New Future Amiga Website - need your feedback and opinions

Hi all!

Spent most of today working further on my new website for the Amiga community.

Still a lot of visual graphic problems to fix, but its come along way over this weekend.

Really hard work though not having an Amiga myself (yet!), trawling the internet for images is time-consuming - it would be great to have an Amiga myself to speed up this process.

In the future I want to have a complete section of video tutorials on how to use an Amiga - imitating http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/ to some degree.

Aminet aminet aminet - I haven't looked at it to be honest as there seems to be zero screenshots! Is there are a comprehensive list somewhere of applications that work fully on OS 4.1u2? I am guessing not, so feel free to name a few here *shouts* with links!

Look forward to your feedback ladies and gents.

Please check out my progress so far:

www.uploads.beaverpromotions.co.uk/amiga/index.html

PS: Requires CSS Browser

@djrikki

The apps (I hate that phrase) section is quite nice but I think a more uniform look to the screengrabs would be better, i.e. just shots with OS4.1 default GUI theme to give a consistent look. PM me a list and I can send you a whole bunch.

OpenOffice running on XP seems a little out of place. Personally I don't think it should be included at all as it doesn't yet exist and is a long way of (maybe never?). That said, would be good to feature some of the AmiCynix X11 programs, like AbiWord and Gimp, as these are available now.

For videos maybe you could post a list here of what you had in mind and see if anyone is willing to contribute?

@djrikki
Looks good, feels modern. Not like many others "amiga" websites.

But have my 2 cents: if you make site about AmiNG only, then better not include screenshots of old 68k/warpos games (i mean WipeOut and PayBack). While they of course looks not bad, for now we have many good games, screenshots of which can be included and which will looks good and attract new blood (can help with name of that games and screemshots from them if you in interest).

And of course domain name should be much better (like www.domen.xxx). But i think you know that already :)

ps. Sad that its you make such stuff, while it should be done like that by Hyperion and AEON.

@djrikki
Looks promising :) . Some constructive criticisms:

I am unable to see most of the App screenshots, because they are so small (and scaled quite badly by OWB). Would be nice if they could use most of the space available.

Alternatively, clicking on them could show the full picture (and click again to get rid of it), but I think this would be more clunky.

Also, name of the App/Game being pictured would be very nice. (Perhaps even a link to where it can be found? At least if it isn't on OS4Depot.)


BTW, what's the name of the underwater game you show? Looks interesting.

@ChrisH

Quote:
Yep, imho will be cool when you press on image, it spawn a bigger version, and while you point mouse on it, it give you "buble info" with name of game/app, and link where it can be downloaded.

Quote:
Aquaria (port by afxgroup here)

I have fixed a piece of javascript that wasn't working correctly on the gallery pages; they should now adapt to the screen resolution you use.

You can use the 'i' button in the top left corner of each image for description and links - wasn't that obvious before had some comments reporting the text was too dark.

@ChrisH, click to enlarge image - yeah easily done.

@kas1e, yeah i agree with the wipeout/payback to some degree, but hard to find any modern games.
Also if an ex-amigan sees it maybe he will think 'wow i never knew wipeout game out for the amiga! .... if old amiga can run wipeout-like games sure this thing can easily handle x, y and z'.

@Daniel, yes I agree with a more uniform selection of gui shots, i'll pm you a list.

@djrikki

Just some feedback.

The pages are quite strainy to look at. A lot of content are hard too see in contrast to the black background. (Particularly the gray text, links and faded images)

The items on the pages where you can flip back and forth should have a short text that is visible without pressing the 'i' when browsing. The 'i' can be used for furtehr information. As it is now the visitor have no clue what (s)he is looking at and it's tedious to move the mouse back and forth clicking the 'i'.

The front page is a bit too much, huge text and large images. Use a smaller font so the user don't have to move their eyes all over the place, and shrink the snapshots to perhaps 25%.

@djrikki

looking good but please change those horrendous dark colours for the back ground..it's depressing and hard to read

@orgin

<quote> Just some feedback.

