Ronin Website Officially Opens

[Craig Maloof]

http://www.ronin-studios.com

Bookmark it. Make it your home page. Worship it.

It's open. A ton of info still needs to be added. I recognize that. There are going to be major edits over the next week. I'm taking my laptop with me to Philly and any free time that I get it will be spent updating the website with all the information I have.

But, I promised you I would get this up. And it's not a project that will ever be done done. But, I know we need a presence and in that case I figured it would be in our best interests to get it up. I could keep going on updating it. It's 4AM though, and I still need to pack to go to Philly.

Anyways, enjoy it. Keep giving me feedback on what looks good and what doesn't. That always helps, trust me. Keep sending in info to me so I can keep updating everything. It will make everything really easy and much faster to update.

Thanks guys...

Craig

[Thomas Mauer]

:35:

Awesome, Craig. Do you want comments here, in PM or via email?

[Tom Schloendorn]

Not being a tech type of person I can't really comment on the set up of it.I will say it's cool to see it finally get to this point.Great Job,and thanks.

[MikeStorniolo]

Good job Craig, congrats!

[SteveZegers]

Cool! Thanks Craig.

[Noble Larimer]

Awesomisimo!

Can't wait to see it evolve :D

[J. Andrew Clark]

Very cool.

Craig, I don't know if you know this, but once you're inside the forums... none of the tabs at the top work.

[matthew_spatola]

Looks good Craig. Are you going to set-up a sticky or thread for us to give our suggestions etc. to you? Looks great so far, just want to see some more images.

[Craig Maloof]

Thanks guys! It's 10:15AM right now and I'm just waking up. I still need to pack for Philly. This is supposed to be easier, but it's not!

Um... you all can make suggestions and feedback in here. Doesn't bother me.

And J., thanks. Forgot about that.

Craig

[J. Andrew Clark]

Also, on the Scar Tissue page, the preview pages have "Page One" through three, but it doesn't list 4-6. The pages are there, just not the text under them. Thanks man.

[cj hurtt]

whoohoo! looks great!

[Jason Ritter]

Looks great. I have to begin linking to all my stuff.

[Victor Cabanelas]

Looks good, Craig!

Just a tought: It says that the store will open june 1st. That was yesterday.

[Anthony C. Andora]

Woohoo! Great stuff, thanks for all the hard work. Have fun at Philly.

[Thomas Mauer]

Nope, says the store will open on July 1, Vic. ;)

Craig, a few things. You'll probably get to them after the con:

On the front page, the links to the headlines should have a lighter color that contrasts better with the background.

There should be a 2 to 5 pixel margin between the covers and the text.

News section: The sentence should look like this to stand out more:

RONIN STUDIOS will be in the artists' alley at tables 2036 & 2037 and the following books will be on sale at their table:

hit-small press company RONIN STUDIIS.
I'd remove the dash and STUDIOS needs to be fixed.

Forum:

Can you add the background image that I told you about ages ago?

[Kieran Murphy]

The website looks fantastic! Great work, Craig.

[Victor Cabanelas]

Nope, says the store will open on July 1, Vic. ;)

Yep. You´re right. My brain is not working the way it should these days :p

[Craig Maloof]

I'm in Philly guys. Pat says hi. We're kind of just sitting out here chillin'.

If I get some time, I'll update the site later.

Craig

[John Schlim Jr]

Wish I was there, Craig, nursing a cold beer, celebrating the web site launch, and meeting a bunch of Ronin allies! Enjoy the show and pimp us hard!

[Thomas Mauer]

Party hard for all of us who can't be there, ya hear? :D

[Diana Thirring]

I'll skip the "Great job", "Thank you" and "looks great" and get right to the point. ;)


The "Click Here for More Info" link for Future's End is not working on the main page.

The covers (on the main page and other pages) need margins as has already been said. They also need to have their width and height defined so that the text doesn't jump around while loading the images. That also speeds up loading time.


