Timewaster's Guide Archive

I would be happy if I didn't keep making stupid literary mistakes... and if sortitus would stop laughing at them. 

As for the WYSIWYG theme editor, I'm mostly thinking of drag and drop blocks of content. That would rewrite som CSS to pinpoint location of blocks. I also think this is beyond my current ability, unless there's something obvious I haven't thought of for how to do it. But I reckon I'll learn eventually.

The problem with trying to position boxes on the page is that the CSS looks differently for every browser.  CSS is a pain, in that sense.  However, what you can do is float the elements and then use a JQuery moveable box to allow them to move it between columns and rows.  This will look good, but the boxes are always positioned directly under the box right above (as is common with floating divs)  I've written a few pages to do this and it's pretty simple.  The only issue is remembering the order and displaying them accordingly.  You can get a preview here:  http://docs.jquery.com/UI/API/1.6/Sortable

I'm sleep depraved... otherwise I wouldn't make those stupid mistakes

Dear god...   I'll just respond inline... way too much for me to remember here!  Just look for the italics... I'm way too lazy to stop and start the quote...

I've decided to call it Spork (note that all of this is before I've even decided to make it). I have names for some of the modules too. The Sidebar is Salad. The blog recycles the title for my old blog: Bloggo. The comic one remains at Galactibase. The gallery I'm thinking of calling Revue.
Strider:  Bloggo, sounds like a drain cleaner.  You need a bacos, because everything is better with bacon.

Note that this is more or less a first brain storm. If you think of other stuff it needs, suggest them.

Front page:
5-10 most recent posts (defaults to comic, announcements, blog posts, media, important forum posts, configurable)
Strider: Ahh, the good ole front page.  You get into the trap of making it too configurable, and thus too database heavy since it has to 'create' the page for each request (which is fine if you want to stay small/cheap) or static (after each update, create a static page so all 'browsers' can view it w/o using any processor power.  Or both, only display dynamic for signed in users.  I'm sure this is all old news to you... just rambling.

Site Wide:
Universal appearance for all features, one style source
Once user table for all modules
SEO/Mod-rewrite features built in.
RSS subscription abilities built in.
WYSIWYG editor/code view editor for all posts
Next/prev/first/last posts within module
Digit, stumbleupon, etc links.
Related links (inter- or intra-module) (match on tags, storyline, people)
link to login/register/administer options
captcha for registration
Strider: All seems pretty general.  I would suggest making everything a template.  RSS is pretty standard and just uses a different template than the general pages.  This allows you to easily add rss feeds for comments, individual threads, or whole weblogs, etc.

"Static" pages
Dynamic links builder
dynamic FAQ builder
About page
Strider: As mentioned earlier, might be good to make a module that 'creates' static pages.  This would help lessen the load on commonly hit pages.  You can also have a grim reaper module that 'kills' old threads and converts them to static pages.  This way there's no information lost and people can't raise the dead.

Sidebar:
Can be moved from side to side or on top
Menu
Tag cloud (by module or site wide)
Categories
Search
Hot/popular topics by module or overall
Recent posts
Online users
Calendar showing recent posts (or posts for era if in archive)
Strider: Recent posts sounds like the same thing as the homepage.  A chatterbox might be fun, depending on your tastes.  Most sites show online users at the bottom of the page in a footer of some sort, so you might just want to keep them there.  The tag cloud/categories/search/calendar are all good.

Users:
Display name separate from login
Real name
Email
IM contacts (MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, Skype)
Photo
Avatar (Gravatar compatible)
Location
Bio
Interests
Birthday
Position (admin, moderator, editor, etc)
Class/level system like TWG
Modules interested in
Gender
Websites (blog, homepage, facebook, myspace, LJ, twitter, last.fm)
Site clans?
Games
Posted items
Favorite posts
Strider: Games that give points that are tied to your title might be fun.  It would definitely encourage people to spend time on your site.  The problem is getting/creating the games.  Also, make the website/links field expandable.  It's annoying when a site only has a couple options, but forgets a site I like.  (In this case, nanowrimo user page would be a site relevant to these forums)

Forum: (Simple Machines)
Karma system
Unread posts
Recent posts
Stat tracking
Ban by user/ip/email/address
Keyword and user searches
Categories for subforums
Move posts
Move threads
Move subforums
Delete posts
Spoiler warning/protection
Hide/ignore users
Favorite users
Subscription by subforum/thread
Group/clan threads or subforums
Strider: Another system that I've seen work well is a rank/power system.  The users who post the most can moderate the system (temporary until approved by a real mod.)  This helps quickly remove dangerous links to viruses, child porn, etc.  Of course, this power can be revoked by the gods if abused.

