The official NESVideos
Site Redesign Contest* is underway! Bisqwit was kind enough to provide us with a skeletal version of the site's PHP and stylesheets to experiment with. Here are
the files.
Casual web developers will want to focus on
.css, the stylesheet for NESVideos. Even restricted to modifying just the stylesheet, virtually limitless possibilities abound.
The CSS Zen Garden is a good example of what is possible with just a stylesheet. For those of you unfamiliar with CSS, or those of you requiring a refresher, check out this
CSS tutorial.
More advanced web developers may want to experiment with
layout_api.php, the core script that renders the site. If you aren't familiar with PHP, this
PHP tutorial may be useful, though you really don't need to understand PHP to change the layout of the HTML that is generated by the script. Here are a couple of quick pointers that will be sufficient for most of you to modify the code:
- Use echo and print to write HTML to the page that the user actually sees. For these purposes, the commands are identical, and it doesn't matter which one you use.
- Whatever HTML you want to write to the page should be enclosed in single or double quotes. For these purposes, it doesn't really matter which ones you use.
- If the HTML you write has a double quote in it, you probably want to enclose it in single quotes. If the HTML you write has a single quote in it, you probably want to enclose it in double quotes. That way you don't have to use fancy escape characters to remind the PHP interpreter not to misunderstand you!
- You can join multiple strings in one echo or print command with commas.
- If you place # or // at the beginning of a line, it is ignored.
- Like C and Java, end everything with a semicolon.
Example PHP
echo '<div class="header">NESVideos</div>';
print "Bisqwit's Site", " is the best!";
#echo 'this will not display because of the hash symbol';
For those of you that don't have PHP enabled webservers, you will need some way to test the changes you make. For Windows, this standalone
PHP interpreter will allow you to do just that.
Lastly, the NESVideos site is friendly, compact, and functional. Whatever changes you make, try to keep that essence intact. If you come up with a design of particular interest, simply post a link to the modified files, and possibly a screenshot for easy viewing.
*Bisqwit welcomes your creative output, but makes no representations, express or implied, regarding the use of contest submissions in the actual site, now, or at any later date. Translation: this is just some cockamamie scheme I dreamed up; Bisqwit doesn't necessarily have the time or desire to modify the site's design, though I bet if someone comes up with something really nice, he won't be too hard to convince ;) .
