Reply To: Focus Fusion Rail Gun

[zapkitty]

Starting on this now that the crowdfund drive is over.

Any objections to a full conversion from expression engine to
wordpress?

The current goal is for a landing page, an “Intro to FF” page, a news
page, the forums, and a page for aneutronic-related articles.

My current plan for the landing page is for a header area that’s a
banner slideshow, below which is to be a full-width bar, a “function
bar” that is relatively thin, containing social media icons and a site
search form as well as other oddments.

Beneath that should be a sidebar on the left and a news area on the
right. The news area will in turn be split top and bottom between notices
of recent news articles above and notices of recent forum posts below.

Beneath it all will be the footer for cleanup and legalese.

The goal is to cover what the *[em]FFS[/em]* site needs to cover in an
accessible style without excessive complexity.

And there are a number of mobile-ready themes along these lines that
can be easily adapted to our needs while still being usable on a
classic desktop system.

The front page or the landing page from the top: The banner

I’m thinking that the banner should have 3 slides in rotation, each
with a short phrase about FF or the implications of aneutronic fusion
along with appropriate art. As the concepts of FF and aneutronics cover
a lot of territory each page visit will load a different set of three
slides from a list of such. The choice of which 3 particular slides
from the list will be random for no-cookies visitors or in rotation for
browsers with cookies enabled.

That banner is to be the eyecatch and the slides should be in text
and image(s) so that the banner can load quickly and be accessible.
3 slides at a time will give us space to add a 4th slide when it is
needed… say, for a specific event or campaign.

Which phrases to use? The best short phrases that encapsulate the
the various aspects of Focus Fusion, aneutronics and the FFS. They
should be factual and yet brief… enticing and inviting further
exploration. Each slide can link to a related topic on the site. This is
one area where the input of the membership will be needed and greatly
appreciated.

Here are some examples of what sort of phrases I’m thinking of. In
order to avoid prematurely singling out specific FF-related phrases
I’ve provided some examples that are actually bits from various old SF
movies… so please pardon the disconnect 🙂

[em]”8000 cubic miles of klystron relays” [/em]
pic(s) of the Great Machine from Forbidden Planet.

[em]”We sighted it moving towards Earth less than two hours ago”[/em]
pic(s) of asteroid Flora from The Green Slime.

[em]”Independent action increases on a 73-degree tangent”[/em]
pic(s) of the Courier’s floating head from Not Of This Earth

[em]”We go into the nest and find out”[/em]
pic(s) of the nest from Them.

… substitute FF-related phrases and art and that should get the
concept across.

Next: the function bar
… sort of a junk drawer right now 😉

Next: the sidebar.

Below the function bar there should be a sidebar on the left
with a listing of direct access links to various site areas. The
sidebar should be headed by a compact version of an improved FFS logo.
This can lead to a new “Intro to FF” slideshow, one that gives a good
introduction to what both FF and aneutronic fusion are and why we
support them. This intro probably would be derived from the current
landing page and the Indiegogo stuff but greatly clarified and of
course with text components instead of all graphics. (For right now tho
we can cannibalize the one on the current front page.)

Below the “Intro” header the the sidebar should have links to “About
the FFS”, the news page, the forums, the aneutronic-related
articles page… and what else?

Next: the recent news area.

This should be a largish part of the page.
The news area should have excerpts from the latest news
articles in the news section, linking to those same articles. Below
that should be a listing of the latest forum posts, again linking to
those posts.

And then the footer.

This plan should make the site and especially the new front page
both more accessible and more informative than the old versions.

So that’s the outline. What do [em]you[/em] think of these concepts?