Updated the ol' Doom site, looking for feedback

[DooMAD]

So the last time I updated http://www.teamhellspawn.com/old/ I was still running in 800x600 desktop resolution.  That was a long damn time ago.  It hasn't aged well.  Some pages are failing to fill the width and height, leaving big empty spaces.  The navbar is completely broken on some pages (though I think I know how to fix that now if I had to).  There's still a button for the dead forums (that aren't coming back).  It needs a complete overhaul.

 

//EDIT:

 

Somehow it took 3 weeks, but the new layout is now live!  Visit http://www.teamhellspawn.com/ and be sure to Ctrl+F5, or whatever it is you need to do to force refresh in your browser of choice.

 

A few more minor tweaks may occur as suggestions are still coming in, but I'm pleased with the result so far.

Edited April 14, 2020 by DooMAD
IT IS DONE.

[Redneckerz]

I can help with feedback if needed, i recently scrapped by to find the latest Legacy 2 build from 2007, which was hidden a little.

 

And yes, retain the previewer - It really helped for me, at least.

[phoo]

The second link (updated one) looks great. The "latest work" section on the right could benefit from a bit of responsiveness (maybe some on hover type thing in CSS). As for re-using old code on the wads page, I think you should role with the JS functionality for displaying wads. It's a really cool feature, maybe just optimize some of the JS code if you want (maybe make the array you're using associative and store some of the data externally, idk) and make some adjustments to the CSS to make it more modern.

 

Speaking of the wad preview, I'd like to offer a suggestion: I think it would be really cool if you could click on a wad's preview image and have it open some sort of modal that displays a couple of other images from the wad for you to look at.

Edited March 19, 2020 by phoo

[Doomkid]

I don’t have much to add, but I have used this site with some regularity for years now - really glad to see it being maintained and updated!

[Skeletonpatch]

I've never used this site before, but I rather like the old design. It displays properly on my laptop at least, and the layout is aesthetically pleasing to me. I like the colours and it oozes personality.

 

The new design is good as well with many of the same strengths as the old, though I'm not a fan of the sidebar text. The shadows behind them make it look fuzzy and less readable. I'm not sure whether that's just a placeholder or an experiment to see what works, but I'd recommend sticking with the more Doom-style font for the sidebars. I do like the way the left sidebar stays in place as you scroll down, it'd surely make navigation a little more convenient.

 

As for the preview page, I like that you just need to hover over the map's title for a screenshot and some background information to appear about the .wad in question. I'm not at all a knowledgeable programmer, I dabbled in some python in high school and that was about it. I'm a little biased against Javascript, so I'd probably recommend reworking it if you can achieve a similar effect with something a little more optimized. I have no idea how much work that would actually be given my lack of experience, so reusing the code is probably fine if you'd rather not deal with the hassle of rebuilding it.

[DooMAD]

42 minutes ago, Skeletonpatch said:

though I'm not a fan of the sidebar text. The shadows behind them make it look fuzzy and less readable.

Duly noted.  Navbar shadows will be gone once it goes live.

 

1 hour ago, Skeletonpatch said:

but I'd recommend sticking with the more Doom-style font for the sidebars.

It's really tempting, but I'd like to move away from images if possible.  In a world where people are increasingly aware of accessibility issues, it's better if people can adjust the font size, etc.  Plain text might be a little boring, but it works.

 

Quote

As for the preview page, I like that you just need to hover over the map's title for a screenshot and some background information to appear about the .wad in question. I'm not at all a knowledgeable programmer, I dabbled in some python in high school and that was about it. I'm a little biased against Javascript, so I'd probably recommend reworking it if you can achieve a similar effect with something a little more optimized.

I'm fairly sure I could get a single screenshot to preview correctly using CSS alone, but less sure how to get the accompanying text information loaded in at the same time.  Also it would be better if it could load in multiple images, so I might have to stick with the script I've got.

 

 

 

19 hours ago, phoo said:

The "latest work" section on the right could benefit from a bit of responsiveness (maybe some on hover type thing in CSS).

Yeah, still trying to decide if I'm going to point to a separate page like I do on the current design or do some sort of fancy mouseover thing.  Leaning towards the "on hover" option as it means I won't end up with multiple pages that I need to (and often fail to) update.  I've still got dead links to NewDoom and other outdated references all over the place on the current layout.  In the end, "Mephitic Purity" didn't end up in either TabCP or DAC'06, yet both still seem to be listed depending on which page you look at, heh.  It's a mess. 

