# SWOAPE Website



## Troy McClure

*SWOAPE Website (updated 3-11)*

I have been given my final assignment for Multimedia II. It will be a website designed using Flash and I would like to build it for SWOAPE. I will come up with some ideas and sketches for the meeting this Saturday but it would be great if you all could show me (link) some design elements you like from other sites. Flash is preferred. They don't have to be aquatic club websites or evern aquarium related. If there's a cool Flash-based element you like from a site, link it here. An example would be the ADG website's gallery. I will also need graphics...lots of them. If you find high quality aquascapes and pictures of plants/fish that you like, ask the owner if they can be used as stock for a club website then email them to me. There have been a lot of amazing contests recently so let's see if some of the contributors would be willing to supply us with some high-res photos.

One of the things we need to decide first is what features the website should have. Obviously, a news page, calendar of events, a link to this forum, gallery for members, and an articles page are pretty much a given. What else would you like to see?

I do have a pretty tight schedule of deadlines for this assignment so I would greatly appreciate as much communication as possible...everybody needs to give -some- input.


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## MatPat

I hate to say it, but I really don't visit too many sites that aren't plant or fish related. Well, I have been looking into some photograhy forums but nothing notable as of yet. I will keep an eye out for interesting sites though.

I do like the look of ADG's website and it would be fine with me if you make the SWOAPE site similar to that. For those that aren't familiar with it, here is the link to ADG's site: http://www.aquariumdesigngroup.com/detected.php?page=&pass=

I've never been big on Flash since it is so hard for folks using dial up, or at least I think it is  In the past (i.e. before DSL was available to me) when I encountered a site like this, I would skip it since things took so long to load.



Troy McClure said:


> One of the things we need to decide first is what features the website should have. Obviously, a news page, calendar of events, a link to this forum, gallery for members, and an articles page are pretty much a given. What else would you like to see?


I have my ideas written on paper somewhere and will have them at the meeting. Yes, please everyone give some input. I know folks have ideas and most of them will probably be better than mine  Just jot them down somewhere and bring them to the meeting. If you can't come to the meeting this Saturday, send Erik or me a PM or e-mail. We would like to include everyone since this is "our" website 

I decided to make this a sticky so it won't get buried with all of our other stuff!


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## Troy McClure

I understand your concerns completely and can assure you they will not pose any problems. Load time is of no issue. The main points the professor stresses and helps us with is getting the best possible product to the widest potential audience - even those on dial-up using screen resolutions of 800x600. At the begining of the course there was a stat that said something like 97% or more of the people surfing the net have Flash installed. If push comes to shove, the site can always be made into a hybrid....


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## Troy McClure

OK, here is what I have so far, Swoapies!

http://www.swoape.org/swoape/swoape.html

Let me know what internet service you are using (dial-up, broadband, etc.) and about how long it takes for the site to load at this point. There isn't any content yet and I haven't set up the subnavigation but it will be there within a weeks time. I'll also have the gallery running but will need pictures from SWOAPE member's tanks...eventually.

Any other comments are appreciated!


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## Simpte 27

6 Seconds. Time Warner Western Ohio Roadrunner (broadband cable modem).


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## MatPat

Like I said before, I really like the way the site is developing and look forward to it being finished!

As for load times, 1.47 seconds today with SBC DSL and Firefox.


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## dennis

Thats bloody cool!


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## Troy McClure

yet another update. as for my class project, i'm done. there is still a ton of work to be done because the all content still needs to be created/compiled/uploaded. we'll go over that during the next meeting.

http://www.swoape.org/swoape/

the gallery has also been uploaded as well but doesn't have much content aside from the stock images that come with it.


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## molurus73

That's bloody cool. Very nice job.


