Site Suggestion

[Nightwing]

I was thinking...

There are a lot of options people have when building their saber offf the CSS. The problem is, it's very confusing at times.

How about this:
A page similar to the old "design your own saber" thing that was on here awhile ago, but instead of having the sabers pre-made, it would instead compile a list of everything you need, from belt clips to thumb screws.

It could work very similar to the Saber Designer, by showing you a picture of every option, and how it might look on the saber. Additionally, it would explain the difference between each option, since pictures don't always work so well with explaining.

You could, for instance, select things like:
LED or EL
Blade color (might be confusing for the LED color filters, but w/e)
MHS, Sink Tube, or combinations of both (such as the sink-tube-over-MHS, as well as an additional option which selects wether or not you want the Blade Holder machined down or not).
Different color screws and switches
Different pommels and MHS emitters
Complete blade, Blade Kit, or no blade
LED Driver
Belt Clips
Batteries

Lastly, it would take all your selected options and put them all into one complete kit, which would give you everything (even the blade holder screws, which I notice are oddly absent from the MHS hilt kits...) you need to start building your saber.

EDIT:
Oh, and I was also thinking, what if you gave out a little booklet or something with basically the same info in the tutorials? I've seen stuff like that on other sites, and it's really nice. That way you don't have to go back to the site or print off the page. You could just have your little booklet for reference.

[xwingband]

I'm kind of ehh on this idea. I can see it's worth, but I can see the work it would take to implement. I think a reason Tim has it setup the way he does it is because he can set out kits ready to ship. This type of saber designer would mean that Tim would have to look at each order and find every little part in the final design.

I do think a central place is needed to look for things, but in some sense I also appreciate the fact that you are forced to search about what you want now. It means you have to do some active thinking and you learn along the way.

I really think a central FAQ with links would help. Tim, all you have do is ask and you'd have plenty willing to help pull something like that together. I believe that apparent from the various contests and suggestion threads you've had that we really want this places to work.

A wiki crossed my mind, but I do understand that Tim would also like to keep all the official info coming from him because it frees him from liability of someone complaining that following someone else's directions screwed their stuff up.

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[Strydur]

Nightwing,

While I would love to do something like this I just dont have the time right now. I see my family so little that they make me wear a name tag now so they can remember who I am. And this would take some serious programming to make work correctly.

Xwing,

If you want to have a better layout for the forums i am open to suggestions. I try to add categorys as needed and we have the tutorials section that is pretty clean.

Tim


Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[dbraxton9]

it still sounds cool. the old saber designer made it way easier to get what i wanted the 1st time and the 2nd.

"Size matters not. Look at me! Judge me by my size do you? And well you should not! For my ally is the force, and a powerful ally it is!"

[xwingband]

Ooo... I can't believe I hadn't thought of this before. It's kind of unrelated to the current topic but it's a great idea if you can get it to work.

On the site a RP on (in my sig) whenever something important is said the admin puts an announcement tag and that topic appears on the top of the front page.

Example: the ETA thread would be right up on top of the all forums page. This would cut down on questions getting asked in every forum: "When are the blade holders coming in?"

I'll contemplate on ideas on making it more apperent on where stuff is...

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[Nightwing]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Strydur

Nightwing,

While I would love to do something like this I just dont have the time right now. I see my family so little that they make me wear a name tag now so they can remember who I am. And this would take some serious programming to make work correctly.

Xwing,

If you want to have a better layout for the forums i am open to suggestions. I try to add categorys as needed and we have the tutorials section that is pretty clean.

Tim


Tim
The Custom Saber Shop
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Yeah, I figured. Just thought I'd throw the idea out there.

Could you compile a checklist, then? Maybe something like, "if you want a a saber with this, you'll need all these parts". The tutorials are great, but they don't really go into a lot of detail as to what you'll actually need, aside from the kit.

[Strydur]

The problem is that there is thousands of variations possible.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[GrimaOllak]

Just a thought here, Tim, but since you're strapped for time, why not hand this off to someone here? We all want this place to succeed, and I'm positive there's several able-bodied folks here who would volunteer in a heartbeat to implement some of this stuff.

Think of them as mods, basically, while you're still the admin. Obviously they'd have to be knowledgable folks whom you trust, and all important decisions and such would have to be passed through you.

I just figure this way, it'd give you the time you need for machining, or family time, or whathaveyou, while the mods could do the other stuff as mentioned above.

Oh, and before anyone gets any crazy ideas, I'm NOT volunteering myself for this job, just throwing the idea out there. I'm nowhere near qualified enough to do any of that.

[Matt]

I'm not a great webmaster or anything, but i do have some knowledge of it, and would help in any way i could. i'm more hardware, setting up routers, and such. but i would help in anyway. it's like nightwing said. we all want this place to succeed. If you need me to do anything i will help, and if i don't know how to do it, i can figure it out, my uncle is a webmaster, and i help him when i can, so if i needed help i could figure it out.

you can check his site out. www.evracing.net

we do an online racing group.

