khunsanuk Posted October 19, 2005 Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 Hi, Jigger is in town now and we have been talking about the state of the site, to put it blunty we think that the design is outdated and, even worse, the structure / interactivity of the site sucks. Over the last year or so lots of stuff has been added and the site is now pretty much a bunch of features tied together with cellotape and pieces of string. On top of that the message board software we use has reached the end of its lifespan. The company behind it will not be making any new versions, nor do they even bother with security fixes anymore. We will need to change to a new system sometime soon probably. Obviously we could just go ahead and start making the changes as we see fit, but I think the better approach is to get you guys involved in the process. Here's what we think needs to be done: - complete redesign of the menu structure - complete redesign of the main index page - changing to a new message board system - better integration of the content areas of the site with the message board areas - more & easier ways of providing feedback on articles / columns - possibly moving the info pages into a wikipedia system and allowing selected people the right to edit / update those pages - add new features? Menu structure / index page The menu currently is a disaster. There are lots of different sections, but many are almost neglected in the menu. Preferably we would redo the entire menu bar and push the sections of main interest to the foreground while still showing the sections of lesser interest. How to do this we are not yet sure The main index page is in a similar state. While there is a decent amount of info on there, we think it is not presented as well as it could be. Preferably this page would be the main page that people arrive at and from where they start off when exploring the rest of the site. It therefore should at a glance provide all the important info a user will need. Message board As I mentioned the current software is all but dead. Sooner or later we will need to move. We've done some research on this and I kinda have things narrowed down to 2 systems, vBulletin and FusionBB. I personally have a slight favority, but would really like to hear pros and cons from you guys. You can use the boards at their respective sites if you have not used them before. What we are looking for in a message board system is: - full import capability of UBBThreads (we do *not* want to lose 370K+ posts) - ease-of-use - powerful admin section - fast - subforums - integration with PhotoPost Pro and ReviewPost Pro - obviously all the features we have gotten used to (PM, quick reply, post tracking, etc) increased integration While some sections of the site are integrated okay-ish (thinking of message board, photo gallery and review section here), many others (most notably the articles, columns and gogo ranking) are seriously lacking. Preferably we would like to use a system in which everything integrates smoothly. FusionBB might help in this respect, but so might PHPNuke or even Wikipedia. We have not done enough research on this yet. Again, if any of you have used these systems, please let us know your thoughts on them. New features Jigger and I have been talking a bit about some new features as well and Jigger came up with some interesting ones. I'd like to get some feedback on them from you. - (semi-)professional photos of Thai women (non-nude, but sexy), which could be used through out the site as well as to create downloadable screensavers - some 'fun' stuff, possibly some small Thai nightlife themed games Obviously any suggestions would be welcome here as well. Your involvement As mentioned above, we would like to get you guys involved in this and, as this will be a very time (and likely monetary ) extensive process, any help you can offer us would be appreciated. You can help us by: - filling out the survey form, which you can find here - providing feedback on what you like / don't like on the current site - sending us your ideas on how the site should look (we intend to keep the color scheme as well as the mascotte, everything else could change) - telling us which of the 2 message board systems you would prefer, or even an alternative we have not considered? (no free boards as they are too big of a security risk) - donating money As for that last item, while Jigger and I can handle a lot of the stuff like installing & configuring the software, both of us suck at graphics. We are seriously considering getting a company involved in helping us out with the design and maybe even trying to get a user-interface specialist to have a look at the site (any of such guys on the board by any chance? ). Obviously this would not be free and while we are roughly breaking even at the moment, we cannot afford to spend a lot on development. Hence any donations to help us out would be greatly appreciated. Conclusion So, to recap, we feel the site is not up to our standards and wish to improve it. To do so we have come up with a list of areas that could use improvement, and we are asking for your feedback and help in building a improved version of Nanaplaza.Com which will create a better experience for all users. Please be prepared for this to take quite some time though, as I seriously doubt this will be finished before the end of the year. There is a lot of work involved in this as well as a lot at stake, so we will be threading carefully. Together we should be able to create a much better site though. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted October 19, 2005 Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 Excellant! I think that your Bar Revue and FAQ's could be promoted a lot better, most of us enter via the message board I think, I'd like to see a more normal entry (with a land one for those at work) DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianBoy Posted October 19, 2005 Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 khunsanuk said:Message board As I mentioned the current software is all but dead. Sooner or later we will need to move. We've done some research on this and I kinda have things narrowed down to 2 systems, vBulletin and FusionBB. Have you checked Invision Power Board ? BB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted October 19, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 Hi, "Have you checked Invision Power Board ?" No, I hadn't. Just did. It looks okay, but does not seem to have much in the way of a development community (at least I could only find a relatively small site). Price is slightly higher than the 2 I mentioned. So, while this too looks like a decent board there was nothing that immediately grabbed me that made it stand out. My main reasons for the 2 I mentioned are: vBulletin Pro - huge community with a massive amount of hacks - well established product - very powerfull admin area Con - possibly bloated code due to being build upon for several generations - admin area takes a while to get used to - templates are stored in the database FusionBB Pro - fully featured board in first generation (i.e. no bloat and lots of SQL optimization -> fast) - build by the main hackers of UBBT - lively community with a decent amount of hacks - very responsive dev team Con - new product from a new company, i.e. not well-established yet Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t-ride Posted October 19, 2005 Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 Khunsanuk, In your original post I see that you mentioned Phpnuke which may not be the best choice but going to a CMS could be a good idea... My favorite is Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/) which provides a lot of features and allows you to easily customize your website (very powerful admin interface). They even provide the files necessary to create your own template in Dreamweaver in order to have a 100% original site and not use one of the free/commercial templates. I havent checked if vbulletin or fusionbb can be easily integrated into that CMS but it should be possible. Of course there are many other CMS available (free or not). I'm also currently working on a commercial website and I had the choice between having something developped to my needs by a web programmer and a web designer or go for a CMS and my choice went for the CMS. I will use it as a base layout, the web programmer will create the custom modules I need and the web designer will create the original look. Obviously the costs involved are also very different. Good luck for the new site and thanks for the work you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted October 19, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 Hi, "My favorite is Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/) which provides a lot of features and allows you to easily customize your website (very powerful admin interface)." Thanks. Will check that one out. To be honest, we have not really done much research on the CMS options. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prosal Posted October 19, 2005 Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 Vbulletin has been the choice for the new SWG (now internationalsexguide), which has been recently restructured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentors Posted October 19, 2005 Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 i just hope that there will not be to much optical change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limbo Posted October 19, 2005 Report Share Posted October 19, 2005 Place the review system in a better psoition so it's easier seen might be a point. At first glance (very short ones) the FusionBB seemed like a nice one. Will fill out the form and sent it off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted October 20, 2005 Report Share Posted October 20, 2005 Hi! I'm currently unemployed and would love to help you if I can do it while still getting dole money. Unfortunately I'm not a PHP hacker but more like and technical/mathematical programmer with the focus on C/C++. However there is a saying in the software developers community - "don't change a system that works". regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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