General State of the Site and Roadmap

This forum is for suggestions and discussion about this site. What would you like to see?

Moderators: 52D, Tom F, Rlangham, Atlantic 3279, Blink Bonny, Saint Johnstoun, richard

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richard
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
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General State of the Site and Roadmap

Post by richard »

Here in the US "State of the XYZ" is a common title for a speech or report, so here I use it for the site :-)

This year has been a quiet year. For various reasons, the planned graphical redesign has taken a lot longer than intended. However, I feel the end is near :-) Many of the new sections have been postponed until after the re-design so that they don't have to be modified weeks after being written. Or that was the plan.

Here is the plan for the end of this year and next year, in approximate chronological order:

1.) Add the Reid-Macleod Steam Turbine (possibly today!)

2.) Implement the new web design for a sampling of pages to check everything looks okay.

3.) Fix any design issues (eg. the picture of the V2 on the new title page)

4.) Implement the design on the engineer, links, and any other miscellaneous pages.

5.) Add the new Constituent Companies section. This might be called "Regions" but would be divided along company lines. It would include geographic articles. I have already started on some of the text and timelines for these. It will be an on-going process, probably taking years to get the "basics" completed. I intend to have: Timeline, Potted History, and Livery Information; plus things like CME lists, crests, prominent locomotives, etc.

6.) Re-arrange articles, moving geographic articles to the new Regions section.

7.) Work through all locomotive pages moving them to the new graphical design, and ensuring all length and weight data is consistent.

8.) Implement the new locomotive database (there's a good chance this will start before or during #5. Launch will be in three stages: My initial development; a "beta" when other admins will be invited to test and build data; public release. Data will take years to add - so this will continue during the public release.

9.) New articles as time allows, eg. George Hudson, Leeds-Wetherby Line, Thorp Arch circular railway, various Gresley patents, superheater design, etc.


Richard
Richard Marsden
LNER Encyclopedia
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52D
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Typeface

Post by 52D »

Richard is there any chance of using Gill sans as the font for the encyclopedia.
Hi interested in the area served by 52D. also researching colliery wagonways from same area.
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richard
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 3385
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:11 pm
Location: Wichita Falls, Texas
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Post by richard »

:-) Strange thing is that that crossed my mind this morning (when some artsy programme on the radio was talking about a new film devoted to 'Helvetica'!)

I don't think it is practical for the main text, mainly because a large number of PCs do not have it. Even if it could be relied upon, we'd need to test it. Being a sans serif font is a good start for an online font, but it simply might not 'work'.

The title on the front page is a different matter as this is a bitmap. (the contents in the header banner isn't, though)


Richard
Richard Marsden
LNER Encyclopedia
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