Another week has passed by and again MANY changes have been done to the Portal.
- Most important change (no... not really) was to rename both SWAT styles. The choice of name was not that hard considering the fact that SWAT is a Scifi game portal and we have a bright style and a dark style.
So we have a SWAT Jedi Style vs the SWAT Sith Style now. I think that fits very well and some people had something like that in mind already.
Of course some minor improvments to these 2 Styles have been done aswell this week. - The font colors of the header menu for the "Sith Style" got fixed.
- The font colors of the quick search info link got fixed on the "Sith Style".
- Next to the style changed i did a series of template improvements all over the Portal (mainly in areas which dont get patched by the original authors anymore). Result of that is a much better visibility of some sites.
- To these template changes does belong the template error on the "Did you know" bar.
- One of the most heavy template changes has been done to the Portals gallery. Here i did not need to fear any problems as the gallery is not getting patched anymore. New is a better link structure and several search engine optimizations which will help search bots to find their way in future.
New is also that gallery images finally display detailed descriptions, description summaries and keywords. So the gallery is not only list of images anymore... it becomes a detailed source of information about the games we cover now.
Right now the SWAT Moderators do their best to fill the galleries with that info.
The bridge between gallery and Portal also got some minor improvements and should work much better than before. - Several changes on the Community Network bar have been done (if the bar will remain this way is not sure but at least for me its working better now).
- A large set of Forum icons got replaced with a new version that fits better to the modern style(that was the most time consuming task this weekend). 99,9% of all forums of this kind use the same standard icon set (since its not that easy creating new sets) and i guess being a bit different from others wont hurt. I just like it and it fits to both styles. If i want to make it even more modern ill have to do a time travel.
- All over the week Ive been working on the forum structure. Mainly on how improvements can be done. During the next week further changes going into that direction will have to be done. While working on the forum boards Ive updated the descriptions of many boards. They are now much more precise and often guide users into the right direction now. The remaining ones will be done asap.
- The smilie sets got completly reorganized and re-ordered by groups. Two new sets have been installed.
- Eventhough not done the past week Id like to present the list of games that are either already part of the SWAT Portal or possible cadidates to become part of the Portal sooner or later.(that list of course is not complete yet)
http://www.swat-portal.com/php…rticleID=666&languageID=4 - Last but not least Id like to introduce a future feature of the Portal. Future feature because of the fact that eventhough its already integrated and theoretically working many changes still have to be done. Changes such as merging the member system with the already existing one of the Portal.
The feature I am talking about is the new SWAT Portal League.
http://www.swat-portal.com/php/forum/index.php?page=League
Our new League system is able to host an infinity number of leagues and tournaments, with individual rules, match types, teams or just pvp. We have pretty detailed statistics and management options. The perfect feature for SWATs future.
I dont think that I will do further changes today... so next week... new improvements.
