FreddysHouse Guides

[SAS]

I'm looking into kick starting the guides in jan 09, but I need your help.

At the moment the guides each have a handmade template, which used to take up 1/4 of my guiding time playing with the layouts. What I really need is a content management system. A few friends have pointed me to Wordpress (some examples of nice free templates here: 50 Beautiful Free WordPress Themes - Six Revisions) but I was wondering if there are any other content systems out there that would suit the guides?

Basically looking for a front page portal (has news, info links, rss feeds, game trailers) and a section dedicated to a guide which I can change the colour / theme of so it stands out from each guide.

Also I'm looking at creating cribb/cheat sheets for games. Starting with Left 4 Dead I will create a A4 (maybe two sides) which has all the basics of the game and some hot links to useful information. Then at a later date I could release a cribb sheet for the map areas. My aim is to make it look good, be useful and more importantly be easy to create and update. Gone are my days of 30,000 worded guides...

I'm also looking to keep the old BW green on the design and may need some help in setting up the new look guide site. Is anyone freeish around Jan to form a mini guide site dev team to help out?

 

[TdC]

awesome SAS!

you know, for a content system, it strikes me that a wiki (perhaps the FH wiki?) would be the way to go mate. ou can set it up that you or a team of people could be the only ones to create content, but that kind of defeats the purpose I guess. Are you looking for community participation?

 

[SAS]

Hi Tdc

A team of content writers would be a good idea. I'll draw up a list of ideas and add this to it. The more content added to the guides the better they will be. In the old days I have 2-3 people per guide writing map guides and things so could take this a step further.

Gotta go baby is crying, nappy changing time :}

 

[MYstIC G]

Wiki = bad. Proper content should be fixed in place and held up for being good.

Personally I'd suggest you take a look at Wordpress MU (Multi User). Without having mucked about with it directly I would suggest that you can have a core guides blog then sub blogs for each of the games. Also the askimet spam filtering will be worth its weight in gold.

 

[Fweddy]

I know nothing about it, but Drupal might be worth a look at.

 

[kirennia]

I'd be up for helping out, dependant on coursework etc at the time but should be able to help in some areas.

Just noticed you're in plymouth as well...don't suppose you're at uni too are you? If you're doing computing as a degree as well...well that'd just be weird

 

[SAS]

Cheers for the links, I'll take a look at them

kirennia - I did go to Plym uni years ago. Come to think of it, it was a decade ago! . I did an engineering degree, but did work with the computing CANDI course .

Can you message me what skills you have (have you written before, good at graphics e.t.c), what you'd like to do e.t.c.

Tdc - I'm still working on the idea, but it would be nice to have a guide hub site, which fellow freddys can help with to build up a community portal of sorts. Will be a good way for up and coming content/guide writers to cut their teeth on?

 

[Kryten]

Ooooh, the return of the guides and guide-master!

SAS, if there's anything I can do - i.e. content or something, let me know

 

[Yaka]

nifty! gis a shout if you needs a hand with owt

 

[Ch3tan]

And I will volunteer to proof read anything Yaka does for you

 

[SAS]

Cheers, Kryten, Yaka and Ch3tan .

Anyone know if Deebs is around? I've been trying to contact Deebs about accessing the guides as I've lost the ftp password, but no joy yet :/.

 

[MYstIC G]

PM him squire, he'll come back around at some point in time.

 

[Chilly]

For the very limited number of games I play, I'd be interesting in helping out with content. I can write proper english, like, and know how to speel rite. I play loads of minigames I could write miniguides for, as I dont play so many big games that often. It would all be good for the pagerank though.

 

[RandomBastard]

SAS,
I would avoid drupal/joomla their horribly complex for what you need/what they do.

I would avoid a wiki as they get messy quickly.

I would recommend wordpress, possibly one install per guide to allow segregation of editors, with a decent knowledge of php/html you can knock up your own theme to match fh, and they offer a very good editing experience.

I admit I haven't tried wordpress MU but we use several wordpress installs to manage different projects.

Lemme know if you need a hand with any wordpress stuff, and I'd be happy to contribute to guides for the games I play.

 

[Chilly]

Seems a bit OTT to use a whole install for one guide. Run the guides as single blog posts, bug theme it so it appears more article like than blog post like. You can then have comments and all the rest per guide.

 

[ford prefect]

Unless you want to put time in writing a CMS, Wordpress is probably the way to go. It is a smallish compact script that can handle a lot of data without too much lag and can be eaily customised. It can be linked into various common forum scripts without too much fuss too.

 

[Yaka]

And I will volunteer to proof read anything Yaka does for you

if you really are serious then i may start doing the news again

my spelling/grammar has gotten worse and not better over the years

think most fhers got peeved over it as well

 

[mank!]

yes, i'll also do any proof reading. i could write a guide as well, though i only play wow of late.

will i get paid? i need work.

 

[Chilly]

If your guide magically brings in £lol from googleads, perhaps tony will send you a couple of quid after his "expenses".

Spoiler

hookers and magnums of red wine