VintageJDM.com - Built on Drupal 5

[gav240z]

Hi Everyone,
I wasn't going to post about it yet as I'm having some IE6 issues, but I figured now is as good a time as any to give feedback.

1.) I know there are some broken links - i only launched it last night.
2.) The front page posts are a bit of a mess - I'm still learning Drupal
3.) Well lets just call it a BETA release.

Vintage JDM | Classic Japanese Car Owners Club

Built on Drupal 5 and using various contributed modules. I've learnt loads about Drupal, but its certainly a DIY CMS. You really have to dig for your own answers - I have had many forum posts unanswered. Its a great CMS but like anything Open Source there can be a level of discomfort .

Feedback on design and structure welcome.

Oh and its a website for Classic Japanese Car Owners "Pre-85 models"

 

[Forbairt]

nice

I've a few questions / comments on it .. (I'll avoid some of the obvious bugs)

Why drupal 5 ? and not 6 or 7 ?

The footer .. has a different background colour ? to the side ? was that intentional ?

I'm not too keen on the overuse of the grey to white gradients for each of the side headers

does the CSS get new lines removed automagically from it and compressed ?

I'd dump the RSS feed up towards the top ...

The main menu .. might be a bit too big ? (height wise)

 

[gav240z]

nice

I've a few questions / comments on it .. (I'll avoid some of the obvious bugs)

Why drupal 5 ? and not 6 or 7 ?

Drupal 5 because 6 doesn't have enough modules in stable release state - just yet. Although I almost went with it, there were a few modules I wanted that were not ready for 6.

7 isn't released in beta yet! Unless it was in the last day and I didn't notice?

The footer .. has a different background colour ? to the side ? was that intentional ?

Yes I was originally going to include a 3 column footer with "recent comments" / "popular pages" etc.. but it looked a bit crowded. I still might do this though.

I'm not too keen on the overuse of the grey to white gradients for each of the side headers

I'd dump the RSS feed up towards the top ...

Yes I still haven't worked out how I'm going to display all "blocks" and what "blocks" i'll keep on the home page etc.. I definately want to Jazz up the newsletter block though. My experience with RSS is that not many of my target audience know how to use it (less tech savvy) and I don't have a high subscription rate on another website like it.

does the CSS get new lines removed automagically from it and compressed ?

Sure does Drupal 5 has this feature built in to reduce http requests and css file size. Its great, but I wouldn't enable it during localsite development.

The main menu .. might be a bit too big ? (height wise)

I know what your saying as in page fold. I have thought about this, but for now I wanted to launch the site. I've revised the design a few times. I may change it again soon. At least I have a concept / design in place to work from. That's the hardest part I think. Changing it later is often easier .

My only complaint is that so far I still don't know how to place "blocks" in different regions on different pages.

Its been a ridiculously steep learning curve. Especially setting up a WSYWIG editor with the ability to insert images. This in itself is enough to put most people off Drupal IMHO although its extremely powerful, its very hard for anyone new to Drupal.

 

[paul]

just a quick 2c

not a fan of the roll overs, on the top menu. If you want to make them that big, why not use an outline of a car or something ?
I like the colors and the layout.

 

[Forbairt]

not a fan of the roll overs, on the top menu. If you want to make them that big, why not use an outline of a car or something ?

I don't know ... personally I quite like the roll overs (feels a bit retro .. retro what I've no idea) .. I just think that section is taking up a bit too much room

 

[gav240z]

Drupal Benefits.

I guess the main advantage of Drupal though is that once I establish a good framework and am happy with the modules / features I can relatively quickly deploy another website using the same code base.

if i get the time I'll probably port over my Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Consultant | Pay Per Click (PPC) Management | Web Design | Website & Online Marketing | Web Analytics - Dublin Ireland website to Drupal and try and get my Carbon Motorsport | Japanese Performance Cars website up and running.

This for me is a huge benefit over say Joomla / Wordpress / Other Open Source Sytems because setting up and maintaining updates / upgrades is a major pita especially if don't want to get hacked by script kiddies.

Another great feature of Drupal is user profile customisation. You can add custom fields pretty easily. I can easily sort users by Country and Location, not to mention a whole heap of other things I haven't even learnt yet.

Another words it spanks the Joomla / Community Builder (bugs as hell) system out of the park.

I can say that having developed in Drupal, I hate Joomla that bit more now.

 

[gav240z]

Joomla

This also makes me better about switching from Joomla.

Why you should upgrade to Joomla 1.5.6

 

[neweb]

Why you should upgrade to Joomla 1.5.6

I would see that article as just honest.

They admitted vulnerability, they admitted they made a mistake and then fixed it. It happens to us all.

I have used Joomla for some time and find it very easy to use and its client friendly as well!

The more popular a program is the more people want to attack it. Give it time and Drupal along with the other less known CMS software will suffer the same level of attack.

