Formalizing the Ghost Ratings would be excellent.

I think a HoF with the top 100 points and the top 100 Ghost rating players would be good. Obviously it takes some amount of skill to earn 10000+ points, but being top of the ghost ratings is arguably a bigger achievement. I think they both have their place, and we should use both of them.

But neither of them should be in the home page IMHO.

Oh I agree with you on that Xapi, I'm with the "less is more" crowd on the home page display.

Guys 0.9 is waay too far along to add features to, this thread is about finishing off a very user-oriented page which has been holding me up so I can finally get 0.9 out

I'm interested to see any design TGM can come up with, or anyone else. I wish I had a copy of the chatbox/notification bar sketches I uploaded in 0.72 to show what I mean :-(

The TGM rating request is coming up a lot, it's not the right request for this thread but anyway.. I get a feeling that as it is now it'd be almost a kiss of death to include a TGM/elo ranking in your profile, as probably part of the appeal is that it's updated only every so often. The data needed is exported via a php script TGM uses to get the data he processes whenever, so it's supported about as well as can be without being built-in

Do you mean the ones you showed me Kestas? I'll see if I can find a copy lying around. I recently found our archived conversations about caching from back in Jan 07 or so - how the site has grown since then!

i don't care about ghost-rating being on there, and agree with what kestas says about it.

i just say try to make it a little less "busy" kestas - take out hall of fame. not sure about the highlighted games part, which is nice in a way, but i bet wouldn't be used by many people. i even think the forum threads should be optional, since lots of people don't use the forum at all.

the game updates and personal messages are the key bits, i'd say. put them front and center, and that is what most players will be excited about, i'd be willing to wager.

BTW is phpdiplomacy going to be renamed to webdiplomacy??

And a place for system messages - bulletins to all the players, i.e. ' we're going to do an upgrade next week'

http://phpdiplomacy.tournaments.googlepages.com/DiplomacyHomepage.PNG

Notes:
Game would be ordered by phaselength remaining. Pauses last
The forum would be a complete forum.
Boxes would be strictly same size.
Colours for the different times left are: Green: Over Half a phase left
Red: Less than 1 hr left
Orange: Between 1 hr and half a phase left

What about 1 hour phase times? I mean I realize that they're live games and it doesnt really matter, but what color would they be?

Also, clicking on a particular message icon below a country opens their message box, clicking the one at the top opens global.

red, because you should always be finalising/ they are always urgent.

ooooo i like it.

One change to make: When no new message from a country, the message icon below that country is there but greyed out.

I am a little confused by the request.
There is no Home Page here on phpDiplomacy.
Players have a Profile Page, but the site itself does not appear to have a home page instead it has a FAQ.

If you want to make a home page for the site then it should include things like:
1. Brief Intro
2. Where things are:
How to register as a new player
How to learn to play the game By email as well as the basics
How to use the site
Player guide to PBeM and links to archives and or articles on play
Links to hobby zines
3. How to contact the site and get an answer to a question WITHOUT going through the Forum and thus being exposed to trollism
4. How to contribute to the site.


For player profiles the page could be restructured for a simple listing of
the games you are in, the deadlines-your country-centers, unread messages, order status
Clicking on the game will bring you directly to that game

Then in the section below that is a summary of your past games giving
whatever you want out (players should have the option to BLOCK this information from the profile). Information might be
Current D points
Ranking /score in Scoring system A-B-C-Z
Wins/Draws/survivals/eliminatons in summary and then broken down by PPSC/WTA
List players that you played against and allow you to click on their names to bring up a summary of the games that you shared or are sharing.



Then a summary of your past game details as you have it now.

You don't quite get the point of the home page here- its basically a hub for your activities on the site

fig; a copy would be neat, I usually keep everything, but dont go to any trouble looking

@alamothe; yup thats the plan

@jbalcorn: yup there's a spot for that

@TGM (re:edi): actually the home page will look different for guests, stats/lists that let them know the site is active, the intro, etc. It'll replace the forum as index.php so will be where new users arrive
@edi: fair enough, some of those would be useful to have (perhaps in an affiliates/links page instead of as required reading for newcomers), but a phpDip guide to playing on the e-mail judges is a pretty surreal idea ;-)

@TGM: As I said earlier great design, really like the game box idea, just the sort of thing I needed to see (and thanks to NPRZ also for inspiring the boxes with his gadget)

By Player Guide, I meant a guide on how to play the game by Email- like the one that I wrote. Maybe also longer guides for each country etc.

