New Minetest Website?

Change it?

No
10
45%
Yes
10
45%
Other, please specify
2
9%
 
Total votes: 22

iZacZip
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New Minetest Website?

by iZacZip » Post

This is a very old post for a new Minecraft Website. If anyone likes the idea, please make a new post.


Before reading this note that this is based on my opinion. I know that you might not agree with some changes, but don't worry because this is really only a post to see other everyone's thoughts on this subject. :D


Hello everyone
Recently I’ve been looking at the Minetest webpage a lot more. For me at least,
it looks so plain, basically text, photos, and links. I mean -
couldn’t we spice it up a little?
Here are some things I think we should add, tell me what you think of it:

-Updated pictures, and high quality ones:
This means ones from (a) the community and (b) popular servers.
This would be a lot more…welcoming, since all that a newbie sees on the page when they go to it is a bunch of outdated, low quality, lonely pictures.
-Minetest font?
So, hopefully you know that Minecraft has its own font. It’s that blocky one, and someone made a
Minecraftia font which is the font that Mojang made. I think we should at least have a more blocky-styled font
as the normal font almost feels like it has nothing to do with the game. Let me know what you think, post something
-Animations
This could be hard. But this is something we could consider, and I honestly don’t really think we need this,
but I heard a friend talking about it and so I think we could put it on here. Animations could maybe add a little more of
a thing that says “hey, I’ve actually put work into this!”…
-...
This is again something that I don’t know if we need or not. But it terms
of making the minetest website even easier to navigate through,
we should make consider getting the website to determine what OS the user is running so that the download button could easily download the latest version for whatever OS, and if there isn’t a Minetest version for that specific OS, it can tell them that. Then also, if someone wants to access the older versions of Minetest, there can be a button there that takes them to the older versions.
-Compacter, smaller website
I personally find azekill_DIABLO’s website very compact, which is what I like…
I think we should have a website similar to that, where there isn’t a huge picture all over the page and huge font.

Tell me what you think, and answer the poll if you haven’t already. Good day ^.^
Last edited by iZacZip on Wed Nov 11, 2020 12:53, edited 2 times in total.
Ignore my old posts.

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rubenwardy
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by rubenwardy » Post

The repo is here: https://github.com/minetest/minetest.github.io
You're welcome to contribute to it by sending changes as pull requests.

As for redesigns, feel free to suggest mock ups
iZacZip wrote: -Updated pictures, and high quality ones:
This means ones from (a) the community and (b) popular servers.
This would be a lot more…welcoming, since all that a newbie sees on the page when they go to it is a bunch of outdated, low quality, lonely pictures.
Issue: https://github.com/minetest/minetest.gi ... /issues/78
Feel free to make a PR
iZacZip wrote: -Minetest font?
So, hopefully you know that Minecraft has its own font. It’s that blocky one, and someone made a
Minecraftia font which is the font that Mojang made. I think we should at least have a more blocky-styled font
as the normal font almost feels like it has nothing to do with the game. Let me know what you think, post something
I don't really see the use of this. If there is to be a Minetest font, the game should get it first.
iZacZip wrote: -Animations
This could be hard. But this is something we could consider, and I honestly don’t really think we need this,
but I heard a friend talking about it and so I think we could put it on here. Animations could maybe add a little more of
a thing that says “hey, I’ve actually put work into this!”…
The page should work without Javascript (although there's currently a problem with the nav bar).
It's worth keeping any animations minimal.
iZacZip wrote: -Cookies…
This is again something that I don’t know if we need or not. But it terms
of making the minetest website even easier to navigate through,
we should make consider getting the website to determine what OS the user is running so that the download button could easily download the latest version for whatever OS, and if there isn’t a Minetest version for that specific OS, it can tell them that. Then also, if someone wants to access the older versions of Minetest, there can be a button there that takes them to the older versions.
Cookies aren't needed to do what you're asking for.

I've already made a button to add a platform detecting button: https://github.com/minetest/minetest.github.io/pull/94
iZacZip wrote: -Compacter, smaller website
I personally find azekill_DIABLO’s website very compact, which is what I like…
I think we should have a website similar to that, where there isn’t a huge picture all over the page and huge font.
No offense, but that website looks like a premade template (very generic) and is quite ugly in choice of colors and margins. The current website is better and is minimalistic
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Linuxdirk
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by Linuxdirk » Post

rubenwardy wrote:
iZacZip wrote: -Animations
The page should work without Javascript […]
It’s 2018 in a few weeks. There is no need for Javascript to get animations anymore.

Oh, and speaking of Javascript: The menu on top unnecessarily uses it which makes it impossible to navigate the page without Javascript enabled.
rubenwardy wrote:
iZacZip wrote: -Compacter, smaller website […]
[…] The current website is better and is minimalistic
I remember a couple of years ago people loved super tiny fonts for main content. Now the trend is towards gigantic fonts and a fucking lot of empty space around anything.

It’s just trends. Trends come and go.

