Improving CA.org - Please share ideas <3

[SpectreX]

Additionally having posts that were authored by or have replies by the user highlighted for easy finding would be great.

I.E. I am signed in as Sepulverture, so threads that I have authored or replied to would have a red outline around them or something so I could quickly identify them to check for replies.

The posts in which you have replied are marked with a small green arrow (not super visible like a red outline, but did not know if you had already noticed )

[Sepulverture]

Indeed it does have a little green arrow! I hadn't noticed before, thanks for pointing that out!

[Wingal]

Have the people with the power to make some of these things happen, even glanced at this thread? One of my suggestions is more communication from the higher ups. It was a wild goose chase to get information the last few times the site has gone down with updates or viruses or hacks. Also its just nice knowing how things are progressing. Lets be honest about our past history. The last time a update was 'coming' it was 4 more years of 'almost here'. Im not asking for a rush job but its just nice to know, you know.

Ps I also would like to see the banners.

[Jason Manley]

First, thank you all for the input. There are a lot of fabulous ideas here and I can tell you that things are looking up and looking good. We have had the new site coming for a long time, and if not for my getting wrapped up in building TAD, so this community has a place for affordable education, I would have completed it. Sometimes I wish I had another me, and often times I wish I knew how to code. The latter has been the biggest bottleneck as bringing on a programmer who has the time, the love, and the knowledge to do what we need done has been incredibly tough. To date I must have half a dozen different site designs, and have made very significant investment in the tech. We have a few hurdles to clear yet but the new site is well under way. Cake...yes...cake is what I hope you all will eat...and soon. I love cake.

4.0 as it was once designed has been shelved, as an entire new site, designed around a new vision for what we actually need to see the millions of images buried on these forums, and access tools we as artists require, as well as abilities to generate revenue, and share the art are far more key than what I had designed and had been building in the past.

The new site stuff is well under way. The templates are done, and I spent the past two weeks in meetings with the tech team whom is prepared to assist us in getting it done. I have shown only five or six people what I have designed, and have had great feedback so far. As we get a little closer I will share some screenshots. I can say that there is no other art site with these tools or this viewer, and it is state of the art. It is going to be 30-60 days to see it done, and I have to gather about $10k more to finish it.

CA is moving into the future and I have moved to focus on the site full-time as it is so close to my heart. I will keep folks updated....and do feel free to continue the discussion. This site will see the reinvigorating tools, ideas, and focus that I have been dreaming about, and working on.

Back at it,


Jason

[Jason Manley]

I posted some comments in the first post. Thanks everyone.


j

[JFierce]

Sounds great!

[Wingal]

Super exciting! Cant wait!!!

[Jason Manley]

We need some help with some simple html/css if anyone has an hour or so to spare and such worthy skills....if so plz hit me up on skype at brilliantcolorsceo

Tech...always the thing that holds me back. I should just go back to school to learn to code.

[GriffNYC]

Hey Jason,

Re: Learning Code, etc. One option might be lynda.com- they have tutorials for EVERYTHING, including CSS and HTML.

[Jason Manley]

The initial social sharing features are in. template for the chow, cow, pow, etc...and best of each of the forums is happening now

We will do a bunch of upgrades here on the forums this week before we get rolling on implementation of 4.0's viewer and content stream.

Watch for the updates...cuz they are a coming!

[Nemome]

I just to to school, take a look during my break into this forum and there's in already new stuff added to the forum.
Awesome.
Can't wait to see the other new stuff and help you guys!

Big things are already on the way guys!

[Jason Manley]

Google Translate is integrated. Scroll to footer for native tongue

They did not have pidgeon, ebonics, texan or other dialects but I figured this would be of help to the half our membership from other countries.

j

[Candra H]

I'm not supposed to be on here today - busy elsewhere - but I couldnt not add my thanks for everything you're doing behind the scenes, Jason.

The forum's already looking a million times better than it did.

Thanks and welcome back!

[Spellsword95]

How about making those header banners dynamically fill whole page with repeatable background so there is no empty space on right side? I can write some lame simple CSS/HTML if anybody cares. I'm not a pro but I could do that. Perhaps.

