As you've probably noticed at this point, the Landing Page saw a drastic overhaul. It has been redesigned to address feedback I've gotten throughout the last couple of months. The biggest request was to make the current running games easier to find, since not everyone easily understood how the page has been laid out in terms of functionality. This resulted in big buttons on the Landing Page's right hand side. The buttons are updated for each currently running new(!) game, of course.
Another aspect of the update revolves around improved server loading times. A lot of the used images on the homepage have been reduced in size, redundant code has been cleaned up, the server been optimized as well. The page now loads/responds more faster, especially on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).
Here is a list of updates:
- General - page does not exceed 1920px on 1080p Ultra-Widescreen or higher than 1440p display resolutions anymore (Retina Display fix)
- Landing Page - vertical size of the Hero Image has been reduced, all the important information is visible on 1080p without scrolling (especially in fullscreen mode)
- Landing Page - Backgrounds: several images randomly available on load to make the page more visually interesting, image file sizes have been reduced significantly (down to <230kb), drastically speeding up the page load times, especially on mobile devices
- Landing Page - design now features buttons on the main page that directly access the current running games
- Landing Page - the orange stripe with "Please consider a Donation" has been switched out for a less irritating green stripe with a permanent invite to "Become a Song Provider"
- Navigation Bar - the challenge listing is now in descending order instead of ascending
- Forum - updates resulted in code optimization and faster loading times
- Statistics pages - slight updates to the layout, statistics up-to-date
- License Sponsor page - link renamed (direct filename and in drop-down menu)
- Song Provider page - the years are now listed in descending order. the months are still in ascending order
- Song Pool Campaign page - changes to the "desired audio material" request(s), FAQ has been overhauled
- Donation Hall-of-Fame - finally up to date (apologies for the delay)
- Offsite: Patreon - Tier System has been simplified, there are now two tiers only
There are two more (fairly big) updates planned for June 2019
- Forum - maintenance and code update (had to move this back)
- Guerilla Promotion - a new campaign sub-page, with an interesting "DIY promo" idea
Wait, wasn't there an advertisement implementation in talk for a couple of times at this point?Yes indeed. Advertisement banners might still happen some time down the road. And there is the one or another thing planned for Q3/2019 (Summer). But nothing is set in stone yet, and I'm still ironing out details. For the time being, the only "advertising" you'll see are the promo images for our very generous license sponsors.
I have to thank Larry Oji (Community Manager, OC Remix LLC) and Kyle Crouse (Founder, KNGI Network) for the feedback, which helped shape the page update. May we have an outstanding start into "Year 5" of the Mix Challenge, and way more participants from here on out due to the easier to navigate homepage.
Thanks for reading