The pages are quite strainy to look at. A lot of content are hard too see in contrast to the black background. (Particularly the gray text, links and faded images)

The items on the pages where you can flip back and forth should have a short text that is visible without pressing the 'i' when browsing. The 'i' can be used for furtehr information. As it is now the visitor have no clue what (s)he is looking at and it's tedious to move the mouse back and forth clicking the 'i'.
</quote>

---

* Short text added - good idea, now need to redraw the < and > arrows as they bloody hard to find at times.

@djrikki

Quote:
As i say i can help you with names and screenshots of modern and good looking games which works on os4 for now.

@kas1e Quote:
Ah, thanks. Remember being interested in it before, but no demo, so no go.

@djrikki
Having the name of what is being shown makes a HUGE difference :) . Feels like a real/useful site now, not just a toy/proof-of-concept!

However the screenshots are still sadly only taking 1/3rd width & 1/3rd height of my browser window (i.e. 1/9th of the available space!) using OWB on a 1280x1024 screen.

Also, no click to enlarge - dunno if you added it yet?

An idea (maybe hard so ignore if you want) is that because you usually have several pictures per app/game, some kind of nested/folder structure might be useful. I am thinking you could show one pic per app, and then somehow be able to see more pictures after clicking the first one. No idea how you'd go about this though. Better to work on other stuff, if no easy way to do this.

@djrikki


> PS: Requires CSS Browser

That means it will NOT work on my preferred browser, IBrowse then.

So for me it is a big NO. Just forget it, an Amiga site that does not work with Amiga browsers is just not worth it.

Make it compatible with IB or forget it.

@BillE Quote:
Unfortunately the rest of the world has moved on, even if you haven't. You might as well complain that most of the internet isn't usable on a 56K modem anymore. Or that you can't buy most music as casette tapes, which are so much more convenient that those new-fangled CDs (what's an MP3?).

Quote:
It works with at least two Amiga browsers: OWB & Timberwolf.

AMosaic & ALynx are also (ancient) "Amiga browsers". Should we also complain that most of the internet doesn't work on them? Where do we draw the line?

I think you'd do better complaining that IBrowse hasn't been updated in some years, and so like Voyager, AMosaic, etc it doesn't support vaguely modern standards that are now considered essential. I consider THAT a 'crime', since IBrowse is otherwise very nice.

@ChrisH

Having the name of what is being shown makes a HUGE difference :) . Feels like a real/useful site now, not just a toy/proof-of-concept!

-- Yup :D

However the screenshots are still sadly only taking 1/3rd width & 1/3rd height of my browser window (i.e. 1/9th of the available space!) using OWB on a 1280x1024 screen.

-- I am adding support for more resolutions all the time, I'll check on my work PC and see it has that exact resolution. ( * )

Also, no click to enlarge - dunno if you added it yet?

-- Not yet. I could just open one up in a new window; really easily, but I like those animated opening windows that dull the rest of the webpage. Need to research further before committing to a design.

An idea (maybe hard so ignore if you want) is that because you usually have several pictures per app/game, some kind of nested/folder structure might be useful. I am thinking you could show one pic per app, and then somehow be able to see more pictures after clicking the first one. No idea how you'd go about this though. Better to work on other stuff, if no easy way to do this.

-- Yeah I've thought about that briefly, perhaps I could set a limit of 3 per app and show 1 to the left and right of the centre pic in the empty black space. Not completely familiar with the gallery code yet, took 30 mins of trial and error just to get the description of the currently shown image. Will complete screen resolution code above first. See * above.

@BillE

Quote:
Again those retro-fags :) Its you should forget about site then, not author. Its your problems that you can't use OWB or FF.

@djrikki
Will send you today list/screenshots

@djrikki

Only idiots run their webbrowser in full screen ;)

@djrikki Quote:
I have to say I don't understand why the javascript code can't just see that there is X1*Y1 space available & automatically scale the X2*Y2 picture to fit. To keep aspect ratio preserved you just see whether X1/X2 or Y1/Y2 is smaller, and then use that value to multiply both X2 & Y2.

Note that I do not run OWB full-screen, it's window is actually 1080*994.

@orgin

Heh well I must have been an 'idiot' for years. =p Finally decided to make the Dock on my Mac visible at all times instead of auto-hide/show.

@djrikki
I (as others here) also use browser in window mode only. Imho usually users use window mode, and not so offten full-screen (i first time see that someone like full-screen mode for browser).