I would’d call the Minetest homepage a particularly good website. It just looks like how it looks like when developers try to create a modern looking page. Which is absolutely fine because I am 100 percent sure that no web designer was involved making the page.

u19503

Re: New Minetest Website?

by u19503 » Post

I personally think the minetest website looks good, nooooowwwwwwwww it can use some work like updating the screenshots and an FAQ seriously why can't I find an FAQ on an opecource projects website da FAQ (see what I did there)

About the "blocky text" they call that pixel text or bitmap but I strongly disagree to get this on the website because it looks terribly bad!
in the game On The Other hand this Would Be amazing

And animation again this is a terrible idea this used to be good in the 80 and early 90s but nowadays people just don't want that becouse it distracting and it looks terrible unless you're talking about sliding and fading effects when a button expands and shows a list than I agree

u19503

Re: New Minetest Website?

by u19503 » Post

Also aren't Cookies used to gather your information so you can get the "best" ads?

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Re: New Minetest Website?

by Linuxdirk » Post

toby109tt wrote:And animation again this is a terrible idea this used to be good in the 80 and early 90s
You mean like before 1995 when Netscape Navigator 2.0 was released which had animated GIF support as the first browser ever?
toby109tt wrote:unless you're talking about sliding and fading effects when a button expands and shows a list than I agree
Of course. Anything else is stupid 2000's stuff.

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Re: New Minetest Website?

by iZacZip » Post

toby109tt wrote:I personally think the minetest website looks good, nooooowwwwwwwww it can use some work like updating the screenshots and an FAQ seriously why can't I find an FAQ on an opecource projects website da FAQ (see what I did there)
Oh yes, an FAQ. I believe this is it? minetest forums? xD
But one on the website would be a huge help since the frequently asked questions page on here isn't exactly related to the game..
And also, about the cookies, yeah they are to gather information about ads. I've corrected the original post :]
Ignore my old posts.

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Re: New Minetest Website?

by rubenwardy » Post

There's an FAQ on the wiki, but there should probably be a link on the website
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

rubenwardy wrote: No offense, but that website looks like a premade template (very generic) and is quite ugly in choice of colors and margins. The current website is better and is minimalistic
:'(

I made it from a template, okay, but i changed everything including most of the backgronds , font and ALL THE CSS. It's all a question of style, and the color and everything is supposed to look retro. And about the minetest website, IzacZip is true, it's so minimalistic that you don't even want to try the game. And it's not 'cheerful' or comfy either.
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by v-rob » Post

Well, in my opinion, the Minetest website is fine how it is, but there are a few things that could make it better.

One is the fact that everything is grey, white, or blue. It needs some more color. Maybe the background, which is currently white stone, could be changed to dirt, water, or, if nothing else, real stone.

Next is the fact that I can't seem to find the spoiler button in the set of buttons that change font size, URLs, code, and other such things. It would make posting quicker.

The buttons also need to be remade. They don't look very good, and don't fit in well.

That's all I can think of for now.
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

we are talking of www.minetest.net not of the forum :D
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by v-rob » Post

azekill_DIABLO wrote:we are talking of http://www.minetest.net not of the forum :D
Oh. Didn't realize that. I feel really dumb right now.

But the forum should be improved, nonetheless
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

the forum is more cheerful than the website, but it should get colors too.
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by Wuzzy » Post

Current website is bad.

The homepage only looks that way because it was a recent trend, not to make it actually useful. The intro sentences on the homepage say almost nothing about Minetest.

The about page is not much better. Minetest, subgames and mods are VERY poorly explained.
It just highlights a few features without really explaining them. It fails completely to explain the actual gameplay. This is a major flaw.

In general, the information density is very low. A lot of bling-bling and bla-bla but too few information.

Just put yourself into the shoes of a newbie who is completely new to the genre. Click through the homepage. Do you really think you would understand a word? I don't think so. You would probably just think “too nerdy/weird” and close the tab or surf somewhere else. Remember: Website users are impatient. If they don't get what they want immediately, they're gone forever.

There are way too few screenshots. The only screenshots are from Minetest Game, and even these manage to make Minetest Game look even more boring than it is already. They just show mapgen output. They look more like crappy stock photos than actual screenshots from a game. Other subgames have 0 screenshots.

Subgames and mods are too poorly showcased. But this is very important because only these are actually relevant to the player. I go even as far and suggest to create a whole page for each of the highest-quality subgames.
The engine does not need to be explained in great detail. It's enough to explain the core features which are relevant to players.

The selection of subgames and mods currently presented does not really make sense anymore. Current selection seems mostly random. Selecting subgames by popularity, rather than quality, is unfair and not a very good idea. The selection of subgames also gets outdated too quickly. Maybe there should be a semi-formal/semi-automated process to “promote” quality subgames to the homepage. Only using PRs to update this list is too unwieldy.

