yny-u

[yny-u]

Well, after lurking here for several years, I have finally registered on the forums, and, well, here goes.

Desired URL: yny-u.xepher.net
Email: webmaster ~a~ yny-u ~dot~ com

Proposed site: A place to experiment with web design and host my art - sketches, paintings, illustrations, comics, photographs, etc.

To see what I can do art-wise: http://yny-u.deviantart.com/gallery/#_featured

Let me see.. I am familiar the XHTML, CSS, PHP/MySQL/Smarty and a bit of Javascript - to see an example, go  to http://yny-u.110mb.com. As you will see, they have disabled MySQL, but that should at least show that I can put together a basic web page (I hope ^^; ).

Technical questions... If this site proposal is accepted, can I have at least one directory outside the root? I would like to have one to store sensitive PHP includes (like db passwords). Also, I have recently started using PHP's Smarty templating engine (http://smarty.php.net/). Installing it is quite simple (if you don't have it already - basically just adding an include path to php.ini, creating a few directories, and sticking some PHP files in them. More info on installing Smarty: http://smarty.php.net/quick_start.php). If it is too much trouble, that is fine, but Smarty is such a neat tool that I though I would at least ask..

OK, well, that about covers it I think.. If anyone has any questions, please ask me. Any critiques or suggestions would be most welcome.

[cha0s]

Pretty nice art.

As long as your php scripts aren't world-readable (which isn't allowed), you shouldn't have to worry about them, I don't think...

[Xepher]

Well, know that everyone gets a full, "machine" (actually a VM) level linux account. That means a /home/username folder with shell access and everything. On top of that, security is a big issue for me, so the webserver is setup to run in a way that files ONLY have to be readable by you... thus, there's no need for "sensitive" files to be outside of the web root (though they still can be.)

[yny-u]

@ cha0s: Thanks ^^ Yes, usually PHP files are fine, but there are situations where .php and .inc files can sometimes become exposed on some servers, so I have heard that it is generally safest to keep sensitive stuff from being URL accessible if the server starts treating the files as plain text.. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

@ Xepher: Ah, OK, even better. (Wow, VM level hosting...)

Thank you for responding.

[yny-u]

OK.. Comments, anyone..?

[Xepher]

Yeah, it's a bit slow. I generally like to wait for a few more comments... I'll say that I'm leaning towards a yes though.

[yny-u]

That is what I figured. I was hoping to get some more input... Perhaps I should put up a more critiqueable demo web page?

(I just updated my dA gallery too, if that is any help.)

[griever]

Nice art!  I really like the more traditional sketches.  Something different to add to this community.  Are you planning on studying art in college?

I guess I'll ask the question I ask more people who have a DA account and also want a Xepher site...how will the Xepher site be different from the DA account?  Is it just going to be a mirror site?  Or will there be elements that are different?

[fesworks]

you've got some nice sketches and paintings in there

[yny-u]

Thanks fesworks ^^

@ griever: Hmm.. Good question.

While I would post many of the same pieces on both sites, I dislike the way dA handles quick sketches and comics. I would like to be able to post sketches in more of a blog format, and it would be nice to be able to put comics up in a more organised way. Currently, I just don't post that many sketches, and while I may put up a few comic pages on my dA account, dA's gallery just isn't suited to them. I would like to have the freedom to present and organise stuff (not just comics and sketches, but also finished illustrations, drawings, paintings etc.) in any way I like. Basically, I think I would post a wider variety of things if given the chance to post them in a wider variety of ways.

Also, and this may be the biggest point, I am interested in designing and building the site for its own sake - not just as another on line gallery.

Yes, I am planning to study art in college..
Thank you.

[Xepher]

Alright, you're in. You should have an email shortly with login info.

EDIT: I accidentally sent the email from my personal account. Just note that for hosting-related issues, please use admin@... instead. Thanks.

[yny-u]

Oh, thank you very much. I should have something up and running soon.. (currently messing about creating the database..)

[yny-u]

OK! I think everything is up and running now (on the front end anyway - I need to clean up a bunch of stuff on the admin side, but that's another story..)

Please take a look, and let me know what you all think (comments? critiques? suggestions?).

Thanks~

http://yny-u.xepher.net

[griever]

I think it looks pretty nice.  The links show up really light for me though (Mac OSX, Firefox).  I can barely read the text unless I hover over them.

Also, I don't know how artists feel about these kinds of things, but I'm a freak about putting outlines around my images.  I think it helps keep them from bleeding into the page.  But that's a purely aesthetic thing.

[yny-u]

Ahh.. The colours of the link text... I was wondering if anyone would bring that up. I had been thinking of changing them. So, I have now darkened the text colour for visited/mouseover links, and lightened the colour for unvisited links. It seems more legible to me, but some of the light-on-light ones might still be hard to see on some monitors.. If so, let me know.

As for borders, I have played around with them, but in the end decided to leave them out, as it made the images blend into the layout better. So yes, matter of taste?

Thank you for your comments griever.