The Nexuiz Brand

[Oblivion]

Overall, the current design appears to be screaming 'Download!!! Download NOOoOOoOwWwWWwWwW!!!', almost as if it was forcing itself upon the user.

I feel the same way. And my first reaction on encountering these kind of sites is to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

I like the new additions to the graphics. The banner looks uberawesome. (Though the players in it seem to be walking on air! )

Since I posted my crits on the wrong thread:

I still say, find cleaner fonts.

1) By all means, use the current blocky font on the Nexuiz banner, but using it on normal text is simply bleh.

2) Font font font!

3) Font sizes, font color, fonts used.

4) Font font font!

5) Did I mention fonts?

6) The news/media/etc bar is white,which draws the viewers eyes to it, instead of towards the banner. and it uses an ugly font. :S

7) Did I mention fonts?



/me barricades himself against Rad Ished's and -z- the Zedinator's expected assault.
/me runs away

[[-z-]]

About this Site
Open Source Windows is a simple list of the best free and open source software for Windows. We aren't trying to be a comprehensive listing of every open-source Windows application, instead we want to showcase the best, most important, and easiest to use. This page should be a handy reference and a useful tool for getting more people to start using free and open-source software. If you think we're missing any great apps, please let us know.

Note to software creators: first of all, thanks so much for making free, open-source software-- we love you.

Second, please try to make your download pages easy to use. It's usually very easy to improve-- just add a big 'Download Now' link towards the top of the page, without too much clutter around it (use mozilla.org or adiumx.com for inspiration).

Here's some more unsolicited advice for getting more people to download your software:

a. if you have a nice icon, show it off prominently.

b. put a download link and a screenshot on your front page.

c. if you use mirrors, use a script to pick a random mirror and just give people one link that says 'download now'

d. if there's any way you can avoid sending people to the sourceforge download mirror page, you should (we know it's not your fault, but it baffles lots of folks).

e. if you really want to make things easy for people, and you have a cross-platform app, detect what OS they are on and give them the correct link.

f. test your page on a novice! See if they can understand what the software does and how to get it.

[Spaceman]

Nexuiz is a fun and free GPL deathmatch shooter. The sci-fi themed shooter is based on the darkplaces engine. Nexuiz adds many more effects and enchancements to the base engine such as bumpmapping,realtime shadows and an advanded new model format. The game has more than a dozen maps and players. It is fully moddable, and thanks to it's quake/darkplaces heritage, there are many basic tutorials already available on the internet. Nexuiz is completely standalone however, and offers modders a solid opensource base to work off of.

[[-z-]]

Post release of the new site and 2.4, I think it would be great to put Nexuiz on there.

[Spaceman]

Second, please try to make your download pages easy to use. It's usually very easy to improve-- just add a big 'Download Now' link towards the top of the page, without too much clutter around it (use mozilla.org or adiumx.com for inspiration).

Here's some more unsolicited advice for getting more people to download your software:

a. if you have a nice icon, show it off prominently.

b. put a download link and a screenshot on your front page.

good ideas

c. if you use mirrors, use a script to pick a random mirror and just give people one link that says 'download now'

d. if there's any way you can avoid sending people to the sourceforge download mirror page, you should (we know it's not your fault, but it baffles lots of folks).

I've used Sourceforge for years and it still baffles me

e. if you really want to make things easy for people, and you have a cross-platform app, detect what OS they are on and give them the correct link.

Opera detects my OS and picks the correct dl and a local mirror. Except I don't always want a dl for Kubuntu, Although this doesn't apply to Nexuiz

f. test your page on a novice! See if they can understand what the software does and how to get it.

Another good idea

[oz]

e. if you really want to make things easy for people, and you have a cross-platform app, detect what OS they are on and give them the correct link.

Of course, there must be a possibility to bypass OS detection, because it can't be done for sure!
Even "nmap -O" will only get the OS of the router, if it works at all.
Some people change their browsers default ident string for various reasons (browsing IE only sites).
Don't forget the people that download from another computer for various reasons (faster connection, costs, temporary network or system problems, ...)!

IMHO best is to detect it and write the result of the detection above the link. Another link under it leads to the list of other choices.
<example>
For FooOS-77 use the download link (666MB):
DOWNLOAD

For any other OS visit our repository.
</example>

[[-z-]]

Well for point e, Nexuiz doesn't really need to worry... we just need instructions on how to run per OS on the download page.

I was just trying to justify some of my design decisions by citing the opinions from a man who runs an open-source resource site.

[Spaceman]

Can you post another screen shot

[[-z-]]

Can you post another screen shot

http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=30

[HarryButt]

I've got a problem with this new design.

What is this black line (inside the banner & logo) supposed to be?
Could you take it out or at least set it to less visible? For imo it interferes with the rest of the graphics.

The rest looks pretty much finished.