Xith WEB Site - Joomla! powered

[Amos Wenger]

I made a beginning of new WEB site for Xith.
Here's the result of my hours of work : http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/index.php
There are still some articles missing, but I think it does looks good.

[c_lilian]

Looks good so far !

I'd rather have the top logo smaller.

Lilian

[arne]

nice .. very nice

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Amos Wenger]

Looks good so far !

nice .. very nice

I'd rather have the top logo smaller.

Okay, I'll do it. I hope the template will adjust automatically (don't know if you can change the top logo size as is).

[Yuri Vl. Gushchin]

Great.

+1 for it.

Also +1 for smaller top logo.

Yuri

[williamsellick]

Looks good, I like it

William

[hawkwind]

purdy!!!!   For some reason I really likw the simplicity.

[bohdan]

Great work! Like it!

[Amos Wenger]

Now working to make a smaller logo... ahh what a pain I have to edit the template manually... If you see some "bizarre" things in the Web site don't worry.. I handle perfectly the situation..

[Amos Wenger]

Done, the logo is now 80 pixels high instead of 150 before ! Much better..
I'm waiting for WilliamDenniss' approval&help to make a full switch.
I have not transfered docs on the new site yet, the links point to the old site, because I'm going to do a global review of Xith doc, and I'll see what to keep and what to clean/rewrite/write from scratch.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Amos Wenger]

I've made several improvements to the new website. Added the Credits, License, Projects and Features articles, added a 16x16 icon to the site, modified top menu (filled with useful informations).
I'm still waiting for authorization to make a full switch.

[William Denniss]

wow that does look nice 

+1 from me too.

The top row of links are a little confusing though.  Maybe it would work better with a second group of links to external sites under the main menu.

Is it possible to get the URLs looking better?
http://xith.org/Docs  is a bit nicer than
http://xith.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

And google treats the former better as well.


How does your source code page work?  Is it auto-generated?  It would be a bit of a pain to maintain if it's not.

Thank you for this, there has been a lot of talk over the years about site re-designs and the likes, but little actual work (except by me).

Will.

[swpalmer]

Nice.
Should be using the new Java logo (assuming you have permission to show a Java logo at all).

[c_lilian]

Hey I can see you've added Jack Flowers to the projects page ! Nice.
Let's hope other projects based on Xith will show up soon (good for promotion).

A small remark : on the credits page, I think I can be credited for the initial port of JOGL to JSR231...

The web site layout is better again today, with a cleaner page header and smaller logo : So when is the swap to xith.org scheduled ? 

Regards

Lilian

[Amos Wenger]

The top row of links are a little confusing though.  Maybe it would work better with a second group of links to external sites under the main menu.

Done. Is it better ?

Is it possible to get the URLs looking better?
http://xith.org/Docs  is a bit nicer than
http://xith.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

And google treats the former better as well.

I'm afraid it's not possible. Joomla! is a CMS and it manage content automatically, I think I can't change the name of the pages. What I can do, however, is making redirections from http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/Docs to the right page.

Oh, and by the way how do we change the domain name. How do you handle hosting, Will ?

How does your source code page work?  Is it auto-generated?  It would be a bit of a pain to maintain if it's not.

Yes it is.

Thank you for this, there has been a lot of talk over the years about site re-designs and the likes, but little actual work (except by me).

I thought it was one thing I could do for Xith. And I did it. 

Nice.
Should be using the new Java logo (assuming you have permission to show a Java logo at all).

Done. Oh, and I need a permission to show the Java logo ?
Hmm.. I'm afraid I didn't bothered about all those copyright/permissions thingies..

[Amos Wenger]

Hey I can see you've added Jack Flowers to the projects page ! Nice.

That was the only project I could remember for having played it on JavaPause.com   

Let's hope other projects based on Xith will show up soon (good for promotion).

Yes indeed.

A small remark : on the credits page, I think I can be credited for the initial port of JOGL to JSR231...

Done. Thanks for pointing this out.

The web site layout is better again today, with a cleaner page header and smaller logo : So when is the swap to xith.org scheduled ? 

