New Turbo Sliders website (2015)

[stummihouse]

Users, roles and permissions

• Developer
  He can do everything on the structure and the code of the site. Only the user "Turbo Sliders" is the Developer.
  dede and stummihouse have the password of that user. There are no reasons to spread this type of access.
• Community Manager
  He can do everything except for change some structure of the site.
  He can manage content, users, files, pages, articles, tournaments, teams...
  If you are a Community Manager and you can not do something, please ask stummihouse.
• Trusted user
  He can upload cars and tracks.
• Authenticated user
  These are all the registered users.
  They can view and enjoy the site; they may request the opening of a team, and then manage it independently (after the approval by a Community Manager).
  They appear in the list of players, and can connect their name in the tournaments to their account.

To-do list
See the to-do list on Trello.com
some things, especially the "management section", can be made by users of Turbo Sliders.
Anyone can contribute!


Old version:
you can view the old version here, but several links lead on www site: http://old.turbosliders.com
(it may be deleted due to disk space)

Starting post:
Hello!
I and all those who want to cooperate, are about to start work on the new Turbo Sliders website.

The idea is to make the site a bit more clearly and helpful to newcomers.
Once replicated the main functions of the old site, I would have other ideas about a software that allows the "server admins" to easily show standings and statistics directly on the site of TS.

I open this thread to keep you updated but especially for tips and help.
We will use the CMS/framework Drupal 7 with which we can create a strong, powerful and long lasting site. It will allow the community to work together over the time without creating mess, if we follow the best practices of the framework.

Thanks and sorry for my English which worsens dramatically when I have to write long periods

[Whiplash]

Nice to hear that! Do you have enough experience with that kind of work? It would be good if you could already show us the link where you're developing it - so that people can follow it and give you suggestions.

[stummihouse]

fair question i guess so, it's my job, and i work with Drupal since several years.
Give me a few days to lay the basis and I will start soon to share the work.

[Whiplash]

it's my job, and i work with Drupal since several years.

That's great. Anyway, we already had few projects that tried to rebuild the site - and they all failed. For example, you can see one of them HERE (started by velmu). There was also a project started in silence by Badeend, and probably also by that ignorant bastard Tijny. Their main problem has been that they were always separated from the community, working somewhere in the background.
I think it's highly important to inform the community about the stuff you're working on. That will help you to stay on right road during whole that process.

[Tijny]

... and probably also by that ignorant bastard Tijny

Can't you take a hint? STOP ADDRESSING ME, FOR THE LOVE OF F***.

I may be interested in lending a hand. I am not skilled or experienced enough to carry such a project by myself, but I should be able to contribute to an existing foundation. Will you use a version control system to facilitate cooperation?

[dede]

Just to make it clear, stummi got access to the tscom website already. I might join for some development later.

[stummihouse]

Will you use a version control system to facilitate cooperation?

could not there be need, everyone can work on your own custom module.
no one will ever touch the code of the core of Drupal!

if we follow the best practices, just a daily backup to avoid trouble


btw:
http://maybe.turbosliders.com/
read this article to see a draft of the structure

[Rendy Andrian]

Looks great! May I participate? I could contribute screenshots for startersk and would like to do some other things like CSS if you may.

[stummihouse]

sure! post some pictures as well.

about the downloads: can you tell me where to find some helpful trackpack? I only found the "F1 track pack".
perhaps it is more useful to download some set of trackpack rather than download individual tracks.

[Whiplash]

about the downloads: can you tell me where to find some helpful trackpack? I only found the "F1 track pack".
perhaps it is more useful to download some set of trackpack rather than download individual tracks.

Yes, we have planed to have that upload/download option on the new website. Same goes for cars too.
But for now there is no such packs.

Anyway, instead of direct Windows, Linux and Mac download links, I think that you should lead all of them to THIS forum post. That way people will be able to read some important info about the game right away, and also that will help them to see where they can ask any question about potential problems.
Or, maybe better, info about the newest version should get its own easily visible place on the homepage, and leave the download links as they are.

[stummihouse]

maybe i can remove the three box from the homepage, and just leave the link to the download page that contains full info


updated the firts post, with a "todo list": you would accept an integrated forum less cool than this?
help me to improve the "help structure" too

thank you!

[Whiplash]

maybe i can remove the three box from the homepage, and just leave the link to the download page that contains full info

That's a good decision. The only thing that is missed by that is the fact that now we lost important info on home page that TS is actually playable on 3 different OSes (Windows, Linux and Mac). You can make that known by adding 3 big OS icons under the TS logo.

updated the firts post, with a "todo list": you would accept an integrated forum less cool than this?
help me to improve the "help structure" too

That's also a great idea! I would only add there also "Game History". Also, "Help" could be renamed by "I'm a newbie", or something like that. That will make better chance for people to really click on it.
Also, you will find a few nice guides on Hengari's site (HERE). You can just copy the text and illustrations for the certain tabs of official TS site.

