StarCraft II Heaven Launched

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:23:00 -0400

If you haven’t seen it or heard about it already, StarCraft II Heaven was recently launched. The site represents a few changes at HeavenGames, some of which may not be readily visible:

Zope out; Radiant in

For StarCraft II Heaven we have switched to using Radiant CMS, a simple yet elegant CMS based on the Ruby on Rails framework. This change has allowed for rapid development of extensions, something we have not been able to do before with Zope 2.x.

The major reason for the switch is ease of use. In Zope our staff was required to learn the basic DTML markup that is required for their content to use the default template, in addition to knowing HTML to format their text. This presented an obstacle to staff who are writers – in addition to knowing the craft of writing, they have to learn how to code for the web, which for some is challenging and a waste of time.

Radiant comes with the ability to markup your text using Textile, which is like wiki markup but more natural (and doesn’t automatically link to CamelCasedWords). Some of the basic formatting codes are easier to use – even easier than BBCode. For example, to make something bold, you just surround it with asterisks (*like so*), and to make a link, you separate the text with a colon, like so: "link":http://techblog.heavengames.com. A full reference is available online.

Oh, what’s even better is that HTML can peacefully coexist with the markup, so staff that wants full control over the HTML are not restricted from doing so. They can also turn textile off for the whole page, or using the <notextile> ... </notextile> tag around the sections that they don’t want interpreted (like what I just did with the notextile mention …)

Textile is also typographically aware, so the little details like proper quotation marks are applied to text (i.e. “Hello” instead of "Hello") without the writer having to know the HTML entity codes behind them (’, rdquo;, etc.).

Along with Radiant we have started maintaining our own HG extensions which allow for easier publishing out of the box; so far we have a unit/buildings database extension; a gallery, polling system, and HG site installer extension is near completion as well. What this amounts to is less work for tech guys like me, so we can stay focused on other crucial HG technology projects.

New Template

The major visible change is that we have a new template. We’ve changed the orientation of the navigation bar from vertical to horizontal. The horizontal layout allows our sites to cover more information without overwhelming the user with many links, and without scrolling to find what information there is. For example, this new design would be awesome for a site like Age of Empires III Heaven, which features a massive navigation menu.

As a result of moving the navigation menu to the top, we now have the capability to incorporate that into the forums and downloads section, which helps unite the site’s various components into a whole.

The other change is subtle, in that we’ve adopted a major traditional print design practice on the website to help with layout: grids. There’s two of them – a baseline grid (horizontal), and a column grid (vertical). The baseline grid aligns text and establishes a vertical rhythm as you read down the page, similar to how tempo and measures align notes and establishes rhythm in music.

The other, a 12-column grid, helps with aligning text columns and also picture sizes. The column grid is assisted by the use of the BluePrint framework, which makes designing in columns a cinch.

As a result we get a site layout that’s easier on the eyes and content that’s easier to read. If you want to learn more about vertical grids, designer Khoi Vinh’s articles Grid Computing … and Design and Oh Yeeaah! are great places to start.

Phishing/Scam Warning

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:09:00 -0400

There’s no such thing as Download Heaven – If you receive any e-mails from persons purporting to be staff from such a site, ignore the e-mail and trash it. Clicking on the link contained in the email could result in your computer being infected by a trojan virus, which allows hackers to have total control over your computer, or install additional malware such as keyloggers to steal all your passwords and credit card numbers.

HeavenGames Tech Blog : Archives for August 2007

StarCraft II Heaven Launched

Zope out; Radiant in

New Template

Phishing/Scam Warning