Requesting Feedback

Thanks to everyone for patiently waiting for us to open. I know, things have been slow, I even expected to be back by now. Good news, I begin working on house tomorrow and should be able to pass in no time ( got my dad down here to help out ). The bad news; still got a little development to do to the site, but ITS THERE.

I am gonna give sneak peaks to those that can provide me with some useful feedback. Tomorrow I will upload a version of the site to the web and want feedback on just about everything, from layout to functionality. Read full story...

Happy Birthday to Me

Yes, I am telling myself happy birthday. I am now officially older than 99% of everyone else in the Zelda Community ( damn kids ). Man, I really feel old now... ( just look at that last remark )...

Progress Update

Well guys, I began working on a few things that had me absolutely stumped on our custom CMS that prevented us from using it, and I have finally solve the issues. We will not be opening our doors running Joomla. Instead, we will be running the CMS I've been talking about forever!

I will have to do a few alterations to the forums in order to make them work outside of Joomla, but that shouldn't take much. I may decide to go with something else if it will cause us to delay ZL's opening too much longer.

Help Wanted

Pay starts at $10.00 an hour, with bonuses per contribution. Health insurance, dental, vision also comes with the job. I'm joking, but wouldn't that be cool? We are looking for good help though, and anyone is welcome to apply, even if for a temporary or as-it-comes basis. Read the full story.

Generic Update Title

Well, had to disappear for two weeks. My dad needed help moving and it took way longer than I expected ( his garage was a big clutteed sh*t hole ). Anyways, I have returned to finishing up things on the site.

The forums are done, with a few minor touch ups left to work on and some serious bug checking to do. I will try and get around to uploading a fresh Joomla install somewhere and get the forums uploaded for anyone who wishes to bug test.

I also started to touch up the layout we were going to use and ended up making something completely different, but way cooler. I will not give a preview of this one, but if you managed to appreciate the last few we've had, you should like this one ( color, yay ).

I am still working on checking all our original content, doing some rewrites, working on new images, etc. I have cleaned up the few walkthroughs we have ( added by Dabombster ) to work better with the pagination mambot with Joomla ( that and some CSS code ).

I will go ahead and say that the site looks completely awesome so far, forums and all. I haven't been able to rebuild the gallery yet due to some stupid issues with XAMP ( windows hosting ) and Coppermine. I might actually check out a different gallery so that I can have that up and running once we open our doors ( once again ).

If there is anytime ( and if I think it will go fast ), I have a super modified version of Joomla I have been recoding for some time now that we might switch to before we open. Since the database tables have had extreme changes, it probably wouldn't be as fast as converting and would probably be extremely hard to write a convertor for, so it would be done manually.

One last thing, I plan to make a few changes to the Publisher's Center before we open, which I don't think will cause anymore of a delay. As it stands now, we have the same features as our original version but I want to be able to have more advanced editing features and sharing options ( exporting to certain formats, submitting to social media and author related sites, etc). I also want to get around to integrating OpenID throughout the site completely, Publisher's Center included.

So, suggestions, questions, whatevers, send em to ZLegacy (at@) gmail (dot) com.

Forums Almost Complete

A few updates guys. First, forums are almost complete. There are some things I wanna add in that I still haven't gotten around to, but I've spent most of my time working out small issues with the forums (such as updating views, last post info, etc). I'v also worked in a much nicer BBCode editor and parser. Here are three news screens :

http://www.zeldalegacy.net/images/previews-oct/code.jpg
Screenshot of the awesome bbcode display

http://www.zeldalegacy.net/images/previews-oct/forum_view_w_subforums.jpg
I also managed to build in sub forum support, something up until now I forgot about

http://www.zeldalegacy.net/images/previews-oct/index.jpg
Nothing special, just the main index view. I've added in special announcements and there is alot more you cant see in the screen. Shoutboxes and other special addons can be assigned by calling modules in Joomla.

http://www.zeldalegacy.net/images/previews-oct/profile.jpg
Shows the profile commenting system, which by the runs off Ajax as well.

http://www.zeldalegacy.net/images/previews-oct/profile2.jpg
Just showing off one of the other tabbed profile boxes. Still gonna add more to the profile, but this is as much that is integrated at the moment. Still gonna try and get custom profile fields worked in.

Also, house failed inspection. Not much to do to get it to pass, but still workin on getting in new house. I hate inspectors...

Forum Progress Again

Some good news folks. The forums are 90 something % complete, which means it is about to beta testing time. Within the week I will be uploading a fresh Joomla install and the custom forums so that those interested can test things out and see what's been going on.

Progress Update 3

Ok, got a few new progress updates for you guys. I have finished most things up in the new house (minus busted water pipers, seem to find new ones after I fix a few). Inspector should be out this week sometime and from there we can move in. That's good news.

Second, the custom forums are fricken sweet so far, in my opinion we are better off now NOT using Vbulletin I have been able to get some really cool Ajax built into the forums and it works really good and it's pretty damn fast.