Tyr page:

- the title. It bugs me that I can see that the title "Tyr" is an image because the lines of the background don't line up perfectly or at least they are lighter. I would either use text on top of the background image, or an image of a higher resolution to make sure that the lines have the same colour. Even better: You could start with all titles and the background in one image, then save it as a gif, then cut it up, to make sure they are all using the same colour palette. (much easier if you have Photoshop.)

- I would make the cover image smaller and link it to the large version. That would avoid that huge area of nothing underneath the description.

- There's no Purchasing Information under Purchasing Information. That's a link that a visitor has to click without knowing where it will take him. I would write:

Purchasing information:
Issues #1 and #2 are now available at Comixpress:
Tyr #1
Tyr #2

- Why is there such a huge gap between the description and the Purchasing information? My guess is you wanted the info to be below the cover image (which it is not for me), but that I would do with a table and not with line breaks or paragraphs cause those will look different in every screen resolution.

- Why is there such a huge gap between the previews of page 2 and 3? It is very disrupting.



OK, woops! I was in coding mood so I went into the code to show you what I mean. I also simplified the code in various places, especially for your previews.
http://www.sailorgalleries.com/bb/ronin/tyr.html

Hope you don't mind. :wiggle:

But anyway, thanks for doing a great job! It looks great!!! :D

[Diana Thirring]

Another addition to your Tyr description:

You write:
An emotional, gripping story about a young man becoming a savior to his planet. This ongoing series follows our hero known as Typhi, into the depths of hell and back as he comes to terms of who he is, where he came from, and what he shall be as he battles forces not from this world, and forces from this world. This ongoing series deals as he comes to terms with his past and his future while going through the hassles of life of going to school and being a teenager as well.

I think it would be better to write:
An emotional, gripping story about a young man becoming a savior to his planet. This ongoing series follows our hero known as Typhi, into the depths of hell and back as he comes to terms with who he is, where he came from, and what he is expected to be (or what he is supposed to be or become) as he battles forces not from this world, and forces too close to home (the repetition didn't quite work). This ongoing series deals with him coming to terms with his past and his future while going through the hassles of everyday life, going to school and being a teenager (deleted "as well").

[Thomas Mauer]

- Why is there such a huge gap between the description and the Purchasing information? My guess is you wanted the info to be below the cover image (which it is not for me), but that I would do with a table and not with line breaks or paragraphs cause those will look different in every screen resolution.

Tables are bad. CSS is the way to go. Add an escape command while aligning the image and all info after it will be aligned to the left below the image, no matter how much space there is next to the image. It's best to tie this right into the "Purchasing info" bit just to make sure this can't be affected when editing the info above it.

If needed, I'll dig up the code from an old backup CD.

[Victor Cabanelas]

Another thing, is it possible to have the samples pages pop up in a new window? I hate having to go back when I check them.

[Thomas Mauer]

Another thing, is it possible to have the samples pages pop up in a new window? I hate having to go back when I check them.

Ugh, I hate popups. ;) Maybe a few links saying "back, main, foward"?

[SteveZegers]

I'd like to be included in the creators list. I'm in RI 2 and some other stuff coming out soon. I need some validation dammit!

[Diana Thirring]

Me, too, Steve. :D

But Tom, I agree with Vic. I LOVE popup windows for images. I HATE having to use my back button and then having to reload the page. That's also a real pain for people with a slow connection.


And I have never heard of this escape command you speak of. :( Besides, there are already soo many tables in that layout (and the loading time is perfectly fine), one more won't hurt. :p

[Victor Cabanelas]

Ugh, I hate popups. ;) Maybe a few links saying "back, main, foward"?

