New NeoLemmix Website

[Nessy]

Hello Lemmings Forums community.

In light of recent events, namida has given me access and the responsibility of maintaining the NeoLemmix website at http://www.neolemmix.com/.

I have decided to open a thread here mostly for communication purposes, such as letting everybody know when an update has occurred on the website or in worst case scenario if a delay will occur. It will help in keeping everybody in the loop. I have also been given permission to stylize the website a little bit. I don't plan on going super fancy with it, but I would like to post any progress on that so that people will see how it looks so far and post feedback about things you may not want and/or do want. This feedback is more than welcome anytime. Any feedback on actual updates is also welcome.

If you have any questions and/or comments don't hesitate to post in this thread.

[Proxima]

Please remember: the one huge change that makes any website a more welcome place to hang around: don't have separate colours for visited and non-visited links!

[Nepster]

Please remember: the one huge change that makes any website a more welcome place to hang around: don't have separate colours for visited and non-visited links!

I think this depends a lot on the context. Links to the forums indeed don't need another color. But for links to download the Toolkit, level packs and the like, it is useful, because one can check whether one has already downloaded the most recent version. Of course this only works, if the actual link is updated when a new version comes in and one doesn't just change the file behind it...

[Nessy]

UPDATE


Changes made live

- Nepster's new Graphic Conversation Tool and NLEditor V0.9 have been uploaded to the NeoLemmix website. It has been put into a new link on the sidebar simply called "NLEditor (Test Version)".


Changes not made live yet

- Mostly front-end code cleanup and page layout. Some things I have accomplished so far:
     - Switching code to HTML5.
     - Remove inline styles and place them in external style sheet.
     - Remove all table tags (table layouts are no longer used as there are many style properties that accomplish the same thing while simplifying code).
     - Remove all <br> tags and &nbsp; and use margins and padding instead.
     - Enclose download lists in unordered list tags.
     - Wrote a small script that will mark whatever page you are on the side navigation.


In development

- Start some styling! Because functionality is the primary focus this may take more time than actual updates such as the one done today.

[Nessy]

UPDATE



Changes made live

- There are now two download links on the NLEditor page at http://www.neolemmix.com/?page=nleditor. One downloads the the latest NLEditor with the Graphic Conversation Tools, and the other one is just the latest NLEditor only.
- NLEditor V0.10 uploaded.

[Nessy]

UPDATE



Changes made live

- Some style changes have finally been made to the NeoLemmix website! They include:
     - Changing the font and increasing font sizes for better readability.
     - A nice navigation bar on the side.
     - That same navigation marks what page you are on by keeping the link of the page you are on highlighted with a subtle color. It uses a small JavaScript file (barely 8 lines) to see what page you are on and then finds the corresponding link instead of checking whether or not a click occurred on a link on the nav. That way, even if you visit a page via another link on another page, it will still work (it doesn't work on very, very old browsers, but there shouldn't be any problems there).

Please keep in mind that this is NOT the final product. This is just a small change and there will be many more to come involving colors, background, layout, etc. Hopefully, the current changes will be a nice first step.

If you have any feedback please feel free to post it here, and if you absolutely hate something feel free post about it too!

[Simon]

Slick! Love the large font and streamlined typesetting, makes good use of the space.

(The old font size was already OK and not too small, I had no issues.)

I had JS disabled by default, and whitelisted NL.com. The only setback during disabled JS was no white marker for current page. The naviagation bar still worked with JS disabled, very good. Firefox 55 on Archlinux.

-- Simon

[Nessy]

Thanks Simon. I made sure that the navigation didn't relay on JS to work. If a person has JS enabled then the white mark is just an extra feature, but if they don't then they just don't get it and it doesn't punish them by taking functionality away. The website is not that large so not having the white mark to show you what page you are on is not going to ruin user experience.



UPDATE

- You can now download the full zip file containing the latest NLEditor and Graphic Conversation Tools, the latest NLEditor only, or the latest GraphicsTool only. That way people don't have to keep downloading the full zip file for every update that happens on individual programs only.

- Nepster's new GraphicsTool version is uploaded to the NeoLemmix website.

[Nessy]

UPDATE



Version 0.4 of the GraphicsTool has been uploaded and is now downloadable from NeoLemmix.com. The new version fixes some bugs IchoTolot found.

[Colorful Arty]

Nessy, I just want to say that I love the new NeoLemmix website design! The tabs on the side are a big improvement!

[Nessy]

Thanks Colorful Arty. This isn't the final design, but I think it's a nice first step. I'm still playing around with ideas for what else to do with the website, but I am still sticking with my initial plan of not doing anything fancy. For a website like this fancy stuff is just going to sacrifice functionality.

[Flopsy]

Found a small typo on the Neo Lemmix website on the Lemmings Plus packs page.

You have put down LPIII as having 69 levels when it only has 65 levels.


Also not really a website issue but I've noticed namida's LP pack links in his topic are all linking to the old Neo Lemmix website links and the downloads links on the old site don't work.

I was wondering if there was a way to re-direct the links to the old site and make them go to the new site. Of course it would be easier if namida (or another moderator) could just modify the LP packs topic and modify the website links.

[Simon]

I've given Flopsy mod rights on the level pack boards to fix namida's links. Caring about this linkrot is excellent housekeeping. Thanks!

-- Simon

[Nessy]

Thanks Flopsy for spotting that error. I'll go ahead and fix that.

I also want to let everybody know that there will be a delay in updating the website to have all the new applications Nepster published today due to personal reasons. It shouldn't be too long and I should have it ready today, but just wanted to let everyone know just in case. I will, of course, post again when I am certain everything has been updated correctly. Thank you.

[Nessy]

Warning!

The NeoLemmix website will be unavailable for the next hour or two. You can still access it, but there will be broken links and such as I go through the process of updating everything and making sure everything works.

I will post when everything is up and running again.