EDIT: Maybe also separate "Tacks and cars" to "Tacks" and "Cars". But combine both "Tyres" and "Fuel" to one: "Tyres/Fuel/Damage/Missiles/Drafting"

[stummihouse]

thank you!

[Whiplash]

Some time ago I was warned by Ande that a word "FREE" could make him a problems when the game is called like that. So, let's just try to avoid it by writing:

Turbo Sliders is a racing game with a top-down perspective that allows up to 20 network drivers compete against each other over the Internet.
Download the game, join the community and start play and compete with many opponents in various tracks and with different cars, in single races or organized tournaments!

And in "Donate" section, you can write this:
Be a hero and purchase Turbo Sliders license!
If you liked the game, you should purchase a license. That will help us to keep it up to date and supported for the further development.
Purchase a Turbo Sliders license!


Btw, new site should finally get rid us of those external team websites. That's why you should consider a new tab there named "Teams" or "Clans". Inside of it you just need to leave some space for text about a team's philosophy + image for their team tag or team flag. It would be easier for you if each team could organize that page by it self.

[stummihouse]

Thank you very much for the texts! as I said my English is not up to be posted on a website.

[stummihouse]

about the import of users:
I think we could start from scratch with a clean database; users will re-join the new site.
we will leave the old site (especially the forum) online, as a historian.

in this way we save very much time, and we can focus on new features.

even if we do the import, users should still re-set their password, and also a lot of data should be lost anyway: we'll save only username and email address.

what do you think?

[Whiplash]

Isn't the forum separated from the site totally? And aren't people registering to the forum, not to the website?
So, why don't you just link the current forum with the new website? So, if somebody click on the "Forum" tab, he'll just be directed HERE.

[stummihouse]

we can have an integrated forum, like here: http://maybe.turbosliders.com/forum

in this way there would be only one user registration for forums and the site (with its upcoming new features, eg. the teams)

[Jurgen-NL]

id really like to keep the forum i like the way it looks its quick and easy to use with over 32k posts and 1.8k topics in 9 years orso with a small community thats acceptable isnt it?

[stummihouse]

so a new user will have to register in two places, the forum AND the new TS site, in order to create or join a team, manage their profile on the site, write blog articles (users with privileges), upload contents, and to use all the new features of the new site.

i think this is a bad option due only to longing for old things.
certainly the new forum can be improved. but it becomes impossible if it is assumed that any change is bad

in this way i do not see why to work so hard for a new site! only for the help pages?

[Whiplash]

we can have an integrated forum...

Ah, I see your point. Yes, that would be a step forward. But, isn't there any way to move all of the posts to a new forum? The other solution would be to have only the link of the old forum inside of the new one. You could lock it up for new registrations but keep it fully readable and search-able for all of the visitors. But, I would like to hear what other people would say.

in this way i do not see why to work so hard for a new site! only for the help pages?

I was actually thinking that you'll lose the most of the time on tracks/cars databases. But obviously you didn't plan to do anything on that part, did you?
I mean, it's bad to have external download links for tracks and cars, and for anything else. Website should be mainly focused on centralizing the community and all of the TS related contents.

[Jurgen-NL]

so a new user will have to register in two places, the forum AND the new TS site, in order to create or join a team, manage their profile on the site, write blog articles (users with privileges), upload contents, and to use all the new features of the new site.

i think this is a bad option due only to longing for old things.
certainly the new forum can be improved. but it becomes impossible if it is assumed that any change is bad

its not just longing for old things well yes it is that but its also the fact that the forum is not broken.
the website on the other hand how much i would like to keep that as well, now that part is kind of broken.
Everything is displayed greatly!
However the stuff that has been pointed out and where new players click on a lot is Ranking Cars Tracks they am all full of sh*t broken links badly organized hard to understand how to search etc. etc.

its needs to be adjusted to a level on which we use this forum and like i said before user friendly/easy to navigate/newbie proof then you will get people registering to the forum which isn't even the goal off making a new website from what i can tell the goal is to try and grow a bigger community so people will play more and longer thus making those sections that are popular by outsiders better easier and organizder eventually when they do stick around they really don't give a shit about registering for forums and websites at least i wouldn't

[dede]

https://www.drupal.org/project/phpbbforum

Let's avoid double registration

[stummihouse]

Ok, I'll do what "the old team" wants, even if the reasons do not convince me.

I mean, it's bad to have external download links

currently downloads are external to save server resources.
nobody prevents the current site to have internal links: it's an voluntary, appropriate choice.

the new system, which is already almost ready, will give you the opportunity to choose whether to upload a file on our server (worst choice) or whether to insert an external link as in the examples that are now online


p.s updated the first post

[dede]

Let's avoid internal download links for files that are going to be downloaded frequently. We have limited bandwidth.