Community Features Now Working!
In News by Collis
Hello again! I have a few more updates since yesterday's redesign. Most importantly, the two new community features - links and images - are now working...
Flickr Group - 28 Members Already!
As you know from yesterday, we've now got a PSDTUTS Flickr Group where you can post up your images and comment on each other's work. Also images assigned to the group appear in the right-hand sidebar (which I now have working) so you can show off to regular readers too. It also turns out there's a little message board on the group, so you can also chat with other group members.
User Link Feed Now Online
I've hacked together a little community link feed which you'll see in the sidebar. Anyone is free to submit links,but they will be moderated. The type of links you should be submitting are resources, tutorials, and inspiration. There's an RSS feed for people to subscribe to if they like, and of course the links appear in the sidebar for readers to visit.
If you notice any bugs with the link feed, do let me know. I hacked it out of a comment thread for an invisible Wordpress post, and it's something I've never done before. It seems to be working OK though so yay!
And a few more updates have been made to the site
Thank-you to everyone for the feedback on the site. As I've learned redesigning a few major sites lately, there are always a lot of voices in favor and against any new design. I'm just glad everyone was so nice even if they preferred the old look. Recently, I redesigned another famous site and although it was mostly positive, some people got a bit nasty which was sad. So "go" PSDTUTS community!
Anyhow, I've brought the spoon back in the header, as it turns out that was a rather popular little slogan. I've also fixed the comment box, darkened the page text, added separators, re-kerned the logo, fixed the 1024 issue, moved trackbacks below comments and tightened up a few other bits. One recurring piece of feedback was that the new design has less personality. I'll have a think about how we can address that, and hopefully you'll see a few more changes in the coming weeks.
OK, that's all about the redesign, back to tutorials!
Oh, one more thing ...
One more thing, I just looked at the subscriber count for the site and it's up past SEVEN THOUSAND! Hooray, the site is growing in leaps and bounds. You may be interested to know that a couple of months ago (before I moved the site to Wordpress), I was actually about to sell it on Sitepoint. I even started writing the listing out and while writing it I remember thinking "hey this is actually a pretty cool site", so instead I turned it into a blog and ever since the growth has been stellar. Thank you to everyone who's subscribed, read, commented and visited PSDTUTS! I sure am glad we didn't sell it!
If you enjoyed this post, your vote is always highly appreciated!!
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Note: We use Gravatars on PSDTUTS, they are little icons that appear next to your name on this site and on many others. You can get a Gravatar account for free and any other site that supports it will show your avatar too!
Orion Star
November 22nd, 2007
I was finishing up your shield tutorial when this new article popped up. Awesome news, and congratulations. ¶ I love Wordpress, it’s so flexible. I mentioned this in another comment, so again, if you decide to go with a forum, you may be interested in BBpress. Thanks again!
Brian
November 22nd, 2007
Excellent. Things are looking really great now. I’m anxious to use the linkfeed and the community section.
Rahman
November 22nd, 2007
This site really is great, and I think that this site is not meant solely for people who want to improve their ps skills. I don’t know one thing about using the program, but I am amazing to see its capabilities; through your tutorials I am awed by the amazing things that can be created, and I enjoy seeing the steps that were taken to reach the final image. This is a really great site, keep up the good work! And good thing you didn’t sell it
Colin
November 22nd, 2007
i like gravatars! i wanna make a cool one….with all my skillz that kill i learned from here
not like those awesome lyrics i learned from missy elliot! well not her either….anyways i do like!
Collis
November 22nd, 2007
Yeah BBPress would be good wouldn’t it! We could probably hook it together with Wordpress too I’m guessing.
Sahil Lavingia
November 22nd, 2007
What’s the other famous site you redesigned?
Collis
November 22nd, 2007
@sahil, it was ZenHabits! http://zenhabits.net, as I say lots of positive feedback, but also comments like “this belongs in a gallery of bad web design” which weren’t so friendly
Orion Star
November 22nd, 2007
Collis, you certainly can integrate BBpress with Wordpress, and I would certainly love to see how PSDTUTS would integrate it. We could have latest forum posts on the sidebar or homepage.
Marko Novak
November 22nd, 2007
Glad to see you didn’t sell the page.
