posted 05-06-2001 21:15         

Functionality:
== The Rotator ==
- essentially, the semi-circle device in the top left corner. Used for navigation of the main pages.
- the two gray circles should constantly rotate clockwise *slowly*, just to add a bit of motion to the page, and to hint at the rotator design to someone analyzing the page for the first time (important to hint at something's function beforehand).
- The actual table of contents is up to the PenIs staff
- When an item in the table of contents is clicked, ALL the items in the table of contents rotate counter-clockwise until the one clicked on is at the top. Ones rotated out of the top reappear and rotate into the bottom left.
- Table of contents entries get progressively larger as they approach the top, the top being largest.
- Items glow when they are mouseovered.

=== Title ===
- The scratchy semi-transparent "penismightier.com" behind the rotator should twitch slightly (this might be tough to program twitching motion...)

=== Caption ===
- The gray caption will always start "our members have members", but after a short delay will begin to change to other random captions (like the ones now).
- Captions fade out and in again

=== Link of the instant ===
- Functions basically the way it does now. On a mouseover, the link pops out like it does now.

=== News Titles ===
- Pretty much self-explanatory. I'll be making a large library of monitor icons for the staff to use as they see fit.

A lot of the main info and links should be on the news page, like it is now. Yeah, it's a wee bit cluttered, but it really is the best way, I've found.

Any other functionality/graphical gems the flash people can come up with that looks good (like the glow on penismightier.com now) are of course up for grabs.

posted 05-07-2001 09:37         

check out http://www.desktopian.org/ for where I got the idea. (There are four little squares of color in the top right area - click them.)

It would be pretty simple to code the changes in javascript using a searchstring - such as
http://www.penismightier.com?color=blue

and the code

code:

---

if (location.search.indexOf("color=blue") != -1)
      document.write("{IMG SRC="titleblue.jpg}{/IMG}");
else
      document.write("{IMG SRC="titleorange.jpg}{/IMG}");

---

Changable colors would be pretty easy to implement, wouldn't affect the design much (would only involve a tiny bit of javascript), and would keep everyone happy. Choosing a default color, that's up to you guys, once it's implemented.

[This message has been edited by psyci (edited 05-07-2001).]

posted 05-07-2001 09:59         

Some different color schemes I've played with.

Personally, I like the one in the bottom right... it looks the best out of all of them, and matches the messageboard perfectly.

posted 05-07-2001 10:22            

Personally I love the design. How wide would the banner on the left be though? As wide as the current one or smaller?

posted 05-07-2001 10:51         

quote:

---

Originally posted by psyci:
Personally, I like the one in the bottom right... it looks the best out of all of them, and matches the messageboard perfectly.

---

I agree. Bottom right defintely.

posted 05-07-2001 11:35         

the left side banner would be around ~115 pixels (compared to the current site's 125)

the top banner would have to be ~128 pixels (compared to the current site's 100)

posted 05-08-2001 12:27            

who would have thought my
idea for a rotator (which
turned out to be unoriginal)
would find expression through
your hard work!

the page looks wonderful:
uncluttered, original, and
stylistic.

ok, now for my $.02 on design:
what if there was a pen similar
to the one from weis' pirated
cgi script coming from the left
hand corner as a ray pointing to
the section of the rotator which
the reader moused over?

the problem with this, of course,
is that it sould get in the way
of the site name, which seems to
be behind the rotator.

this brings me to the next $.02:
why is the site name behind the
rotator?

posted 05-08-2001 13:23         

The site name is behind the rotator because it looked terrible in front of it; that part is mainly there as a watermark kind of thing. I thought it looked best when it crossed into the rotator; makes the whole thing look a lot less empty.

posted 05-09-2001 12:10         

However, since that scrolls with the page, links like that can go underneath the vertical title - and should be stuff that isn't wholly necessary (like, the messageboard link should probably go in the main table of contents in the Rotat0r, instead of in the side table).

The more important stuff people at resolutions > 640x480 will see when the page loads, since it's at the top, and everything else will be viewable when they scroll down to read the news (the same way it is now, actually).

posted 05-09-2001 12:56            

maybe we can do without
the penismightier at the
top and just have the
r4nd0m1z3r and the link
of the instant at the
top, making the top bar
much thinner...