 

18 hours ago, phoo said:

Speaking of the wad preview, I'd like to offer a suggestion: I think it would be really cool if you could click on a wad's preview image and have it open some sort of modal that displays a couple of other images from the wad for you to look at.

Definitely looking at options there.  In this day and age, one screenshot doesn't quite cut it, heh.

[seed]

Don't really have much else to add that has not been said already, but I definitely like the new version. It looks more modern despite being very similar to the old, and the text seems to scale better @1080p I think, compared to the old. But I think the "Latest Works" panel to the right should be separated somehow from the "main body", it looks a bit off to have the 2 connected - but the navigation menu on the left side is fine, though, since it scrolls up/down with the page.

 

21 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

And yes, retain the previewer - It really helped for me, at least.

 

Definitely this too, that previewer from the old site is great and eases the process of discovery.

Edited March 20, 2020 by seed

[DooMAD]

On 3/20/2020 at 5:40 PM, DooMAD said:

 

On 3/20/2020 at 4:27 PM, Skeletonpatch said:

but I'd recommend sticking with the more Doom-style font for the sidebars.

It's really tempting, but I'd like to move away from images if possible.  In a world where people are increasingly aware of accessibility issues, it's better if people can adjust the font size, etc.  Plain text might be a little boring, but it works.

Found a way to do it without images and keep the Doom font.  Is this better?  http://www.teamhellspawn.com/2020mk5/

Edited March 21, 2020 by DooMAD

[Andromeda]

3 hours ago, DooMAD said:

Found a way to do it without images and keep the Doom font.  Is this better?  http://www.teamhellspawn.com/2020mk5/

Love it, looks really clean!

[Skeletonpatch]

On 3/21/2020 at 3:33 PM, DooMAD said:

Found a way to do it without images and keep the Doom font.  Is this better?  http://www.teamhellspawn.com/2020mk5/

 

That is much better. I also just noticed the little caco icon that appears next to the links in the sidebar when you hover over them, which is just adorable and I love it.

[Doomkid]

EDIT: Just checked and found my answer!

Edited March 26, 2020 by Doomkid

[DooMAD]

Still working on it, but taking a bit longer than I anticipated.  Javascript is definitely not one of my strong suits, heh.  I'm just about at the stage where it's how I planned it to be, though.  Mouseover to expand the screenshot and then cycle left or right through the screenshots like a slideshow.

 

Latest iteration here:  http://www.teamhellspawn.com/2020mk8/

 

I should be pretty much ready to start using that as a template to use for the other pages.

 

//EDIT:  Or not, a friend just informed me that the layout breaks on his phone, so need to look into that.

Edited March 29, 2020 by DooMAD

[VGA]

Damn, that's good! Next time I am on my desktop I will bookmark your site!

[DooMAD]

On the current utilities page, I know SLADE and WhackEd need newer versions and Ultimate Doom Builder and Eureka are missing entirely.  What other mapping and editing software do I need to add?

[Redneckerz]

23 minutes ago, DooMAD said:

On the current utilities page, I know SLADE and WhackEd need newer versions and Ultimate Doom Builder and Eureka are missing entirely.  What other mapping and editing software do I need to add?

• ReDoomEd: A port of the original idSoftware NEXTSTEP map editor to MacOSX
• Doom Port Addon Launcher (DoomPal): Launcher for EDGE Engine games, but can work with others. Has a rather unique ''Package It!'' extension that makes a zip and packs all files together with a MiniLauncherGUI to run the TC/WAD in the source port of your choice as if it were an official program.

[Redneckerz]

@DooMAD A few more, as these are severely underrated, from @jval:

 

DoomViewer: A 3D scene viewer of Doom, Doom2, Hexen, Heretic and Strife.

DelphiDoom Voxel Editor: Edits voxels, can be used with any port that has Voxel support (ZDoom/GZDoom/DelphiDoom (Duh)

DelphiDoom Procedural Modeler: Create models (Obviously). Likely can also be used for other ports (Haven't tested).

 

These are some rather awesome utilities by JVAL that frankly see very, very little use. But they are awesome, so.. :)

[DooMAD]

DONE!  http://www.teamhellspawn.com/  (remember to force refresh if need be)

 

 

On 4/13/2020 at 5:40 PM, Redneckerz said:

• ReDoomEd: A port of the original idSoftware NEXTSTEP map editor to MacOSX
• Doom Port Addon Launcher (DoomPal): Launcher for EDGE Engine games, but can work with others. Has a rather unique ''Package It!'' extension that makes a zip and packs all files together with a MiniLauncherGUI to run the TC/WAD in the source port of your choice as if it were an official program.