I think William should do that soon.. I don't own the xith.org domain name 

[William Denniss]

The top row of links are a little confusing though.  Maybe it would work better with a second group of links to external sites under the main menu.

Done. Is it better ?

Yes, that looks really good now - thanks

Is it possible to get the URLs looking better?
http://xith.org/Docs  is a bit nicer than
http://xith.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

And google treats the former better as well.

I'm afraid it's not possible. Joomla! is a CMS and it manage content automatically, I think I can't change the name of the pages. What I can do, however, is making redirections from http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/Docs to the right page.

That's a pity.  I realise we can make the redirections fairly easy, so at least the main menu options can have nice links.   Ah well.

Oh, and by the way how do we change the domain name. How do you handle hosting, Will ?

I was thinking I'd just give you the FTP/cPanel passwords for you to set the site up on the xith.org server.

How does your source code page work?  Is it auto-generated?  It would be a bit of a pain to maintain if it's not.

Yes it is.

Good news.

Thank you for this, there has been a lot of talk over the years about site re-designs and the likes, but little actual work (except by me).

I thought it was one thing I could do for Xith. And I did it. 

Before the site is moved, what is the todo list?  I see there's a few references to the old tikiwiki site on the Docs page:
http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

Design wise, I personally prefer to reduce the amount of stock images used and use actual images relating to Xith3D instead.  E.g. on the download page, a couple of cool screen shots could work nicely (e.g. with the toolkit, some loaded models)

I've never used Joomla before, I assume it is easy to have multiple users set up with different permissions so they can create and edit pages?

Great stuff.

Cheers,

Will.

[Yuri Vl. Gushchin]

Hi,

I'm afraid it's not possible. Joomla! is a CMS and it manage content automatically, I think I can't change the name of the pages. What I can do, however, is making redirections from http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/Docs to the right page.

That's a pity.  I realise we can make the redirections fairly easy, so at least the main menu options can have nice links.   Ah well.

Can't we use URL rewriting to give nice names to selected URLs? It is a common practice for bigger portal engines such as Apache JetSpeed 2 etc. There is a mod_rewrite module for Apache, and it is very easy to do rewriting in Tomcat using filters.

Yuri

[Amos Wenger]

That's a pity.  I realise we can make the redirections fairly easy, so at least the main menu options can have nice links.   Ah well.

Yep, although I don't know exactly the way I'll do that.

Can't we use URL rewriting to give nice names to selected URLs? It is a common practice for bigger portal engines such as Apache JetSpeed 2 etc. There is a mod_rewrite module for Apache, and it is very easy to do rewriting in Tomcat using filters.

This is beyond my knowledge, but if you know how to do that, I'll give you privileges to do so.

Oh, and by the way how do we change the domain name. How do you handle hosting, Will ?

I was thinking I'd just give you the FTP/cPanel passwords for you to set the site up on the xith.org server.

OK for FTP, but a problem is Joomla! uses a SQL database so wether I can uses the sql.free.fr database or I can copy the data on an other database currently hosted on xith.org (you have MySQL support, don't you ?  )

Before the site is moved, what is the todo list?  I see there's a few references to the old tikiwiki site on the Docs page:
http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

That's right, that's part of the TODO list to transfer the documentation. But as I'm thinking about rewriting it I'm still reluctant to move the existant one. However this can be a transitional, temporary solution.

Design wise, I personally prefer to reduce the amount of stock images used and use actual images relating to Xith3D instead.  E.g. on the download page, a couple of cool screen shots could work nicely (e.g. with the toolkit, some loaded models)

That's right, and stock images were put by lack of time.. I'll modify that when I'll have time but I consider writing docs more important. And as soon as I'll do serious test-cases for the loaders we'll have some screenshots.

I've never used Joomla before, I assume it is easy to have multiple users set up with different permissions so they can create and edit pages?

Yeah. I've created you super admin accout (check your PM).
And anyone that want to be a Writer can ask me to create him/her an account.

[Amos Wenger]

I added submenus that are contextual and looks like that (attached image).

[Amos Wenger]

This is not as "design" that without, but It's pretty useful I think.