Edi, I think you're confusing what is meant by home page. This isn't the first/main page of the site, this is the player's "home" on the site, in that it should incorporate all of the immediately necessary information to the player. It's a sort of command centre for each player.

TGM, that's the sort of thing I was looking for. What are the game name colours signifying? Also what are the coloured dots above each countries SC count? I would like something like that, but definitely ordered by time left in active (awaiting orders) phase, and with time left or a colour code giving a rough idea with more prominence, perhaps the very colour of the game's name.

"Could there be a place for "following" games?

This would be games that you want to keep tabs on, even if you're not playing on them. This could get a (minor) space in the homepage."

I think this is a fantastic idea, as is the thread tracking that Ghost put in his home page design. I'm not sure a full forum is required, but those two ideas there are top notch.

Good thing Kestas, that you've ask here in the player's forum for additional input, that I've rehashed (other than the Dev. forum where some of the ideas have already been talked about somewhat)... Thus this push to get the *Home* page going, w/ everything linking from there, it's the most appropriate place to put all a player should be able to see & use.


*Home* page suggestions rehash in this thread.

I'd completely change the main tab links on top

Home page would be your profile page

Each game could show a current map, even in a mini-size

Watched games (means, a new page, also: *Watch games*, with a link in *Games*)

Time left in each active game per time left "phase ends [u]in[/u] [time] [am/pm] [timezone]" caption. -- Just the name of the game and the hours left, in ascending order so the most urgent is at the top.

Other players currently online in the games playing (Online 'opponents')

Tracked forum threads

Threads in which I've recently participated

Hall of fame, in a link (has it's own page) ... HoF with the top 100 points and the top 100 Ghost rating players would be good, & everybody else (to access 'unknown' players)

player 'black'lists, (I had sugg. a few categories & comment box!)

NMR (and ghost rating?) for each player on their profile page

link : "How to Play" (in Help?)

add a small $ icon, with the total amount donated

...don't think there should be forum posts on this page, just private and gamemaster messages --> maybe just tagged threads? or none (a link to...)

system messages - bulletins to all the players, i.e. ' we're going to do an upgrade next week'

The forum would be a complete forum

Boxes would be strictly same size (?where, aren't they already?)

Colours for the different times left are: Green: Over Half a phase left, Red: Less than 1 hr left, Orange: Between 1 hr and half a phase left. no new message from a country, is ... greyed out

"featured games", i guess - a GM prefered to show to players And/Or a played 'voted' best of current games...?

clicking on a particular message icon below a country opens their message box, clicking the one at the top opens global.

What Mr. Birsan suggested is more for the Help/Tutoring page ;-)

stats/lists that let them know the site is active, the intro, etc. It'll replace the forum as index.php so will be where new users arrive


*board*

number of units each player has / beside number of SC's (U/SC)

in the move history page... it would be GREAT if you could indicate which moves succeeded, failed, cut, or were void. this is something that will greatly help.

>Home page would be your profile page

They serve different purposes, which is why they are different. The profile is there to give the information about a player, the homepage is to allow them to get to where they want quickly.

>Each game could show a current map, even in a mini-size

To be legible, even a mini map would have to be very big, making it impractical. Better to make the information more condensed (like in my game boxes) and then you link to the games.


>...don't think there should be forum posts on this page, just
>private and gamemaster messages --> maybe just tagged
>threads? or none (a link to...)

I disagree. If your going to use the forum, you should have it as accessable as possible- on the homepage.

>Boxes would be strictly same size (?where, aren't they already?)

Look at the game boxes up the top, they resize with the length of the game name

>TGM, that's the sort of thing I was looking for. What
>are the game name colours signifying?

I presume you mean the title colour? That's the colour of the country your playing

>Also what are the coloured dots above each countries SC count?

Whether the player is on the site, looking at the game or offline.