Grid #1 - Rules

[TStar]

Did you try zooming out some on firefox?

I have, and while that fixes one problem it creates an even worse one - namely all text is 8pt or smaller with most of it too small to be legible.  I'm going to play around a bit with the sizing to see if I can create a model that works for me (smaller laptop monitor) but still looks good for people with larger monitors.

[Pineapple]

OR, you can put everything in a table.

It's a different grid (top-down, then left to right as opposed to left-right, then top down) but it works.
OR, you can just read the stuff and look at a beautiful zoomed-out grid because you rarely need to read AND look at the grid simultaneously..

[TStar]

How does this look?  I can modify the scaling down a little more too if necessary.  You can also click on the image to see an enlargement of it.

[Gyrodiot]

Let's try with a table :

*table removed, because it was huge and is now useless*

[Scaredgirl]

Couple of things.

1. You have almost 144 full-size card images made smaller using BBcode. This is bad because users have to download for over a minute to see the whole thing. You should resize the images to the exact size they will be shown, because currently you are basically downloading large images, but showing small ones.

2. I think that full card images suck because they don't have the 1:1 aspect ratio that would generates the cool "chessboard" look. Using only the card art (not the card backs with icons and text), the grid would look 10 times cooler. But that's only my opinion.

[TStar]

There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it either way.  The advantage to the resized full image is that if someone isn't 100% familiar with all the art they can simply click on the image to get the full-sized card name.  The disadvantage obviously is that it makes the table less pretty.

The bigger concern however is how to make cards easier for identification for the event.  The chessboard look makes it harder to assign column and row designations so that players can simply say they are selecting A1 instead of Abomination.  In the first round where everything is a playable card square using names is easy.  The catch comes in round 2 and later when you will have multiple "Relic" squares.  The chessboard format makes it much harder to simply identify which specific Relic square you are picking since you can just PM something like "the fourth row over and 3rd one down Relic plus the tenth row over and third row down one too".  That works but it's less user-friendly to the organizer than a simple D4 and C10.  You also have to consider that each Relic square has the potential to anywhere from 1 to 16 Relics in size, so the coordinate system makes it simpler to identify Relic squares larger than one.  Ideally there would be a simple way to stamp a number on each image so players can just pick the square number itself and we can imprint something like x3 on Relics to show their size as well.  I'm not sure how feasible that would be in reality however.

I'll try to play around some with the just the card art to see if I can build something that will work.  I have links to the full card images already, but is there somewhere I can go to find an easy reference list of link to just the art itself?

[Gyrodiot]

For the full-size card names, we can have two versions of the Grid, graphical and text (the second one being here only to check names, it doesn't has to be pretty).

If we got a clear "chessboard" Grid, we can do little coordinates images (like, gray squares with letters and numbers). Pretty straightforward, but there would be no problem integrating them to the final picture if they have the good size. It wouldn't be very long to create, too.

Finally, we can also create our own custom Relic pictures with "1x", "2x", etc. on them.

The only concern is about finding the art. I know they have an adress like :
http://cdn.elementscommunity.com/forum/avatars/Elements/Image%20868.jpg
868 is the code of Firefly, 336 for Short Sword, 378 for Purple Dragon, etc. I found these codes through the Profile Avatar tool, but I don't know if there's a full list of them.

[Scaredgirl]

There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it either way.  The advantage to the resized full image is that if someone isn't 100% familiar with all the art they can simply click on the image to get the full-sized card name.  The disadvantage obviously is that it makes the table less pretty.

The bigger concern however is how to make cards easier for identification for the event.  The chessboard look makes it harder to assign column and row designations so that players can simply say they are selecting A1 instead of Abomination.  In the first round where everything is a playable card square using names is easy.  The catch comes in round 2 and later when you will have multiple "Relic" squares.  The chessboard format makes it much harder to simply identify which specific Relic square you are picking since you can just PM something like "the fourth row over and 3rd one down Relic plus the tenth row over and third row down one too".  That works but it's less user-friendly to the organizer than a simple D4 and C10.  You also have to consider that each Relic square has the potential to anywhere from 1 to 16 Relics in size, so the coordinate system makes it simpler to identify Relic squares larger than one.  Ideally there would be a simple way to stamp a number on each image so players can just pick the square number itself and we can imprint something like x3 on Relics to show their size as well.  I'm not sure how feasible that would be in reality however.

I'll try to play around some with the just the card art to see if I can build something that will work.  I have links to the full card images already, but is there somewhere I can go to find an easy reference list of link to just the art itself?

Using bigger images resized to smaller size, is one of the biggest no-noes in web design. It's not a big deal when you have 1-2 images, but when you have a grid with 144 images, the page will load many times slower, which is both heavy on the server, and annoying to the user.

There are tricks that can be used to enable players get more info about the card. We could use Alt text, where the card name pop-up when you hover the image. Or we could link the image to the wiki page of that card. Or we can do like I did there in below, and use the Word Description feature. It takes a bit of work to set it up, but once it's done, you don't have to do it again.

As for card selection, here's a simple way to do it. Hover images to see the name. Click images to go to the page of that card.

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A

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

B

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1)

(http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/cards-air/firefly-elite-firefly/)

Etc.

Table padding inserts those gaps that are not needed, but I can fix that.

The only concern is about finding the art. I know they have an adress like :
http://cdn.elementscommunity.com/forum/avatars/Elements/Image%20868.jpg
868 is the code of Firefly, 336 for Short Sword, 378 for Purple Dragon, etc. I found these codes through the Profile Avatar tool, but I don't know if there's a full list of them.

The art thing is easy. I can get the images, but someone else has to rename them all. After they have been renamed, I can upload them somewhere. It's better to do it like that then to use the avatar link you have there.

[TStar]

I'll take care of the renaming.  Just let me know where to go to do it.

[Scaredgirl]

I'll take care of the renaming.  Just let me know where to go to do it.

Ok, thanks.

I'll pack all the images in a file and PM the link to you.

But I must warn you.. the renaming will be really boring.

[TStar]

I'll take care of the renaming.  Just let me know where to go to do it.

Ok, thanks.

I'll pack all the images in a file and PM the link to you.

But I must warn you.. the renaming will be really boring.

Maybe so, but it's part of the job.  Nobody said every task would be an exciting adventure lol

[Gyrodiot]

You may send me half of them, it will be faster

On the Wiki, repetitive tasks are routine :p