We're busy revising the Abandonia site and (on later stages) add extra sites on our network.

All abandonia sites will get:

- A more unified look. The sites will be very different in look and feel, but will be unmistakenly 'abandonia'. Basicly it will mean all sites will get a personal abandonia logo customized to the feel we want to create. AR fans need not to worry, the feel of the site will only get better.

The Abandonia site will get:

- A new design, since it's 2 years ago since the last redesign, it's pretty much time to update it. The new logo (like on the shirts) is an example of it.

- Better visual quality on lower resolution. The design will be better accesible for users having a resolution of 800x600, since still about 16% of our visitors use it. Which makes sense, Old games for old computers! Current site doesn't hold together when browsing a game page.

- A better search engine. The search feature will be optimized and to avoid a lot of confusion, we are making it 'cross-site' as far as that's possible. Which means a search request will not only find content on AB, but also on AR and possibly other sister sites (;)). So you'll have a bigger chance to find your game.

Reloaded will get:

- Nothing extra for quite a while, since it's working like a charm
- Better integration with Abandonia after the redesign of AB has been done
- 'Unified' graphical style (while still different, can't stress it enough ;) )

[b]upcoming projects:[b/]

Abandonia Frequency (somewhat near future):
- Our personal Abandonware midi-radiostation!

You guys will 'enjoy' (if there is ANYBODY who does enjoy that kind of noise) the finest miditunes. Our current collection will be added to a playlist which you guys can plug-in to. Besides that, it's possible to submit a request for a song.

Abandonia Archives (somewhat far future)

- A 'sort of wiki' about everything abandonwarescene / Abandonia related

It's ment as an archive where we store important information and articles. For example, we would store information about: the oldwarez list, ESA, the definition of Abandonware/ Freeware/ Shareware, history of Abandonia, etc. etc.

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THe shape of these 2 additions is not yet decided. It may be totally different sites. But it can also be integrated into the lay-outs of AB and AR. It has pro and cons. Which we have to consider.

There! A heads up on what we are working on!

If you have well thought ideas about making this site better, don't hesitate to PM me.

A couple of guidelines:
- It shouldn't be just 'nice to have'. It should really be a great addition. I want to see some arguments about why it would be great. I would also like you guys to think of the consequences of your idea (bandwidth for example)

- Don't expect to see it integrated, hope for it ;). We have to make choices about which navigation we are going to use and every decision rules out certain options. Designed a site often means you have to dump a lot of good ideas to create a awesome one.

Oh well, don't let this discourage you people.

Greetings,
Maikel

:ok: I love our administrators. w00t!

Sounds cool. Another thing: People on the German section asked if the language of the games could be displayed on their pages. Could you maybe add a reference for games that are availalbe in multilingual versions?

I'll put it in the Design Ideas in the Admin forum :ok:

Make a LIVE Chatbox site on the sub way of the site..

SO not in forum style, but based on JAVA where people can sneak up with a short question and all people online there can help :kosta:


Ps. keep up the good work Maikel (and all those other people...) im so extremly happy with you all! :angel: :angel: :angel:

Whaaaaaaat? wormpaul , long time no see.

While we're on the topic, is it possible to integrate into new design a message on translated pages, that not every review is accesible, because people who surf let's say Croatian page, will miss out games that haven't been translated (something that hapenned to me during my first visit), and it would be cool if people could still select the game that hasn't been translated and still download and on the place of review it would say something like "this page hasn't yet been translated click here to see the review in English"... (sort of what Grinder is proposing)
Also a count of translated reviews on the main page would be nifty, so people get a feel of how much is translated...
(of course if all of this stuff is possible anyway)

About the design, if it'll be as sexy as the present reloadeds design I'm sure I'll like it :D

WOOT!!!! Abandonia Rules!!!!
I think our admins kick behind compared to other sites!
:ok: :band: :kosta: :king: :party: Ok now that I have got that out of my system. Go Abandonia!

While we're on the topic, is it possible to integrate into new design a message on translated pages, that not every review is accesible, because people who surf let's say Croatian page, will miss out games that haven't been translated (something that hapenned to me during my first visit), and it would be cool if people could still select the game that hasn't been translated and still download and on the place of review it would say something like "this page hasn't yet been translated click here to see the review in English"... (sort of what Grinder is proposing)
Also a count of translated reviews on the main page would be nifty, so people get a feel of how much is translated...
(of course if all of this stuff is possible anyway)

About the design, if it'll be as sexy as the present reloadeds design I'm sure I'll like it :D [/b][/quote]
I'd say listing all languages available per review's possible, and showing a default text on AB in a different language where the review for the game selected, isn't available yet, is as well.

Humm... that might've been a bit confusing.

Imagine you're browsing Abandonia in German and click on a game that's already been reviewed. It'll show the review, and the flags for each other language the review's available in. Now you click on a game of which the German review's not available yet. It'll show those flags for the other languages available again, but'd show a default text saying it's not available in German.

If it's like that, it's doable.

Yeah that would be the way to do it. At the moment it will be confusing some people who browse in other languages. Because it will not explain why.