for the forums to become a member. I am also looking for the right people to help as moderators. If you interested in that let me know.

Thx.

:chef:

I just thought that I would suggest that you not use proboards as it does not look very professional and will discourafe people from your site. Phpbb2 is a much better choice for what you are trying to do, which is create a big community of mappers.

I could give you a hand with the php/mysql part of the site…

following a masterclass PHP right now, so you might say that I’ve got my training.

next to that, if you intend to use, php, get a proper forum like pbpbb or yabbse, both free and much better than ezboards

lemme know if you need me…

next to that, if you intend to use, php, get a proper forum like pbpbb or yabbse, both free and much better than ezboards

Proboards to me it doesnt look that bad. Although, if phpbb is better then no problem.

Here is what Id like to do…

I would like to have total design and art control while I get someone to do the coding part… How easy would it be to take my ideas, and then materialize it into a fully functional dynamic web site?

And also, joopsloop, do you have an IM of some sort? Or IRC? Or Email? lol

Just curious if you had taken a look at http://www.map-center.com … sounds like what you are trying to do… although map-center needs logins and such for some access.

What do you think I am… a complete NEWB! hehe

Map-center is ok. Only probs with it imo are the insidious ads and poor art\layout\design execution. And also the tutorials are not that stellar…

My site will have no ads, no banners, and no affiliates. My site will be clean and easy to read and understand. My site will feature sharp tutorials that will build upon each other to help the reader understand whats happening using the least amount of text possible.

I am really intending on making something sharp and professional here. A community-based site that will play the role of the non-existant professional documentation… An ultimate mappers resource.

Call me crazy, but I have yet to find a solid, English-based, mapping community that offers help for many different games and engines. Sure theres quake3world.com but thats just for quake3, theres Splashdamage but its just for ET… theres Tramdesign for Rtcw… and doom3world.org for Doom3… etc. etc.

And of course there is Map-center… which could be the epi-center for level-designing… but due to some stuff which turn peeps off, it is not. I plan on making “the ultimate”… Or at least I will be attempting too.

So again, if anyone wants to lend a hand (outside of joopsloop and darklandz whom Im speaking too), then plz post.

Thanks.

PM: I am not intending to put down map-center in any way when I write the things I write… I have talked to many peeps about what they like and dont like about map-center and the common opinion is the same as what I wrote above. I think Astrocreep had a fantastic idea… and I commend him for attempting to bring it to fruition… but the results are just so-so.

Thanks again.

Hmmm… maybe it’d be worth it to work with AstroCreep on retooling map-center, rather than creating an entire new site. Plus, you could add your tutorials to map center… have you contacted him to see what he thinks? That might be a better way to go about it, since the foundation is already in place.

Thats a possibility hummer… But for now I think I will take upon this venture… If it doesnt end up anywhere then np. At least I will have tried.

As far as this phpBB stuff is concerned… wow! Awesome, just awesome!

to phpBB devs.

/me goes off to sign-up webspace.

So you checked it out :), much better then the proboards stuff. I just cant stand to see a forum that is made with proboards.

lol… I see what you mean now. This phpBB stuff is quite stellar.

Call me crazy, but I have yet to find a solid, English-based, mapping community that offers help for many different games and engines. Sure theres quake3world.com but thats just for quake3, theres Splashdamage but its just for ET… theres Tramdesign for Rtcw… and doom3world.org for Doom3… etc. etc.

You are crazy, or you have no idea how much work and money is required to make something like that happen. Even then, you have to build a community which attracts people from all those other sites you mention, despite the fact that they have been using them for years. That requires more than just a nice site with good content.

Don’t get me wrong, I wish you luck, but having seen what astrocreep went through to get mapcenter where it is now, uh…
well good luck. :moo:

<RANT>
I still say that all this work to make tutorials that fill the gaps in the official documentaion would be far better spent fixing it instead. This is something anyone with time, motivation and knowledge could do, which would be a far greater benefit to the community than yet another tutorial site.
</RANT>

Perhaps that would be a possiblity… I mean why not? If I could grab the right peeps, we could make that happen… Tutorials are not the only resources that I speak of when I speak of “resources”. Tutorials will be a major part, but also doing some stuff like you are mentioning is a definate possibility. Thanks for the suggestion.

Wanna help?

Note: The more Im getting into this the more Im seeing that my personal site and this community site will need to be seperate. So scratch everything that I said previously about my stuff being in there… (if this thing does take off).

Rather than hijack your thread, here:
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=47083#47083
is a new one.