 

[Geoff]

Looks pretty neat and tidy to me.

I like it - my first car was a second owner '74 TA22 Celica and was the first thing I saw when I went to the site bringing back a flood of memories - thanks Gav!

cheers,
Geoff

 

[n3tFl0w]

Another excellent website. Really like the design. Clear and usable and good use of colour everywhere.

If I drove one I'd sign up but I don't drive anything so I wont

 

[Geoff]

I drive a '92 JDM MR2 Turbo. Doesn't fit in the 'vintage classification' but IMHO I think they contributed a lot to the golden years of the Japanese sports car era.

sorry for going offtrack....

 

[gav240z]

Cool

Looks pretty neat and tidy to me.

I like it - my first car was a second owner '74 TA22 Celica and was the first thing I saw when I went to the site bringing back a flood of memories - thanks Gav!

cheers,
Geoff

Yeah I grew up with a Father who absolutely loved Volvo's and anything European built, but my mum drove an old Toyota Corona. A couple of friends were buying old Japanese Coupe's as first cars and I've just always loved the old Japanese cars myself.

About 4 years ago I built a website for the Datsun Zcar series and it took off really well, so I decided I would build a website for people who owned / own or want to acquire some old Japanese cars. In Australia and America they are gaining in popularity and I've even noticed here in Ireland and in the UK there seems to be quite a bit of interest in them too.

I had a friend who owned a TA22 Celica, he turbo charged it with a later motor, always loved that car, but I ended up getting a Datsun 240z myself.

There certainly arn't that many websites like the one I've built so I'm hoping it will cover a niche .

 

[gav240z]

I drive a '92 JDM MR2 Turbo. Doesn't fit in the 'vintage classification' but IMHO I think they contributed a lot to the golden years of the Japanese sports car era.

sorry for going offtrack....

Haha, no problem - although I agree I wanted to keep it to the older cars as there are so many "Rice" style websites out there that cover the new stuff.

I do want to build a site that covers later Japanese cars and Drupal is good in that I can build another site relatively quickly, I just need to get this site to a level I'm happy with, as I say its a work in progress still. I have to fix some IE6 display issues and tidy up my CSS a bit.

Once I'm happy with my CSS Framework I'll use that to build a similar site for later cars. Will let you know how that goes.

 

[gav240z]

Thanks..

Another excellent website. Really like the design. Clear and usable and good use of colour everywhere.

If I drove one I'd sign up but I don't drive anything so I wont

Thanks for the kind words, its taken alot of my "spare" time to build and its the first time I've used CSS Sprites and Rollovers. Its also my first Drupal website so its been a massive learning curve.

I don't have a car here either, but back home I drive a Datsun 240z. I miss driving it and building this site at least keeps me in touch with what's going on in the community.

 

[Geoff]

Yeah I grew up with a Father who absolutely loved Volvo's and anything European built, but my mum drove an old Toyota Corona. A couple of friends were buying old Japanese Coupe's as first cars and I've just always loved the old Japanese cars myself.

About 4 years ago I built a website for the Datsun Zcar series and it took off really well, so I decided I would build a website for people who owned / own or want to acquire some old Japanese cars. In Australia and America they are gaining in popularity and I've even noticed here in Ireland and in the UK there seems to be quite a bit of interest in them too.

I had a friend who owned a TA22 Celica, he turbo charged it with a later motor, always loved that car, but I ended up getting a Datsun 240z myself.

There certainly arn't that many websites like the one I've built so I'm hoping it will cover a niche .

I lived in Brisbane when I had my '22. God I loved that car. In the 7 years I owned my '22 it had 4 different engines. I was in the process of trying to fit a fifth (1G twin turbo) when a Subaru WRX caught my eye and it was the end of my Celica days. The best engine I had in my '22 by far was the 4age from a JDM Levin, at the time I could only get the normal EFI model but the supercharged one with a turbo conversion would have been the optimum. ahhh the good old days....

 

[gav240z]

I lived in Brisbane when I had my '22. God I loved that car. In the 7 years I owned my '22 it had 4 different engines. I was in the process of trying to fit a fifth (1G twin turbo) when a Subaru WRX caught my eye and it was the end of my Celica days. The best engine I had in my '22 by far was the 4age from a JDM Levin, at the time I could only get the normal EFI model but the supercharged one with a turbo conversion would have been the optimum. ahhh the good old days....

I can't recall what motor my mate put in his TA22 but it was definately another Toyota engine. I'm not that great with the engine codes on the Toyota's but I did own an AE92 Corolla with the 4AGE and damn that was a fun motor.

I remember my mate being really upset cause my 4AGE Rolla spanked his Celica with a 3SGE in it.

Unfortunately some low-lives at a car park smashed up my Corolla, bend the doors backward and stole the stereo in it. I ended up selling it and not fixing it up.

Brisbane is a great city, I could definitely live there. I just love Melbourne more .