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## Simpte 27

Wow!! Very nice work!! Now we need pics of members tank for the gallery! (I'm working on mine. Waiting for my plants to come in  )


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## Troy McClure

Thanks guys. I'm sitting in class right now watching other people give their site presentations. Mine went very well so the next step is CONTENT. We need to dedicate a good deal of time during the meeting on the 26th to what content we want, who can write what, how we'll go about taking pictures of everybody's tanks, etc. I'll be vacationing briefly in Nashville starting this coming Sunday so I should have a decent amount of time to write up ideas, finish up navigation, tweak colors/design. Please write down your ideas and bring them to the meeting!!! The more communication and involvement everybody can give me, the easier and faster this will be finalized.


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## MatPat

The site is looking great Erik! I have a few ideas I will bring with me to the meeting if I don't forget. I have become very forgetful here lately


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## Troy McClure

Best thing to do is get an index card and keep it in your wallet. I have a few small post-it notes on the inside of my wallet so i can jot things down whenever ideas hit me.


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## ctmpwrdcamry

Erik,

The site looks great, nice and clean not to busy. Doesnt look like i will be able to make the next two meetings, is anyone going to keep minutes that could be posted later? Dont know how much imput I could offer, but whatever is talked about may spark something.


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## Troy McClure

You just gave some input, Sean! We should start keeping a minutes of our meetings so they can be used in the 'past meetings' section. Pictures would be nice as well.

I am going to take a few days off from working on the site. It's been consuming me for about two weeks straight and I absolutely do not want to get burned out.


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## ctmpwrdcamry

Whoo hoo, I had my input! :attention


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## MatPat

It's been a long time since we worked on this. How are we looking for the website? Did I drop the ball on anything? It would be nice to get his going this year if possible  From what I remember (the website is no longer working) the site was very cool!


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## evercl92

Doesnt appear the site is currently functional?


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## MatPat

No, it is not functional. Hopefully Erik (Troy McClure) can find some time to make it operational in the near future


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## Yzfr6

Where is the site hosted ???


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## MatPat

sshockey said:


> Where is the site hosted ???


I'm not even sure if it still is. Erik would have that info...


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## Yzfr6

Cool, I will talk to Erik about it. If all else fails I could host it if necessary...


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## Troy McClure

It's hosted through Yahoo. www.swoape.org

I have been working on the website for a few hours now and have made some good progress. I changed the design quite a bit so that only the navigation is in Flash, which then loads and HTML page on the right side. There are a lot of changes that still need to be made in order to get to a content-ready state, but at least I'm heading in the right direction.

I would like to start getting ideas together for articles. Matt, I think it would be great for you to write an article about the different CO2 diffusion methods you've used over the years, pros and cons, etc., etc. Pictures are going to be tricky, but maybe we can get psuedo-stock from somewhere. Jim - our discus man, I think you and I could collaborate on a good discus article. Russ - I'm sure the professor could give everybody a lesson in lighting by writing an article about it. Allen - that Excel stuff that I can't pronounce yet.

I'm just kicking around ideas here. Any thoughts?


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## MatPat

Nice job on the site Erik! I'm glad to see you working on it again  You have some very good ideas for articles and I have a few more...

We may be able to get Renee (duchessren, you haven't met her yet) to do a shrimp article for us. She is pretty well versed in the shrimpies. Chris (Cincy Cichlids) may be able to write up a "plant safe" African Cichlid article for us also. He is pretty knowledgable in Tanganyikans. I will ask both of them to write up an article for us in the future. I can work on a CO2 article for the site and I have a few articles ready on Fertilization also. I probably need to go over them again so let me know when you are ready and I will "proof" them and send them to you. 

Now, you had mentioned keeping "minutes" of our meetings. We will need a volunteer to be secretary, preferably someone who can type and has a laptop  I will send an e-mail to everyone with more info at a later date.


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## Troy McClure

I talked to Scott tonight and he has a web programmer friend that will go over the site when I think it's ready for content. If there are any major flaws, I'm sure they find them...I don't expect there to be any problems though. I'm tyring to make this site easy to update, should I be unable to perform the task, hence the extra work I'm doing to only use the global nav of the Flash site (which I doubt will ever need to be modified) to call up HTML pages (much easier to update than Flash!)


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