Collis
November 22nd, 2007
@Orion: oh wow i didn’t know you could integrate that far, but that’s a really good point, I was just thinking the logins would be the same, but yeah you’re right, having the latest forum threads would be good. I’m not that good with coding things but if its similar to Wordpress which is quite flexible then I might even manage it myself, otherwise I guess we can always hire someone to do it.
Hooray, i’ll put this on my to do list!
Collis
November 22nd, 2007
In fact it turns out theres even a Wordpress plugin to port BBPress latest threads - http://www.atsutane.net/2006/11/bbpress-latest-discussion-for-wordpress/ actually i should upgrade Wordpress to 2.3 too, i think this is 2.2 still
Orion Star
November 22nd, 2007
I worked on an integration of Victory Belt, victorybelt.com, for a client/school project. The Victory Belt staff, not programmers or designers, are kind of tweaking the layout and etc now… argh, but the site eximplifies the extremity of articles and community, one half articels and the other posts from the community. It really isn’t much different then a Wordpress install. We used the BBPress latest discussion plugin too.
NobsTutorials
November 22nd, 2007
Collis, the user feed is a pretty cool idea! I was very pleased to see my tutorial featured on your great site, thanks a lot and keep up your great work!
jens
November 22nd, 2007
when i click on “read more” in the user links RSS feed, i always end up on this page: http://psdtuts.com/userlinks/user-link-feed/#comment-3203
Shiva
November 22nd, 2007
Yes the spoon is back!!!
Liam
November 22nd, 2007
The only way is up with this site, keep up the good work!
nitesh
November 23rd, 2007
please change the look of the blog it sucks it should be more of higher qulaity like the tutorials provided here this blog has its own nieche and standard so please maintatin it
salman
November 23rd, 2007
can sum1 plz tell me wat is wordpress and bbpress……
wat do u say collis??
salman
November 23rd, 2007
n the Flickr group ROCKS….
jens
November 23rd, 2007
why do people keep posting photos that has nothing to do with your tutorials on the flickr group?
Orion Star
November 23rd, 2007
Wordpress- A semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.
BBpress- Template-driven PHP/MySQL forum software developed by the creators of WordPress.
Salman, Wordpress is a dynamic customizable blog and website content management system, what this website is managed with. It makes publishing articles and managing content easy, by most standards. Plus it encourages collaboration, feedback, and community by being RSS, Search Engine, and social network friendly. BBpress is a fast and light forum built by the makers of Wordpress.
Jens Schulze
November 23rd, 2007
Damn, the combination of colors r rlly great.
Discover CCENT
November 23rd, 2007
You’ve got a good blog design!
Chad Behnke
November 23rd, 2007
I couldn’t configure bb/wordpress for some reason. It was probably my fault. However, I have Vanilla and Wordpress running off of the same user table on one site and it’s working out great! The only thing that doesn’t take across both of them is user roles, ie if you want an admin for both the blog and the forum you have to set them up in each of the control panels.
Orion Star
November 23rd, 2007
One of my favorite BBpress sites is 9rules.com, check out the “notes” section. ¶ One of the creators gave a brief breakdown of the process in this post on the BBpress forum, 9rules.com @ BBpress. I was/am blown away.
Eric
November 23rd, 2007
Thanks for not abandoning the site and give it a second chance. To me PSDTuts rocks!
Collis
November 24th, 2007
oh wow i didn’t know 9rules was on BBPress too!
Gareth
November 25th, 2007
Wow this looks great!
Good job.
Ravi Vora
November 27th, 2007
Very cool redesign. I am excited to see this community growing so rapidly.
Alex
December 1st, 2007
Collis, very nice new layout, 100% sexy web 2 heaven. Good job.
Darkodin
December 1st, 2007
Looks sweet! Impressive what can be done with Wordpress.
GRIV
December 4th, 2007
Sweet!! I love this site!
Mark Abucayon
December 10th, 2007
Again collis rocks, this is nice.. Thanks for this one
Kurt Cruse
December 12th, 2007
I just recently came across your site, I believe bc of the redesign getting posted on some galleries. Anyways after going back through a few pages of tutorials I just wanted to commend you on the huge strides you’ve made in such a short time. You’re really trying to put something out there the ppl want, I admire that (and at the same time hate you for beating me to it hehe).
cet
May 21st, 2008
^^ i like this site!!!!
çet
August 17th, 2008
i love this site