An Un-Indie Profile

Experience has taught me that when you finally decide on something 100%, it's time to clean up & optimize your code.  I've eliminated straggling functions, and rebuilt the cfml scripts responsible for the index page from the ground up.  Now, everything gets passed into a single "datablock" template via a cfloop, and the script takes care of the rest... even how many page buttons are required for the situation.  It sidetracked me for a while, but the resulting code is much cleaner and easier to work in.

It doesn't look much different, but the code is much cleaner

Having settled on the main design & layout for the site, and having redone the code for the main page, I figured it was time to give this website's sitemap a second entry.  The result is the beginnings of a game profile page for Un-Indie games:.

Beginnings of the Un-Indie Game Profile

It's not much yet, but filling that template with data will be relatively easy now that everything is setup... which means I'll probably leave it for another day.  Right now, I'm leaning towards working a system for searching for the Un-Indie Games I've collected thus far.  If nothing else, it will allow me to browse through the list of games in the database, and I honestly have no idea what 99% of them are at this point.  And it will give any visitors a little something to do, although the search results will probably be pretty disappointing until I'm done data-scraping. 

FEG Offical Site (Work-In-Progress): http://www.foreachgamer.com/

FEG Offical Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/foreachgamer

Oodles of Data

Right now I've got my local Windows Server, which I use for development, running a script that scraping the web for data on video games and grabbing images.  This data is being added to the database automatically, and images are being ushered into appropriate folders.

I am then periodically taking the new data and images and uploading to the live server.  From there, the live server runs a loop that takes every image downloaded and creates two more copies... one resized to a width of 640 and a thumbnail that is half that width, both cropped to a 16:9 ratio... all done automatically with a little CFML.

So I'm going to sit back and eat a bagel while my website fills itself with data on tons of games.  Who knows, maybe I'll fire up the XBox for a round or two of Halo 4... if I'm in the mood for an all-out-lagfest that is.

More Progress on Filling the Layout with Data

Just a quick screenshot to show the websites progress... I now have every cell filled with a game, and I'm really liking this layout.  I'll be getting the updated code published to the server soon.

The new layout completely filled with data.  

I have a 10" tablet that runs at 1366x768, and the layout fills the screen almost perfectly in both Landscape and Portrait views.

Finally Starting to see A Website In There

I've finished my script for grabbing data via the API, and the website is now being populated with a wide assortment of game data rather than repeating the same five games over and over as before.  Here's a screenshot of the updated layout with new data from the API:

Populating the new layout with data from the API

As you can see, the website is really starting to pull together visually.  The dots below each section fade from one story to the next, and I had planned on getting a video recording of just that, but I do not have the software installed at the moment so this screenshot will have to suffice.  I'll be updating the site with the new code shortly anyway.

Leveraging an API

I'm currently working with an API which will provide the website with data for the 'Un-Indie' section.  This area of the site will be for anything non-Indie related, mostly for your blockbuster gaming hits and news.

Pulling data with the API is a bit slow-going at the moment, since I'm finding the results aren't very consistent, which is causing error messages in my script.

Hopefully I can get this wrapped up today and start pumping the data into profile pages for the individual games.

More Updates to the New Website Layout

I decided to do a bit more work on the site after finishing work for my client tonight.  About a half-an-hour later I have updated the new layout of the website to the following:

More updates to the website layout.

My plan is to make the dots underneath each of the boxes scroll that box to the next page.  I'm hoping to get that done in the next few days, and maybe get some more temporary content in my database to provide some randomness to these feeds, at least temporarily.

I've got to admit, I'm happy I decided to scrap my previous version of the website. This layout is capable of fitting a lot more data, and does so in a layout that is more streamlined and easier to read.  Your eyes immediately go to the content rather than the websites graphics, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

Another busy day tomorrow...

A Fresh Face For A Two-Day-Old Website

After a little inspiration from Bob, and help browsing the internet for inspiration from my girlfriend, I think I've landed on a much more appropriate page design.  It's concise, nothing about it is distracting, and it's going to make the website tailor itself to your needs with a single click, no matter what you're looking for.

FEG design version 2.0

First thing, the colored text on the grey bars are buttons.  Click 'Play', and the website will update accordingly, offering you the latest Indie game releases, info on demos, etc.  Click 'Learn', and the website will update and show you articles, dev blogs, tutorials, etc. on anything game related.

Further down, clicking 'Indie' will adapt the site to show you the latest updates and posts from the sites Indie devs.  Naturally, Un-Indie is anything from dependent studios, and everything else is pretty self-explanatory.

I've also left a bit of a coding joke in the design... which makes the website look as though it is the contents of a function, ending with the footer bar which scrolls with the page. 

Edit.  Forgot to mention, if you want a live preview of the new design, it's available at the following link:  http://www.foreachgamer.com/index2.cfm 

I'm loving this new design.  Time to switch everything over...