[LAN-ED-TUL]

if tim would allow someone to work on that idea and create a prg. to do that and then send it to him to add to his site that would be awesome. it sure would help, and alleviate tim from the time it would take to do it. think about it tim, it is a good idea. so many of us here have become just as much a part of this site as you being the founder. we are all one big family here. and im sure, by the responses i've seen, others feel the same. youve done so much for all of us, that whenever possible we would do what we can to help you too.

You dont know the POWER, of the dark side...

[Strydur]

I am more than willing to take anything you all have to offer. I dont want to start using admins because if I dont keep up on these boards then I risk losing sight of what you all want. If you have suggestions on how to better set up the site or forums. Or of you want to create tutorials etc..etc.. I will consider everyones ideas but dont take it the wrong way if I dont feel it fits.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[LAN-ED-TUL]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Strydur

I dont want to start using admins because if I dont keep up on these boards then I risk losing sight of what you all want.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

im not sure what you mean by that tim. all we were sayin is let someone write a prg. send it to you, and you install it. you control it, noone else.

You dont know the POWER, of the dark side...

[Strydur]

Soemone had mentioned mods..But yes if someone wanted to help code a page like that I would be open to using it. The main problem is getting the pics to layout correctly when doing it like I had before where it would show the completed saber as you chose items. I can do it..it just takes a lot of time.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[Nightwing]

You could just show the separate parts of it; it doesn't have to be all together. Just so people can get the general idea of what they're buying.

[LAN-ED-TUL]

that would work nightwing. how bout something like his idea, tim.

You dont know the POWER, of the dark side...

[Strydur]

Hmmmm...not a bad idea. Can you guys talk it over and see how you would want it to work?

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[xwingband]

So are we talking a list of parts for basic saber, basic w/sound, basic corbin, corbin w/sound, etc??? or something even simpler like a materials list added to the tutorials?

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[Nightwing]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by xwingband

So are we talking a list of parts for basic saber, basic w/sound, basic corbin, corbin w/sound, etc??? or something even simpler like a materials list added to the tutorials?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Well, it would have to be something like "if you want these things on your saber, you'll need these parts".

Maybe something like this:
A list of item names, with one of those little "poll-style" check-circle things next to all the available options. Additionally, the item names would be hyperlinks opening a new window to the item page. It'd start sorta like this:

Type:
<u>LED</u> (picture here, along with a brief explanation)
<u>EL</u> (picture here, along with a brief explanation)

From there, you go to another page, where you select all the available options. Let's say we're dealing with LED for right now.

Blade Color:
o <u>Blue</u>
o <u>Royal Blue</u>
o <u>Cyan</u>
o <u>White</u>
o <u>Red</u>
o <u>Red-Orange</u>
o <u>Green</u>

You get the idea. There'd be a list like this for every available option.


Of course, having an item list in the tutorials would be VERY nice as well. This would just make shopping easier for the casual saber-builder, or one who doesn't have any knowledge of electronics.

[xwingband]

Okay, see what you mean. It's almost like a tree directory structure for a tutorial.

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[Nightwing]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by xwingband

Okay, see what you mean. It's almost like a tree directory structure for a tutorial.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Um, yeah.

It's basically a tree structure, yes. At then end it compiles a list of all the CSS parts you need, and gives you a link to a tutorial.


So... Does it sound doable?

[Strydur]

Very doable. I could actually do it so you are always on the same page and just reloads based on selections. I could also make it so that after you create the list you can just add the complete list to the shopping cart. This all would of course take time to code and considering I got about half a months worth of orders in the last 24 hours it might be a little while before I can get to it.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[Nightwing]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Strydur

Very doable. I could actually do it so you are always on the same page and just reloads based on selections. I could also make it so that after you create the list you can just add the complete list to the shopping cart. This all would of course take time to code and considering I got about half a months worth of orders in the last 24 hours it might be a little while before I can get to it.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Awesome!

Half a months work, huh? Guess I'd better put my order in soon!

[Strydur]

When you guys get the chance why dont you work on a good description of EL and LED..maybe use the pros and cons threads to help. This will help get the first selection out of the way.

Do you guys have a time limit to edit your posts? Just in case you cant I made xwing a mod on this section so you can edit it easier as you work on it.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[xwingband]

Cool.[8D] How should we go about this? We could create a topic and have the first post be the description. Then people make suggestions as to changes and they get added and debated until we have final draft.

I have the itching to pound this description out tonight.[:D]

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[Strydur]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">We could create a topic and have the first post be the description. Then people make suggestions as to changes and they get added and debated until we have final draft.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Works for me

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

[Nightwing]

Sweet... one of my ideas actually works!!!