Here's a process I suggest:
Each forum user has the right to suggest a subgame in the Subgame Releases forum to be promoted to the homepage. In order to be promoted, a subgame has to fulfil a set of quality criteria. Like, it must be stable, works with latest stable Minetest, is finished or finished enough to be reasonably playable, has no obvious game-breaking bugs, developers promise to not break worlds on a daily basis ;-) and so on.

When selected for promotion, a full page is written, showing name, genre, gameplay description, other comments, current status (beta or released), a list of useful links and screenshots. Maybe gameplay videos, too.

In order to prevent promoting garbage, there should also be a process to remove a subgame from the list, for example, when a subgame became broken in latest stable or went below the quality threshold for a long period of time.
Last edited by Wuzzy on Tue Oct 17, 2017 12:52, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: New Minetest Website?

by rubenwardy » Post

Wuzzy wrote:Current website is bad.

The homepage only looks that way because it was a recent trend, not to make it actually useful. The intro sentences on the homepage say almost nothing about Minetest.

The about page is not much better. Minetest, subgames and mods are VERY poorly explained.
It just highlights a few features without really explaining them. It fails completely to explain the actual gameplay. This is a major flaw.

Just put yourself into the shoes of a newbie who is completely new to the genre. Click through the homepage. Do you really think you would understand a word? I don't think so. You would probably just think “too nerdy/weird” and close the tab or surf somewhere else. Remember: Website users are impatient. If they don't get what they want immediately, they're gone forever.

There are way too few screenshots. The only screenshots are from Minetest Game, and even these manage to make Minetest Game look even more boring than it is already. They just show mapgen output. They look more like crappy stock photos than actual screenshots from a game. Other subgames have 0 screenshots.

Subgames and mods are too poorly showcased. But this is very important because only these are actually relevant to the player. I go even as far and suggest to create a whole page for each of the highest-quality subgames.
The engine does not need to be explained in great detail. It's enough to explain the core features which are relevant to players.

The selection of subgames and mods currently presented does not really make sense anymore. Current selection seems mostly random. Selecting subgames by popularity, rather than quality, is unfair and not a very good idea. The selection of subgames also gets outdated too quickly. Maybe there should be a semi-formal/semi-automated process to “promote” quality subgames to the homepage. Only using PRs to update this list is too unwieldy.
https://github.com/minetest/minetest.github.io
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by Wuzzy » Post

@rubenwardy: “You didn't post on GitHub, therefore your opinion is invalid”.
-_-

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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

I totally agree with you wuzzy and i'm ready to help. the website is awful.
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by rubenwardy » Post

Wuzzy wrote:@rubenwardy: “You didn't post on GitHub, therefore your opinion is invalid”.
-_-
My point was that you seem to know what you want to see, so for the more content related issues you could open a PR to fix them. For the ones that need political changes, it's worth bringing it up in IRC and pinging Calinou and/or celeron55
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

rubenwardy wrote:you could open a PR to fix them.
If i can 'stick my two cents in' I would say he already tried opening a thread for adding better high quality screenshots... which has showed being pointless.

EDIT: Apologies, this is Spaghetti Developper who asked for improving the whole gallery, and when you see the number of people who reacted (including you, wuzzy and me, but you know that) and that NOTHING has been done... really, that a 10 minutes job, adding 6 screenshots, or changing the screenshot of the homepage (please do it. please.)... We can tell the devs don't give a ravioli about the changes we purposed. I don't mean to be pretentious, but i think i can do a better website, which would be simpler, have more content while being compact and minimalistic. Really.
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

I wouldn't spit on minetest website, but, holy cow, even this one is better looking and more complete!
http://doku.minetest.net/

EDIT: this reminds me something....
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by wilkgr76 » Post

azekill_DIABLO wrote:I wouldn't spit on minetest website, but, holy cow, even this one is better looking and more complete!
http://doku.minetest.net/

EDIT: this reminds me something....
That appears to be the old Minetest website, or a very good replica of it. (old MT website: https://web.archive.org/web/20150102170 ... st.net:80/

They both have the 'title border going off the left edge' bug however.
N/A

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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

wilkgr76 wrote: That appears to be the old Minetest website, or a very good replica of it. (old MT website: https://web.archive.org/web/20150102170 ... st.net:80/
Yep. I think it was far better like that.
They both have the 'title border going off the left edge' bug however.
I'm not even sure it is a bug. Anyway, i can fix this with a 6 pix padding in CSS in 1 minute :D
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by wilkgr76 » Post

It wasn't better. It looks dated.

Besides, this website looks a lot better, and also fits better on mobile devices! The old one was horrible for mobile devices
Image
N/A

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Re: New Minetest Website?

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

everyone has his opinon, at least this top-bar works without javascript :3
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Re: New Minetest Website?

by Linuxdirk » Post

azekill_DIABLO wrote:everyone has his opinon, at least this top-bar works without javascript :3
Yes. A site should be fully operational without Javascript. Useless Javascript like for drop-down menus (CSS that works even in IE) and jumping to IDs (HTML standard functionality since forever) and stuff should be avoided. Javascript should only benefit a site and not be necessary for using it.

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