[SmallPoly]

It's great to see that some modern improvements are here/coming. :-D

[Spellsword95]

In case that it could be useful, I wrote a code. It's simple DIV that contains more DIVs in it - one for each banner. I made only three interviews for example.

PREVIEW:

CSS code:

( Click to show/hide )

.header_div {
align: center;
border: 1px solid black;
}

.interview1{
width: 100%;
background-color: #1c2236;

}

.interview2{
width: 100%;
background-color:#dfdfd3;
}

.interview3{
width: 100%;
background-color: #c4c6b1;
}

HTML code:

( Click to show/hide )

<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
</head>
<body>
<center>
<div class="header_div">
<div class="interview1"> <img src="lacosteinterview.jpg" border="0"></div>
<div class="interview2"> <img src="keibanner.jpg" border="0" ></div>
<div class="interview3"> <img src="tarointerviewbanner.jpg" border="0"></div>
</div>
</center>
</body>
</html>

[Jason Manley]

Thank you. I have to run to the dentist but will be back to get more done

Jason

[Nemome]

Haha, nice Spellsword.
I was actually wondering about that today, but you already solved it.
Thank you very much.
I hope that we can make it work with the new banner.

[Spellsword95]

Glad to help anyhow

Another suggestion. It would be great to see real names and age next to the avatars. Something like "SPELLSWORD95 | John Sidoryk, 17". Below remains custom title and level (do we really need Gladiator ranking?). It shouldn't be necessary and everyone could chose whether he wants to display it or not.
I don't know why so many people prefer to stay in anonymity when their art is very good or they are known professional artists. It's easier to found them and it also making conversations more pleasant. Just thinking aloud.

[Deon]

Awesome! - Its great to see things happening again!

I have one or two comments
- Many threads don't have thumbnails anymore - like the 3D and sculpting thread - this makes it very difficult to navigate and find the threads you're looking for.
-The jobs section should be more heavily moderated - should spec work etc. be tolerated on CA? Should CA stay neutral , or take an active stance on such matters?

thanks!

p.s. - I would love to help out if possible. - are you guys still looking for moderators?

[Black Spot]

The job section is being rebuilt and spec work will have its own place. But you have employers saying the below about CA.

Hey, I just placed a job ad and got swamped - clearly this is the best forum to place such ads on since I got very little response from some other places I posted a longer version of the same ad. Your employment subforum being broken and other forums having a fully working employment subforum kind of threw me, but I guess that is just an accident of timing since you are revamping it at the moment.

I was wondering if anyone on this forum in the industry would like to post a 'what to expect' when advertising for artists, from an industry perspective for people who are new to hiring artists. I'm usually on the job-seeking side of the desk or hiring for graphic design and it was quite overwhelming being on the other side. Probably due to having such a short ad I got a lot of clearly very entry level applicants.

Anyway, this forum is clearly the go-to place for game artists. Your userbase is amazingly talented, and I would like to thank the forum owners and moderators for providing this place - particularly the employment subforum. I have found exactly what I was looking for. You guys are just awesome.

[Deon]

I think the employer above has a very good idea there, Black Spot. - A section dedicated to educating employers.

[Jason Manley]

I swear I will learn this code stuff. It may take me all friggen year but I am going to figure the basics of this out.

FB Thread comments have been added....which will give the lurkers a chance to contribute without logging in and will help share the beautiful work here.


j

[SpectreX]

@Spellsword95: You forgot the links in the html to link to the post

PS: willing to be a mod as well if needed

[Jason Manley]

Which links in the html? Teach me good sir.

[Spellsword95]

He means links to the interviews. Clickable images. I only did the design layout.

[SpectreX]

@Jason: The code I sent you on Skype has the links. It's the <a> tag. You define the link with the href="" attribute. So <a href="http://conceptart.org/">Link to CA</a> Except the text inside a is the image in case of the banner.
@Spellsword95: ah k

[Jason Manley]

cool thanks!

[Sepulverture]

It's really great to see you communicating directly with the community again Jason. It makes me feel more confident about getting active on these forums again. Thanks for the communication and trying to improve your offering to our education.

[Nemome]

I'll bring you some old nice forum feature back within the next few days.

The suggestion list on the first page is getting more and more done, haha.
A few stuff from the list is already added thanks to Jason and new stuff is already on the way.