Comics: (Galactibase)
View one at a time or by week
Posting comic creates forum thread (date/title of comic is default name)
News items related to comics appear below ("news item" may be commentary) – may or may not be a blog post
Custom alt text
Space for site wide announcements
Track date written and edited
Story arcs, categories (for multiple topic comics)
Keyword tags
People tags
Characters can have user pages, their posts features will like to their comics
MUST BE CURRENT COMIC LANDING LINK
Record dialog
Strider: And javascript to move pages around similar to the photo gallery.  In fact, if you could make the system react just like a gallery, that would be awesome.  I get annoyed when I'm reading a comic that has been around for a while and after each comic I need to search for the "next"/"Prev" link... if I could just hit the left/right arrow on they keyboard and continue reading, that would be awesome.  Alt-Text is somewhat annoying since some browsers don't display the whole string, some people don't even know it's there, and it vanishes quickly.  As much as I love XKCD, I wish they just displayed the text as a caption.

Blog: (WordPress)
Multiple blogs – mark fiction/journal/article
Mutli-tier categories (inherit properties)
Keyword tags
People tags (link to their profile, FB, twitter, whatever)
Mark author, date written, date edited
Choose ordering for each category
posting blog creates a forum thread with post name as default thread title
automatic trackbacks
fiction posts have storyline too
Strider:  One thing I'm working on with my webpage is making a system for each major category.  For example, I have three section: Blog, Writing, and Programming.  I want it to show a personal theme for my blog, a fantasy theme for writing, and a techy/coding theme for programming.  I think it would bring personality to each page.  As for person tags, how do you decide where it goes?  Does each user get the option?  Also, the ability to export the page would be good too.  Allows you to do custom backups or move to another system later on if you wish (blasphemy!)

Gallery: (Gallery 2)
Configurable number of items per page
Keyword tags
People tags
Sort by date, tags, size, type
Edit: rotate, resize, add text, add watermark
Strider: Zoom, option to save image, mark offensive (depending on who is allowed to post).. or even just moderation ability.

Wiki module:
Like Wikipedia, user editable only however

Merch:
Use gallery elements, related items
Item thumbs and larger view (auto generate thumbs)
Item description
Shopping cart.
Strider:  Ugh, I had to make a shopping cart system for my Masters Project... and it was a pain in the ass.  Make sure you have a module system here so they can add the type of cart they want to use (paypal/google checkout/yahoo checkout/msn checkout/local credit card system/etc).  Don't forget: User Ratings, Comments, Price, Sale Price, quantity, etc.

Archives:
Sorted by tags, date, cats, author, storyline; ascending or descending
By module, whole site, or set of modules
Month calendars

Search:
Integrated or separated, multi-module search
Strider: Modules should supply user searchable database rows with friendly names.

Site Admin Configs:
Turn on/off modules
Order sidebar (drag and drop)
Turn on/off headers/footers/left bar/ right bar
Themes
   Built in theme editor, both WYSIWYG and code
   WYSIWYG drag and drop elements, click element to chose color
Turn on/off any type of optional links
Create, edit, administer posts (click post and then choose module, or click module then click post/edit/administer)
Administer users
Stats
Strider: A theme editor is hard to write.  Ideally, it should just be adding/removing modules and editing CSS.  I'm not sure creating a WYSIWYG editor for themes is very efficient if it'll just be used by the site administrators.  If users can create their own themes, it might be worth the effort though.  Also, (as much as I hate saying this) you might want to include a Advertising section.  Need to recoup operating costs somewhere.  Alternatively, a donation center.  Donate for no ads?

User Configs:
Choose theme
Choose default landing page
Default search options
Default archive options
More/less archive links for their post views.
Strider:  Allow the user to hide/block modules.  Some people won't care to see the comic or to play the games.  Privacy settings as well.  Allow them to choose how much information is displayed, who it's displayed to, etc.  Friends lists, or even friend groups.

Too.. much.. work

ok ok, both very valid points.  I would say I feel your pain but... um.. I have a friend there and so I didn't have to pay for my copy.  *whistles innocently*

So, yea... when are you going to put up your wishlist of features?  (And when do I get to see how quickly I can hack it?

True...  If you start writing one, let me know. I'll probably have time after nanowrimo.

Lol.. ever look at Expression Engine?

I would offer to help if I wasn't already working on three separate web pages... :/