 

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

@DooMAD A few more, as these are severely underrated, from @jval:

 

DoomViewer: A 3D scene viewer of Doom, Doom2, Hexen, Heretic and Strife.

DelphiDoom Voxel Editor: Edits voxels, can be used with any port that has Voxel support (ZDoom/GZDoom/DelphiDoom (Duh)

DelphiDoom Procedural Modeler: Create models (Obviously). Likely can also be used for other ports (Haven't tested).

 

These are some rather awesome utilities by JVAL that frankly see very, very little use. But they are awesome, so.. :)

 

Will definitely keep those in mind for the next update (which I promise won't take years this time).  I hadn't even considered launchers and other utilities, but I can see how those are important to include.  But, for a week or two at least, I feel like I need a break from staring at html, heh.  :)

 

I'll also need to update the links page next time I look at it, as I suspect there are a few notable Classic Doom websites currently missing.  Plus the layout for that particular page isn't 100% how I want it at the moment.

[Redneckerz]

On 4/14/2020 at 9:00 PM, DooMAD said:

DONE!  http://www.teamhellspawn.com/  (remember to force refresh if need be)

 

 

 

 

Will definitely keep those in mind for the next update (which I promise won't take years this time).  I hadn't even considered launchers and other utilities, but I can see how those are important to include.  But, for a week or two at least, I feel like I need a break from staring at html, heh.  :)

 

I'll also need to update the links page next time I look at it, as I suspect there are a few notable Classic Doom websites currently missing.  Plus the layout for that particular page isn't 100% how I want it at the moment.

Whilst you are at it:

• Perhaps include MTrop's Utilities?
• Accensus just released the AceToolkit. A very useful collection of tools. Please read the thread as Nash explains the usefulness of one of these tools.
• M8F's Toolbox, ofcourse.

Don't want to make too many suggestions, but these utility collections often fade into obscurity if not covered somewhere. Just these 3 additions alone provide an absolute wealth of helper tools for anyone editing, modding or otherwise. :)

[Gez]

There's @anotak's Doom Builder X which deserves a mention -- it's a fork of DB2 like Ultimate Doom Builder, but it goes in a very different direction.

 

As an alternative to DEUTEX, there's @andrewj's JeuTool and @Jon's hwadtools. As an alternative to WadC, there's also Jon's Liquorice.

 

I'd point out that SLADE is also a map editor, too.

[DooMAD]

Okay, updated the Editing page with links to most of those.  I might need to rethink how I offer the downloads on that page, though, as it's currently rather Win-centric.

 

Found a few other Launchers to chuck in as well.

 

I ended up putting the DelphiDoom Voxel Editor on the 'Doom Voxel Project' page instead of the editing utilities page, since that one is a little more niché and fits nicely with SLAB6 there.

[Gez]

For voxel tools, there's also MagicaVoxel.

[DooMAD]

*facepalms at own stupidity*

 

I should have remembered to list MagicaVoxel as I used it for several of the screenshots on that very page, heh.   

[Doomkid]

^ This is by far the best gif I have ever seen. I love it! It's so tiny!

 

I actually made a list of utilities for Doomshack a year or two ago: https://doomshack.org/doomtools.html

 

I guess it's redundant for every Doom's site to list the same utilities, but there's a lot of useful stuff there that probably deserves a spot on your site as well: DoomWriter/DoomWord, WadCheck, Midi3Mus, MidiFlipper and WinZWadConv are all extremely useful when a mapper/modder actually finds themselves in the position of needing them.

 

There's other even more niche tools, but that's probably getting too obscure to bother with.

[Kappes Buur]

The new webpage looks very clean and straight forward. I like it.

 

One thing though.

On the editing page you do not list GZDoom Builder or GZDoom Builder Bugfix, which are still used by many who cannot use Ultimate Doom Builder for one reason or other. Listing those as well may help future mappers.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Kappes Buur

[SulfurOccult]

New site looks really nice! (Though I cringe to see my old Ibixian Blood site lol)

[DooMAD]

3 hours ago, SulfurOccult said:

New site looks really nice! (Though I cringe to see my old Ibixian Blood site lol)

At least the layout didn't fall apart like mine did, heh.  Navbars disappearing half way down the page and such.

 

That said, if I have given you any inspiration to do an update...    :D

[SulfurOccult]

5 hours ago, DooMAD said:

That said, if I have given you any inspiration to do an update...    :D

Maybe, I've been away from the Doom community for a bit but wanting to make new maps recently since Eternal released.

[Redneckerz]

@DooMAD another one to consider, as it is soon up on /idgames: