As many of you are aware, the current home page for the forum is quite minimalist and not particularly inspiring...
http://www.playmofriends.com/Admittedly, it was put together rather quickly, and the plan was to do something more creative with it once the forum was better established.
During some discussion in a topic about Photo Competitions,
deadeye dick suggested we could make the page look more exciting (and perhaps tempt more new people to join
) by displaying pictures submitted by the members. Rather than show static images based on the results of contests or polls, DD came up with a much
friendlier idea of having a rotation system which would allow ALL the members the same opportunity to showcase their pictures.
There are many different styles of rotation script available. Some rotate pictures automatically like a slide show; others show a random pic each time the page is refreshed/reloaded, which means that any person visiting the page would possibly see a different image each time they return.
After many weeks and a lot of work by DD, I am ready to show you the wonderful new page he has created for the forum!
http://www.playmofriends.com/index2.html(in order to see how the pics are being rotated randomly, you will need to reload the page once or twice)
The design has been successfully tested on systems running Windows with Firefox, Internet Explorer and Netscape. (According to stats, these groups account for the majority of users visiting PlaymoFriends.) It is very difficult to design pages with dynamic content that will look perfect on
every system, and for people running
Safari on a Mac, there may be problems with alignment where the text and images do not display exactly in the correct position. I'm not sure how the page appears with other browsers on a Mac, so would be interested to know if this is only an issue for Safari users.
(Please see the attachment, pf_homepage.jpg, which shows how the content should be aligned with the rotating image centred inside the white panel).The photos currently being rotated are ones that I randomly selected from various topics around the forum. These are just to give an example of how the script works and will be removed before the page goes completely "live".
The idea is for all the pictures being shown in the rotation to also be stored in the
Members' Gallery area of the Photo Album, so that anyone clicking the image on the home page can find a larger version of it if they want to. It was decided to link to that area rather than a dedicated topic, because this is the only area of the forum where unregistered guests are able to view images that aren't being hosted on external websites.
To this end, I invite EVERYONE who wants to share a picture with people visiting the home page, to upload them to the Members' Gallery. This is a communal album, so the only step required is to upload your picture(s) and place them in the correct area. If you need instructions on this, please read the
tutorial. If you have already made a personal album, please remember to select the correct album titled "Members' Gallery" using the drop-down menu when you reach that step.
(see gallery1.jpg)Also, please do
include your name (and your own website, if you have one) in the "description" area of the form, so you can receive due credit for the picture.
(see gallery2.jpg) This will also make it easier for me to select pics for the rotation. I don't think that one person should be allowed to have more pics showing in the rotation than another, and I will need to know who submitted what in order to make a fair choice.
A very big thank you goes to deadeye dick 
for lending his time and coding skills in order to create a more fitting introduction page for our forum! I'm sure he is as eager as I am for feedback on the new look page.
PS. Would the member who uploaded their pics from the
Zirndorf FunPark to this communal album a couple of weeks ago, please
contact me as I need to know if you would like them moved to a private album or if you are happy for them to stay where they are. Thanks!
