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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www.dewbackwing.com</center>

[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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www.dewbackwing.com</center>

[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...