Nah, I hate those kind of links. I demand Pop-ups!! :sasmokin:

[Thomas Mauer]

Ah s'pose we've come to a crossroads, pard. Draw, stranger! :p

[Thomas Mauer]

And I have never heard of this escape command you speak of. :( Besides, there are already soo many tables in that layout (and the loading time is perfectly fine), one more won't hurt. :p

EDIT: I just found it again. They simply changed the address:

http://starwarsclub.org/independents/bountyhunters/

Note that the second news piece on the front page is below the box with the random quote, no matter what quote there is.

The HTML code of the line after which the escape/clear command is set:

< div align="right" >
--Tom, SWI:BH BGM.
< p class="headerClear" >
< /div >

And here the CSS code:

/* clear command for the starting page to get the next header centered,
* and on character sheets to keep the stats together below some images */

p.headerClear { clear:right; }
p.csClear { clear:left; }



The p.* means that whenever a paragraph break command is set with the class headerClear, the clear command works at this point and everything following is pushed down onto a new line if an object is at too large.

[Diana Thirring]

Are you sure it's cross browser and even for older versions? Just because it's CSS doesn't mean it is safe for all browsers of all ages...

That's why I do still like tables. All that fancy stuff is never guaranteed to look the same on all browsers of all ages. And if loading time is no problem yet then there is no need to take the risk of pissing some people with older browsers off.

[Thomas Mauer]

It's CSS2 which is supported on all browsers today. I think even Netscape 4.7x agrees with the clear command and I *know* IE, Mozilla, Opera and Konqueror do.

[Diana Thirring]

Well alright then. :p

[Noble Larimer]

I think I've just went cross eyed.

:D

[Victor Cabanelas]

It's CSS2 which is supported on all browsers today. I think even Netscape 4.7x agrees with the clear command and I *know* IE, Mozilla, Opera and Konqueror do.

I was trying to come up with a nice answer for that but I don´t have the faintest idea of what you´re talking about, Tom. :confused:

[Jessica Gaude]

looking good

[Andy Jewett]

CSS = Cascading Style Sheets... basically they run the look and feel of a site. word.

[RAB]

About time I checked it out... and it's looking nice! Great job Craig... you da man of a thousand talents!

[Thomas Mauer]

I was trying to come up with a nice answer for that but I don´t have the faintest idea of what you´re talking about, Tom. :confused:

Thanks! My years of dabbling in the occult arts of website programming finally pay off! (Screw WYSIWYG* editors. Hard coding all the way!)


* What You See Is What You Get - like Dreamweaver, Frontpage and GoLive

[John Coons]

Craig is my hero! Love the site, and now we have a public "home base."

[Victor Cabanelas]

Thanks! My years of dabbling in the occult arts of website programming finally pay off! (Screw WYSIWYG* editors. Hard coding all the way!)


* What You See Is What You Get - like Dreamweaver, Frontpage and GoLive


Now, you scare me :p

Progamming is for droids (goddamn you, Lucas!)

[Diana Thirring]

Thanks! My years of dabbling in the occult arts of website programming finally pay off! (Screw WYSIWYG* editors. Hard coding all the way!)


* What You See Is What You Get - like Dreamweaver, Frontpage and GoLive

yep! I always type it all out myself. More fun that way! :D

Except for Rollovers. I use Dreamweaver for those cause it's just sooo much quicker. ¬_¬

[Thomas Mauer]

Hell yeah. Rollovers suck. What text editor do you use? I use EditPlus 2. It's pretty convenient, coloring certain code in different ways. It has very rudimentary WYSIWYG properties like commands that you can add to your code my double clicking, but I rarely use that.

[Diana Thirring]

I use Cute FTP's inbuilt text editor. It also coloured the various types of code differently whoch makes it so much easier to read, and then it gives you suggestions as you type to complete your (fairly basic) code, but I never use that. By the time I have selected the correct code from the drop down list I have typed it out already.

[Victor Cabanelas]

Another thing, Craig, can you put a link for the names in the creators section? You know, something like "XX, is a writer/artist/etc, was in this or that issue and is currently working in this or that."