AMTZ: A Rebranding. Part 3: The website

PerRock

Moderator - Read the CoC!
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This is part 3 of my ongoing blog series outlining the rebranding process at AMTZ. You can read part 2 here and part 1 here.


Probably the most time consuming part of this project (and it's still on-going) is the rebuild of the website. The whole rebranding stemmed from the website rebuild I embarked upon. Which started as a project for a web coding class I was taking. The class project was to design a website that emulates a current existing site. So using new CSS3 & some HTML5, I started coding. The biggest challenge is adapting the forum to the new look. It uses older website techniques, which I cannot change. So the forum uses stylesheets implementing table design, and the website itself uses div design. All in all, the website will have 5 different style sheets.

While the bulk of the website is still being built (it's mostly done) you can still preview it and get a feel for the new look. On the forums, at the bottom of any page you can change the theme using the drop-down menu to "Cards". To view the new website being built visit this link: http://www.amtraktrainz.com/testing expect things to be broken, images not to be there, and links not to work.

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An early mock up of the new download page. Many things stayed in the final version.

The forum will also be seeing some changes in its organization, currently we have way more categories than the number of page views we get. None of your posts will be deleted (if I can help it, if any do get deleted it was by accident or violation of the rules) in this restructure. Here are some notable changes:


  • The "Trainz Discussions" sub-category will be removed topics will be moved into the "Projects" area, as will the Screenshots sub-category.
  • "Prototype Trains", "Rail News", "Polls" and "Peter's Area" will all be combined into the "General Discussion".
  • "Staff Projects Showcase" (to be renamed "Staff Showcase") will be moved within the Projects Sub-cat.

There will be other changes as well. Later this month we will be taking the forums offline to implement these changes. More information about when this will happen and for how long will be made available later.

Just a reminder if you view the website or forum theme. They are still very much under construction, and things are subject to change & should be expected not to work.
 
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