Sennadar Forums

Now that Sennadar.com is hosted on the same servers as these forums, I'd like to clean up the site and all the associated forums.

So, here's my plans so far:

Sites:
http://www.sennadar.com - Central launching point to get to the books, forums, or wiki.

forums.sennadar.com - Same forums as here but given it's own subdomain.

wiki.sennadar.com - Same wiki etc as exists, but again, given its own subdomain.

Overall Goals I'd like to achieve in this round of upgrades:

http://www.sennadar.com
- Use a clean, accessible design.
- Easy to update and maintain (without needing to fiddle with HTML)
- Some styling, if necessary.
- Very easy to update

forums.sennadar.com
- Retain the relatively clean/accessable design as exists
- Make it easy to upgrade to future releases of PHPbb 2.x (fix any plugins that need fixing, for instance)
- Write any plugins necessary to apply Sennadar-specific features (eg Wiki link)

wiki.sennadar.com
- Keep authentication integrated with the forums
- Clean-up and re-organise the content to make it easier to use and contribute to.
- Update with new information from Fel.


So, some work needs to be done (in no particular order), which I'd like some help with, if anyone is willing to lend a hand:

Sennadar Logos
I'd really like four logos, all (probably) based on the Sharem.
- A logo for the main http://www.sennadar.com, to fit in with the chosen theme.
- A favicon for all the sennadar.com domains.
- A Forum logo to replace the current "Sennadar Forums" logo
- A Wiki logo to replace the current "Sennadar Wiki" logo


PHP, Perl (or whatever) MS Word DOC to _x_ Format Converter
I'd like to be able to upload a MS Word .doc file and have it spit out a nicely formatted HTML File at the least.

Basics:
- Upload/select a MS Word .doc file
- Spit out a standard HTML 4 compliant file, with pre-provided CSS embedded in a style element.
- Spit out another (different) HTML 4 compliant file with external CSS Reference, plus some pre-provided HTML for the header/footers.
- Embedded CSS and Referenced CSS + HTML Header/Footers to be pulled in from an external file (i.e not included into the app, so it can be modified readily)

Web based (PHP, Perl, contact for others) would be preferable, to be hosted somewhere on the sennadar domains. But a *nix or Windows application will do too.

Bonus points for conversion to these additional formats:
- PDF
- RTF (Straight)
- LIT
- Other portable formats.

Some Useful Info:
On the linux side of things, wvWare, or AbiWord might do the trick, if compiled with a few scripts.
It needs to be a stand-alone set of scripts/files though - and work from a command line without superuser rights. (eg: from a cron-script)

For a PHP Web-Based solution, Servoo might work as part of a solution.

Clean-Up/Re-organisation & Update of Wiki Content
I think a general clean-up/re-organisation is in order.
There's definitely a ton of things missing, especially Subjugation related info.
MommyDoom has also started on the timeline info in the forums, this needs to be ported over to the Wiki.

Forum Plugin: SennadarWiki Link BBCode
I'd like a quick way of referencing a Sennadar Wiki page. At the moment we're using the URLs, but I'd like a BBCode reference to do this. (Maybe the Wiki-style double-brackets-and-pipe format?)

Forum Plugin: Anti-Spam Measures
Plugin to rename the username field for the registration pages.
I've done this already, but it prevents easy upgrades. The best part is that it's eliminated the automated spam-bot signups for now.

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There's plenty of other stuff that I'm sure could make it much nicer - please put that in the newly created Wish List thread (the older one has been locked)

I'd like to get the move across to the Sennadar domain done by the 8th of January (when I finish leave) - but the other stuff I'd like to get moving too.

--

I did some work on a prototype of the new sennadar.com front-end at http://staging.sennadar.com back in August.

Unless someone has some better ideas, I think I'll go ahead with this, since it's fairly easy to update.

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Anyone willing to lend a hand, if you need some sort of resources to do it - let me know what it is, and I'll do my best.

Love the layout of the new site... it looks strangely familiar...

I had a quick question, are you going to put in an auto redirect for the current system, or are we going to try to get on one day and find the links don't work? Just wondering.

Fiferguy wrote:I had a quick question, are you going to put in an auto redirect for the current system, or are we going to try to get on one day and find the links don't work?

Yeah - I'll put in redirects.

Links to
sennadar.plebian.net/ -> http://www.sennadar.com
.../forum/ -> forum.sennadar.com
wiki.sennadar.plebian.net/ -> wiki.sennadar.com

etc.

Links direct to chapters and files may not work, but they'll land on a friendly error page.

Spec8472 wrote:Links direct to chapters and files may not work, but they'll land on a friendly error page.

Something like this? "You numb nuts! What were you thinking trying to go to this page. Don't you know that this is wrong? WRONG WRONG WRONG! You are a loser, and now, you can't read the books! And guess what! Fel just posted a new chapter! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Fiferguy wrote:Something like this?

...and this is why we don't let you touch the site

Spec8472 wrote:

Fiferguy wrote:Something like this?

...and this is why we don't let you touch the site

Thanks Spec, for keeping Fiferguy's hands off. For those of us who know we can't walk on water yet, its nice to be able to keep reading fel's stories...

You can't walk on water yet? Amateur...

Sennadar.com > This location is only a backup maintained by CanisD. The main site can be found found here.> Sennadar.com > This location is only a backup maintained by CanisD. The main site can be found found here.> Sennadar.com > This location is only a backup maintained by CanisD. The main site can be found found here.> Sennadar.com > This location is only a backup maintained by CanisD. The main site can be found found here.> Sennadar.com > This location is only a backup maintained by CanisD. The main site can be found found here. ...

Weee infinite loops rock

Deeb wrote:Weee infinite loops rock

sennadar.com == sennadar.plebian.net at the moment.

Ohh i thought you had actually moved the files over, guess not


BTW: Are you taking any submissions for the new logo or are you going to do it yourself ?

Deeb wrote:BTW: Are you taking any submissions for the new logo or are you going to do it yourself ?

I'm asking for submissions -- as you can see with the current forum logo, I'm not exactly a great graphics artist.

Any colors in specific you need for the logo other then the req. for the Shaeram ?

And do you want the amulet design or the Heart of the Goddess design ?


If you could send me the description for the right one from the Sennadar wiki


P.S. as a suggestion you might want to add popular names and words into the spell check feature

Deeb wrote:Any colors in specific you need for the logo other then the req. for the Shaeram ?

I don't particularly mind about the colours (as long as it's not going to clash/distract from the overall style of the site) or particular Shaerem design used.

Both design references are here on the Wiki, afaik.

Deeb wrote:P.S. as a suggestion you might want to add popular names and words into the spell check feature

There is no spellcheck feature on the forums.

Spec8472 wrote:

Deeb wrote:Any colors in specific you need for the logo other then the req. for the Shaeram ?

I don't particularly mind about the colours (as long as it's not going to clash/distract from the overall style of the site) or particular Shaerem design used.

Both design references are <a href="http://wiki.sennadar.plebian.net/index. ... m">here</a> on the Wiki, afaik.

Deeb wrote:P.S. as a suggestion you might want to add popular names and words into the spell check feature

There is no spell check feature on the forums.

Ok, i was just checking which one you wanted

As for the spell check must be the comp i'm using right now :-0

It might be your browser. The new Firefox has a spell checker built in...I'm not sure about IE 7, cause I don't use IE.