Entry 135 - The Writers Blog Alliance


The Writers Blog Alliance

Yesterday I was asked to help redesign and outfit The Writers Blog Alliance. This is my favorite type of project to work on: a solid idea, a dedicated usership, and a real opportunity to push myself to the limit when it comes to design and development.

The Writers Blog Alliance

Thanks a lot to Clive Allen for the kind words about this site, and for the vote of confidence from my good friend Mad. I hope to give the WBA website a good design footing to start on, as well as the fluid, sturdy, and refined management infrastructure that a website needs to maintain a standard of quality, accessibility, and interest.

Update Sunday, 08/14/2005

Goodness. This is becoming quite a project. The forum integration was for the most part seamless, though I am still trying to get my head around how I should link the sessions/DB tables for the user base. I think this is one of those projects where an outline of some sort can go a long way towards getting what you want from the code. Gotta write one of those.

The image above now links directly to the development domain, so if you wanna take a peek and even leave a comment (there) about something you see that's out of whack, please do. Oh, and if you are using IE, don't bother. Designing for IE first is exactly why the innerweb looked like shit for a decade or so. :P ◊


9 Missives So Far


01 Gone Away said on Thu Aug 11 16:30:38 EDT

Oi! Since when did you get time to blog? Get back to work this minute! :D

(definitely joking!)


02 josh said on Fri Aug 12 2:58:06 EDT

I think I can I think I can I think I can


03 Mad said on Fri Aug 12 7:05:08 EDT

Lovin' the screenshot Mr Hill


04 Jeremy said on Fri Aug 12 7:57:53 EDT

That site definitely needs one, and from the shot above, it looks like it's going to be sweet!


05 josh said on Fri Aug 12 16:45:58 EDT

Yeah no doubt. Having scoured the world of content management systems and blogware while working on wB, I'd have to say that XOOPS is one of the worst when it comes to table nightmarishness, hacky code, and degree of customization difficulty. They call themselves a web portal, but really, they are just selling 20 lbs of shit in a 10 lb bag. Of course the thing they seem very good at is slapping their logo on damn near everything. I guess if I had to use a portal, it would probably be Mambo.


06 supa said on Fri Aug 12 22:21:28 EDT

beautiful!


07 josh said on Sat Aug 13 1:52:28 EDT

Hey Hey! I thought you were on vacation! Report back to the hot tub immediately. ;)


08 Yzabel said on Sat Aug 13 12:47:12 EDT

I already mentioned it on WBA, but i'm going to do it again. So far this all looks like a pretty clean design to me, and with each passing day, I'm only more and more eager to see the end result and be able to use it. Terrific start here!


09 Yvonne said on Tue Aug 16 1:57:19 EDT

Now I know where my new visitor came from. *wink*

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Past Entries

Minutiae Today

Using the Blogger Data API
Reference Material: Bringing Wheatblog up to date with XML-RPC and the GData API: Authors will be able to post from their favorite Blogger-aware authoring tool.
Gmail: Help Center - What are the keyboard shortcuts?
Keyboard Shortcuts for Gmail. Delete those chain emails from your batty 2nd-cousin lightning-fast and with ease.
Free! Icons for your website or application at MaxPower
Nice little blog post about CC, GPL, LGPL and royalty-free, and what they mean. Also a nice bunch of links to GPL/Free icon sets.

EtCetera

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