Another cool feature. Jason from ZU suggested trying to integrate open id access to the site, so now not only can you log in using your open id account but you can create and have your open id account hosted here (zeldalegacy.net/youropenidaccount). Pretty cool, no? Shut up, it is.

Most of the forums are actually done and working. So far, you view posts, topics, post new topics, view the members list (everything has pagination too) , view profiles, etc.

I am working on the edit your profile feature which will have tabbed panels like IPB/current Vbulletin as well as comments that other users can leave on your profile page (upon your approval).

I still have to integrate some sort of PM system, dont know if I will use a PM system already built for Joomla or code my own, but I will probably code our own. Also have minor things to add in (such as updating Last post by bit when viewing the topic list). Also have to finish up the quick reply and moderation options.

If I can, I will try to upload a demo once I get things to an error-less point so you can test it all out.

One last thing, does anyone think we need custom user groups? We really didn't use them much before, so should I work on adding that now? I only ask because it might be a real pain in the ass time consumer (gotta learn GACL API class). Already, there are th default Joomla user groups (Super Admin, Editors, Registered, Special, etc).

ZL Custom Forum Update

Good start on our new forums so far, so I think I will give you a very quick sneak peak...

Updated - Progress Update 2

Update - Quick checklist of things left to finish up.

• Finish forum skin, features intergrated into user menu already


• Adjust some content for new layout


• Code buddy list into new forum


• Polish the Publisher's Center


• Get missing media back up


• Check all site links

Pretty short list, thought I would update you on what I have left to do.

Zelda Legacy Status Update 1

First update, the Publisher's Center. The component is 100% complete. There are still alot of features I want to add, but at the moment it works perfectly, allowing the author to choose a section to publisher their writing into, a WYWIWYG editor for easy editing, the option to enable or disable commenting on their articles, and the ability to publish/unpublish/edit/delete their own writings. I want to eventually add a rating system to the Publisher's Center material, but there is probably a component already written that will accomplish that.



I have the site completely integrated with a new forum. I decided to drop Vbulletin mainly due to the price issue... don't want to and at the moment can't pay $100 for a leased liscense. Thanks for selling yourself out VB, now we have price hikes

Oh well, there is a nice forum component for Joomla already out there that I might rip apart and make personal. Anyways, the site is completely integrated with the gallery and forums. I have built a nice user module that pulls your profile avatar, forum posts, private messages, article total, and some other things. There is alot more I am going to add to it but I am still working on it.



I am also beginning and working on finishing several site related projects, the CMS being one of them (but that's 99% done). The CMS only needs the main frontpage finished and it's done. I will be bug testing it and releasing it to whomever wants it.

I am also working on a standalone version of the Publisher's Center for those who don't use a CMS or Joomla. It will act much like our old one, where users can comment, manage their writings, and so on. I have began rewriting it to remove alot of the bridged code it used from VB, but it won't take but another day or so to finish. Once done, I will upload it and link it from our Splash page. Anyone will be free to use it, but I especially wrote it for other sites in the Zelda community. I noticed a few other sites were wanting something and even trying something similar, so I figured I would release my code. I will have a standalone, no bridged Publisher Center version, a VB bridged version, and will try to get around to making an SMF and phpBB bridged version.

In addition to the Publisher's Center, I am going to release my old news script I wrote and don't use anymore. I am rewriting a bit of it too to give people more freedom away from specific code we used on ZL, and to make it a bit more dynamic than it was before. That as well shouldnt take long to finish since I already have all the source code on my computer from our old version.

I am also going to work on a seperate webmasters area of the site to contain bug tracking for each script, as well as feature requests and a general help desk. I figured it might be a good way to get back in touch with several other webbies and just to lend a hand in general.

Anyways, we might be back up a little sooner than I thought. Won't go much into details, but keep checking back with us. Again, if you need to contact me, new email is ZLegacy (@)(at) gmail d0t c0m.

Zelda Legacy Will Return !

Zelda Legacy will return shortly. We are sorry about the downtime, it's a long story. I am working on restoring Zelda Legacy on my PC at home and using this time to change a lot of our content, organize server files better, and continue where I left off a couple months back.

Long story short, I moved to North Carolina and am soon to move into my new house here. Once I do, I will get real hosting once again (and this time make sure it's setup to pay automatically off of Paypal monthly) and get Zelda Legacy back online.

I will post up a few screenshots shortly once I get things finished up. A bit of info...

We are still using Joomla CMS (our custom CMS is not gone, more info on that later). I wrote our own custom component for the Publisher's Center which is 98% complete. It's working really well so far and will definetly get some screens of it up within the next couple days.

Expect to see us back in the next few weeks or so. I get net access now through my cell phone - USB link, which is dirt slow, so uploading site files through that is out of the question. I may head out to the library since they have high speed to do some updating from now on. Anyways, if you have sent email out to me at webmaster@zeldalegacy.net, I haven't gotten it for quite some time.

You can reach me at ZLegacyATgm@ail.com.