[William Denniss]

That's a pity.  I realise we can make the redirections fairly easy, so at least the main menu options can have nice links.   Ah well.

Yep, although I don't know exactly the way I'll do that.

I can help with the redirections

Can't we use URL rewriting to give nice names to selected URLs? It is a common practice for bigger portal engines such as Apache JetSpeed 2 etc. There is a mod_rewrite module for Apache, and it is very easy to do rewriting in Tomcat using filters.

This is beyond my knowledge, but if you know how to do that, I'll give you privileges to do so.

I agree, mod_rewrite is very popular, this is what I setup with tikiwki currently on Xith.org.  tikiwiki is different in that the unique ID is a nice english string which works nicely with mod_rewrite.

Oh, and by the way how do we change the domain name. How do you handle hosting, Will ?

I was thinking I'd just give you the FTP/cPanel passwords for you to set the site up on the xith.org server.

OK for FTP, but a problem is Joomla! uses a SQL database so wether I can uses the sql.free.fr database or I can copy the data on an other database currently hosted on xith.org (you have MySQL support, don't you ?  )

Yeah there is MySQL support on the xith.org server.

Before the site is moved, what is the todo list?  I see there's a few references to the old tikiwiki site on the Docs page:
http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

That's right, that's part of the TODO list to transfer the documentation. But as I'm thinking about rewriting it I'm still reluctant to move the existant one. However this can be a transitional, temporary solution.

OK.  Idealy we'd totally wipe tikiwiki on the change over (there are a LOT of .php files from tikiwiki which make it a bit confusing).

Design wise, I personally prefer to reduce the amount of stock images used and use actual images relating to Xith3D instead.  E.g. on the download page, a couple of cool screen shots could work nicely (e.g. with the toolkit, some loaded models)

That's right, and stock images were put by lack of time.. I'll modify that when I'll have time but I consider writing docs more important. And as soon as I'll do serious test-cases for the loaders we'll have some screenshots.

cool

I've never used Joomla before, I assume it is easy to have multiple users set up with different permissions so they can create and edit pages?

Yeah. I've created you super admin accout (check your PM).
And anyone that want to be a Writer can ask me to create him/her an account.

Thanks

Cheers,
Will.

[William Denniss]

Xith.org is down for maintenance.  BlySky, check your email as I have sent you all the details you need to upload the site and MySQL databases.

Thanks again for this, it is a great contribution to the Xith3D community.

Cheers,

Will.

[Amos Wenger]

Wow ! Finally it's up...

Have fun..

http://www.xith.org/

[Amos Wenger]

 Hum.. William when you deleted all the wiki-stuff I lost your "Scenegraph explanation ("under the hood")" picture... Do you have a copy ? If yes, please upload it. (Check your PM).

[William Denniss]

Cool

The text for that doc is here: http://odejava.org/RenderPipeline  I'll get you the image in two days (just about to go on holidays)

Cheers,

Will.

[Amos Wenger]

OK.

I had the text already, just the image was missing.

[Amos Wenger]

Huh, and there's no more distant images now.. (oh maybe still the OpenGL logo.. but then if they change it it'll also change on xith.org !)

[William Denniss]

File is here: http://www.xith.org/tutes/RenderPipeline/xith3d_renderer6.png  SVG source http://www.xith.org/tutes/RenderPipeline/xith3d_renderer6.SVG

What do you mean by "distant images"?

Sorry I havn't read my PM's for months, my email is probably a bit more reliable   I'll attend to them now.

Cheers,

Will.

[oNyx]

[...]

Is it possible to get the URLs looking better?
http://xith.org/Docs  is a bit nicer than
http://xith.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

And google treats the former better as well.

I'm afraid it's not possible. Joomla! is a CMS and it manage content automatically, I think I can't change the name of the pages. What I can do, however, is making redirections from http://magicspark.org.free.fr/xith/Docs to the right page.
[...]

Would be odd if it wouldnt support clean urls. Its one of those default features a CMS must have.

After googling around a bit... (geez that joomla page is certainly annoying to navigate)... looks like you need some extra module for that (not in core... duh) and its called "404_sef".