Post by Lochart on Mar 14, 2008 10:23:06 GMT -5
I've looked rather extensively into raid sign up applications for websites around the web, and have discovered a few things.
There are several prominent and free programs that essentially act as "mods" for websites. They are free to download, install, and use. However, unlike Warcraft mods, they require at least rudimentary knowledge of computer coding to get up and running. Sadly, I lack any sort of knowledge on this front. I considered it a big accomplishment to be able to create posts on our website...
If anyone is interested in these mods, and has more technical knowhow than I do, feel free to investigate them and see if you can get them running. The most highly lauded one I found was phpRaider, available at www.phpraider.com
Another is raidninja available at www.raidninja.com
In the mean time however, I have found a reasonably viable alternative. There is a free website service designed exclusively for Warcraft guilds, which has a built in raid sign up program. I took the liberty of setting up a very rudimentary website with basic functionality to test it out. The raid sign up is under the "Schedule" section at the top of the page.
Because it is specifically for WoW, it has built in access to the wowarmory, which means several things.
First, it has an automatically updating roster of guild members, so our PAINFULLY outdated list on this site is no longer an issue, and updating it merely means clicking a button.
Second, the roster is straight from wowarmory, which means it lists name, rank, class, TALENT SPEC, and professions all on one page. There's also an option to list who is Kara attuned automatically, which I have enabled.
Third, individuals can list "special, hard to come by" recipes that they have for their professions that not only people in the guild can see, but people on all of Silvermoon who have access to wowstead.com can see, which means you might actually get people who seek you out to make something for them. But more importantly, people within the guild can tell at a glance who in the guild to talk to about crafting a special item.
Now, I'm not suggesting we exclusively use that new site and shut down this one, mostly because it'd be a HUGE pain to copy all our useful information to from this site to the new one, and I don't want to make an executive decision like that, particularly when at this point, raid sign ups are a fairly minimal part of our guild operations.
But, I do recommend that you guys sign up a character, check out the site, see if you like it, and put down some of your recipes you're proud of (enchants and alchemy stuff come to mind). I have posted one Kara raid just to see how the sign up function works, as well as a poll, and a news posting, but nothing of substance. If we really like it, I might do more with it, but for I'm solely interested in the raid sign up function.
The address is www.dragoonknights.wowstead.com which is also posted in the Message of the Day in game. In case you guys need a password to access the page (Lunawisp did not), it is posted in the guild information tab in game.
One important note is you sign up a specific character for access. Because I was initially suspicious of the site, I signed up with Tolfta. But for purposes of raid sign up, I encourage you to sign up with your Kara main since that's the player we all know you as anyway. Also, you sign up by character name and server which the website then looks up on wowarmory, so it will welcome you as "Name, race, class, level" without you entering the information. Startling, but nothing to be concerned about.
Anyway, I encourage you to check it out, and any feedback is welcome either in this thread or on that site ;D.
There are several prominent and free programs that essentially act as "mods" for websites. They are free to download, install, and use. However, unlike Warcraft mods, they require at least rudimentary knowledge of computer coding to get up and running. Sadly, I lack any sort of knowledge on this front. I considered it a big accomplishment to be able to create posts on our website...
If anyone is interested in these mods, and has more technical knowhow than I do, feel free to investigate them and see if you can get them running. The most highly lauded one I found was phpRaider, available at www.phpraider.com
Another is raidninja available at www.raidninja.com
In the mean time however, I have found a reasonably viable alternative. There is a free website service designed exclusively for Warcraft guilds, which has a built in raid sign up program. I took the liberty of setting up a very rudimentary website with basic functionality to test it out. The raid sign up is under the "Schedule" section at the top of the page.
Because it is specifically for WoW, it has built in access to the wowarmory, which means several things.
First, it has an automatically updating roster of guild members, so our PAINFULLY outdated list on this site is no longer an issue, and updating it merely means clicking a button.
Second, the roster is straight from wowarmory, which means it lists name, rank, class, TALENT SPEC, and professions all on one page. There's also an option to list who is Kara attuned automatically, which I have enabled.
Third, individuals can list "special, hard to come by" recipes that they have for their professions that not only people in the guild can see, but people on all of Silvermoon who have access to wowstead.com can see, which means you might actually get people who seek you out to make something for them. But more importantly, people within the guild can tell at a glance who in the guild to talk to about crafting a special item.
Now, I'm not suggesting we exclusively use that new site and shut down this one, mostly because it'd be a HUGE pain to copy all our useful information to from this site to the new one, and I don't want to make an executive decision like that, particularly when at this point, raid sign ups are a fairly minimal part of our guild operations.
But, I do recommend that you guys sign up a character, check out the site, see if you like it, and put down some of your recipes you're proud of (enchants and alchemy stuff come to mind). I have posted one Kara raid just to see how the sign up function works, as well as a poll, and a news posting, but nothing of substance. If we really like it, I might do more with it, but for I'm solely interested in the raid sign up function.
The address is www.dragoonknights.wowstead.com which is also posted in the Message of the Day in game. In case you guys need a password to access the page (Lunawisp did not), it is posted in the guild information tab in game.
One important note is you sign up a specific character for access. Because I was initially suspicious of the site, I signed up with Tolfta. But for purposes of raid sign up, I encourage you to sign up with your Kara main since that's the player we all know you as anyway. Also, you sign up by character name and server which the website then looks up on wowarmory, so it will welcome you as "Name, race, class, level" without you entering the information. Startling, but nothing to be concerned about.
Anyway, I encourage you to check it out, and any feedback is welcome either in this thread or on that site ;D.