hey i fixed  the corners so they are smoother, ill upload in a few hours! i am still hoping for a list of request from you vesp, where are you bud?

heres the updated version guys:
http://127.0.0.1/djtrickdog01/Sleek/

Vesp says he likes his site how it is though so this is...done i guess haha.

That does look really good, but I like the simplicity of the homepage.
Also when the idea of these designs were made, it was an open forum and was going to have an archive, library, etc.

Now I'd rather have the "archive" - That is synthesis, extractions, how to grow certain things, etc be in the publications section of the forum.

I now think keeping this site small with only the front page and FTP accounts visible to the public/google spiders is a good thing. Allowing only members to be able to view the forums contents is probably a good thing. Similar to how WD and other such forums have done.

However, if other people want the forum changed into something different, please post or PM me about it. I'd like to do what is best for the forum/members.

personaly I think the owner of the site should do all the code unless you have known the person for a long time or
you have checkers of the server side code.

with php perl java and jscript its real easy to do some realy naughty things and the nature of the site just screams
for some one to get there claws in it for reasons other than advancing chemistry.

I can code very well but I dont think I would code anothers site to be honest.

maby if you find a coder it would be best to have three checkers to make sure its all the way it
should be.

then again having to many people know the insides of the server side code is also very dangerous.

php is not very hard to learn and sql insert selects and unions are not hard either.

there is an old saying if its not broke dont fix it.

Anyone who can code "very well" is invited to help with a library 

PHP? Cool, I'm happy enough with the XHTML/CSS/Jscript - you get the PHP working with the backend (ie. MySQL) and that will take some serious time off my hands

We need (IMHO) a decent AJAX type application, so the innerHTML responses to fill the <div id=content> is going to be replaced on a regular basis, in fact everytime the response comes in

Have a look at XAJAX... Seems perfect for this aplication

In terms of the aesthetics of it, a single picture (logo), the rest is just a completely .css/XHTML top/bottom bar, side bar and search... Light as fuck and loads like a dream. Match that with AJAX and there is no need for a reload, just narrow down the searches by (1) using suggest by making an array of ALL authors; and/or using multiple dropdown menus to restrict searches into the predefined format, Subject, Topic & Sub-topic, to give a reasonable amount of responses (all visible with fuck all scrolling) on that same page with no reload.

So, let me get this straight... All you want from me is a basic XHTML page, with the relevant CSS and you are willing to help with the design of the DB/PHP?

Cool

I don't see why we need to bother with drupal, etc.

I have just modified a basic, generic 3 column layout, the html and css files are attached.

With some simple jscript it would be possible to use onclick with the top links and slightly modify the .css file to have 5 tabs - Home, Subject, Author, etc. with the relevant XHTML built into the existing code (to handle the onclick). If the user is an admin/mod, then they would have access to a couple of locked tabs, namely upload and modify...

The bottom links can be either disabled where needed (and just use one for copyright/legal and another for contact)...

If we did that, I'd suggest just putting a series of dropdown menus on each tab (left column) and instructions (right column) and the results being all in one div in the center column

Of course, the Home tab, would have some basic settings in the dropdowns (left column, the amount dependant upon access/privileges) and a login box in the top of the right column.

That minimizes the page load dramatically and will cut down on the php/mysql/ajax significantly.

As to using DOM modification, it hardly seems worthwhile when there is only one div that needs modifying once the dropdown menus are utilized.

I can't see why we need to use heavy-duty search engines to go through files, the files won't even be in the DB, only the url/uri to them and their abstract need be in the db.

The database upload form would be in a tab, accessible only if a person has the requisite privileges, and the modify entry/etc. tab would be the same.

We'd simply modify the response(s) based on user privileges, anyone who isn't registered, plus anyone who isn't authorised, wouldn't get to see anything but the first three tabs, and the responses would only have links to full text versions of papers if they are hosted/already in the public domain. Basically, this would be the science search site to rule them all, we just lift the abstracts from JACS/Wileys/Elsevier/etc. and then link to them. No copyright issues whatsoever, they have that stuff on display already, we'd actually be helping them.

If people are authorised, then if the fulltext is available, their response(s) will have the link thereto as well as the link to the abstract and the abstract...

It would be something that is very useful for people studying and the potential earnings from google admiles is phenomenal.

The filesharing behind the scenes would be off-limits to all but the chosen few and could be arguably classed as 'fair use', given the restricted access thereto, within a known group of people, with common interests and goals, not distributed for commercial gain.

PS It is also possible to solve the entire tabs thing in pure .css/xhtml, which would simplify shit even further and allow people to use the site to the fullest with jscript off.

I see what you are saying, but I prefer simple, light, and fast...

There is no beating it - the amount of time and the sheer number of people who would be directed to this site (and I argue that it needs its own url) would be hell on server load

Plus, if we are only using abstracts that beats the hell out of searching the various publishers sites, we have everything people want, organised and with links to where to get it...

On the backend, the php for the various privileges would quite possibly require some serious thought

As to using .css to style the responses, this is a site I built a while ago, just playing around with using .css/xhtml (see frames are back in xhtml2.0 btw?)...

That would minimise the page space if users are restricted to searching by subject, topic, subtopic (in dropdowns), thereby avoiding the annoying as piss problems that come from having to scroll down huge pages to find shit. Simple .css onclick and the abstract etc. are displayed.

That (the use of dropdown menu's) is what I was talking about for the left-column of the new layout that I uploaded yesterday, I could, with a little fucking around, just put a couple of onclick events on the "tabs" (ie. change the links to tabs - link to the jscript file) and have all the code for all 5 "pages" in that one page...

It will be a little bulkier (maybe 2-3kb), but way lighter than most pages to load. Plus, everything on the userside is legit and above-board, anything we want to "hide" is on the server php (and obfuscated php ain't readable without a major fucking effort, the same can't be said of xhtml, css and jscript).

The articles we have may well approach 3K at the moment, but we could even hard code the dropdown menus, the Subject, Topic & Sub-topics that we are going to be interested in aren't that diverse. That saves a shitload of backend code and if you look around, the major issue remaining, the multi-level permissions, there are several articles on it at dreamincode, codeproject, etc.

That, plus the fact that a LOT of what we'd be linking to is already "public domain" and hosted on other sites (full-text), plus the fact that any djvu/pdf files that are uploaded are uploaded to ftp accts, not the db, will allow this to be clean and tidy and super-sleek.

Put the drop-downs in the left column of the various pages, a single DOM level object in the main column (which can then be rather easily modified, only one ID) and hardcode for the various "pages", that will make the backend a whole lot easier to design.

PS I was just thinking about it, save a lot of fucking around if I just made the 5 separate pages (Home, Subject Search, Author Search, Upload Content & Modify Content, I'll also make pages for Legal/Copyright and Contact for the bottom links) - keeping them clean-code (ie. no alternate), without major load-overhead (ie. they are tiny download and quick). I'll throw up a basic set of pages so you can see what I mean. They'll all utilise the same screen.css, so that will be easy enough.