web design

[RAK]

hey FP, how is your skill in php/javascript?

ive been designing this browser game from the ground up, and i could use someone to help answer my questions.


then again, i might just go back to python and make this game in that.

[Steve]

My PHP/Javascript skills are pretty much strictly modifications (often to PHP in WordPress) and copy/paste; the only PHP I use on a regular basis is "include".

I might still be able to help, because I can see what PHP is doing, I'm just not at the point where I can write it myself (primarily due to my lack of familiarity with SQL).

[RAK]

gah, i'm at a modification level myself.  my primary issues are with passing shit between xml, javascript, php, and mysql.


in all actuality, its not that hard, it's just tedious having to look at an example, then look up each component of that example to discover how they all work....  and rarely do the examples show everything working together.

my main issue, really, was discovering how to use either js or php to dynamically update an element of a page without reloading the whole page.

this is the layout, page is divided into four sections (css).  titlebar, link list on the left, main body of the page on the right of link list, footer.

i want the content of the main body to change without reloading the page.

i could do this with javascript, but the thing is, for most of the content that is not the game, i'd need to read an external file to have the content.  this means all of my "main body" stuff would have to be stored in sql or xml, and i'd have to build a parser to translate from either of those to html.

my understanding is that if i were to do it in php, it would result in a whole page reload.....  though it might be possible otherwise.

i know i could do it with frames, but all of the documentation i've been reading has been telling me that frames are becoming obsolete because of css.


oh yea, i also want to put my login stuff in the title/header bar, but i cant seem to get the positioning right, and the closest i can get it is right underneath (in/overlapping the main body).

i'm also developing the same game in python (less the multiplayer), and unlike my previous game, lucha libre manager, this one will actually have a GUI.

do you know what a pain in the ass it is to get UIs working in python?  let me tell you, i'll be shitting broken glass till i get this puzzled out.

[Steve]

The main thing that comes to mind for not reloading the page is AJAX, the same programming that makes this forum's abandoned chat room work. I haven't worked with that in so long, and I barely did anything with it when I did.

AJAX Tutorial on W3Schools

It's a mix of Javascript and XML. Since it works on this forum, I'm fairly sure it's MySQL and PHP compatible, too.

[RAK]

lol, all my web design shit, i learned from there.

i am not using ajax as it is presumably a different system than wamp, with different prerequisites.  i did browse through that section some months ago and saw nothing that could not be done otherwise.  working here just means you have everything necessary  installed on the server, which is not guaranteed on my part.

ive pretty much shelved the web design thing for now, and am instead building a graphical game in python.

now my problem is understanding the poor documentation and code comments for the gui module i have for pygame.  it's a huge pain in the dick.  though once i get it all figured out, i'll have some cool shit.

this project also relates to my newfound burning interest in homestuck.

[WhereThePoopIs]

Does anyone know a good video player? I tried asking on Discuss Tech but that place is dead.

A friend of mine is working on some project he doesnt want the details of getting out so I cant show you what its used for but something editable with CSS would be great.

[RAK]

Does anyone know a good video player? I tried asking on Discuss Tech but that place is dead.

A friend of mine is working on some project he doesnt want the details of getting out so I cant show you what its used for but something editable with CSS would be great.

html5 embeded video?

[Mac]

jwplayer is the standard one on the internet. do you have a different need?

[WhereThePoopIs]

We'll give jwplayer a try.

We aren't too familiar with the new HTML5 stuff yet.

[Steve]

I haven't done anything with HTML5 embeds yet. Has anyone here used it to embed videos yet?

Also, my experiments with Search Engine Optimization and HTML5 Microdata on Cars Simplified seem to be doing well, according to Google Webmaster Tools. But I've also discovered people don't search for basic car terms as often as I had thought.

[RAK]

I haven't done anything with HTML5 embeds yet. Has anyone here used it to embed videos yet?

Also, my experiments with Search Engine Optimization and HTML5 Microdata on Cars Simplified seem to be doing well, according to Google Webmaster Tools. But I've also discovered people don't search for basic car terms as often as I had thought.

html5 is easy shit for video and music embedding.  look it up on w3schools.  just a little bit defining the player, and boom, done.

[WhereThePoopIs]

We haven't made much progress yet.

Maybe we will look into that HTML 5 method.

[RAK]

We haven't made much progress yet.

Maybe we will look into that HTML 5 method.

seriously, you just do a little css style defining of the player, then just add video tags around the filename, as you would any link.

w3schools has awesome tutorials.

seriously, do it, you've been stuck on that longer than any one aspect of my project has stuck me, and that's saying something ;D

[Steve]

Does anyone know any modern SEO stuff? Both this site and my second-most-popular site have recently lost a lot of page rank (on Google, at least) and I'd like to at least recover what it had. It looks like it had something to do with text on the page, because (at least on Cars Simplified) the image results seem to have stuck around more than the basic page results.

[RAK]

about the best way i know is pay-per-click text ads through google.  depending on how many words you choose and how many other people are buying them, you may be able to get a good deal.

for my own business plan, my last estimate for my own needs for computer repair related terms was going to run me around $200 for two months for an estimated 8 people per day.

i really suck with SEO, im typically looking for ways to avoid being found by random searched in my own web design.  ive only ever done stuff for small, closed gaming communities.

[Steve]

Ah, I am trying to make the web site itself a profitable venture, and that price in that time frame is way too high for me. Before I one of my sites was brought down by url errors, I was bringing in almost 50 people a day, and now I'm lucky if I get 5. It's even more disappointing considering with the income from the last good month I had, I could have been able to pay for half of what your monthly cost was.