This is topic New design for Startrek.com in forum General Trek at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.


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Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
 
Looks like Paramount refurbished the Startrek.com web site with a face lift. It was unveiled July 31, but only saw it for the first time today. Looks like dark grey has replaced the black and its certainly flashier.

I don't know if I like new slider bar navigation on some pages though, I would have preferred to click on the section I want directly, however unelegant it was. The ews and ahs lasted a whole two seconds.

I cannot tell yet if they actually spent some time correcting some of the inaccuracies in the previous version of the web site.

If would have also been nice to have portraits of the characters, aliens, and starships they discuss in the library section. But then why would we shell out the big bucks when the Okudas come out with the fourth edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia?

What do others think of the updated site? Do you think its an improvement or should they have left it alone and spent the time producing updated content?
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
What fourth edition of the Encyclopedia? That line has been abandoned by Pocket Books...
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
Star Trek meets UGO?

What is it with commercial site and their obsessive use of Flash and Java(script)? Text links load faster, are a million times more useful and can be almost as 'good looking'.

Overall impression: Boring clich� commercial design and a bit overloaded with pointless graphics and Flash. But, unlike most commercial sites, with a lot of decent to good content. A 7 out of 10.
 

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Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
 
MinutiaeMan I was under the impression that Pocket Books wasn't interested in publishing straight technical manuals for a while like the one for TNG and DS9.

If Enterprise turns around and becomes popular, I imagine that Pocket will change its tune. Although if they are going to continue to produce wretched books like the Star Trek Voyager Companion and the disappointing and incomplete Star Trek: Starship Spotter, they should just leave it alone and not bother. I don't understand why Pocket Books found it necessary to ruin all of the rendered ship portraits by printing them on two pages. Unless they were motivated to defeat most of the scanners out there. Also the editor of that book should be shot, too many spelling errors in that book and incorrect term usage. Starfleet Corp of Engineers? Corps is spelled with an s. Next time Pocket should hire someone with a little knowledge of Trek to edit the book.

Harry: The web developers at Paramount probably needed to add Flash and Java script experience to their resumes and needed new portfolio pieces. I guess simplicity isn't good enough anymore. Everything now has to have distracting Flash animations everywhere. Blecch.
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
And another thing about the Spotter: wireframes!? What's the point of showing us wireframes!?
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
Triton, it's not just the technical manuals -- it's ANY Trek-related reference books. Stuff like "Starship Spotter" and "Star Charts" included. Pocket Books did such a bad job of it that no one bought them, so they're not selling them any more.

I'm ashamed to say that I did buy the 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia, but that was only because I didn't realize that they'd just put the new material in a lazy-ass addendum in the back. Boy, was I pissed about THAT!

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I guess simplicity isn't good enough anymore. Everything now has to have distracting Flash animations everywhere. Blecch.

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Not always. Just scroll down a bit and check out Star Trek Minutiae's brand-new website design. I actually took OUT my JavaScript!
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
Dan, that's how I like it! More proof that standards compliant != ugly.
 

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Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
 
I agree, the "Supplement" section in the third edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia was pretty lazy. They did not want to give too many hours to the contractor who did the desktop publishing for the book. I doubt the Okudas did the desktop publishing and the blue line galley checks for the third edition.

To some extent Pocket Books have only themselves to blame. They super-saturated the market with mediocre and plain poor content.

Its inexcusable the number of spelling errors there are in Starship Spotter. Don't they spell check after doing the desktop publishing or do blue line galley proofs? Do they think that we are bunch of young fan boys who won't know the difference and buy everything with the Star Trek logo?


I was really looking forward to Starship Spotter, and it was such a disappointment. Why do we get only one render per ship and one wire frame mesh? Why didn't we get a book with the same dimensions as the rest of the "technical" Trek books and more renders? Or how about some behind the scenes information about the design of the ship or how Foundation Imaging created the computer models?

I really hope that the tide will turn with season 3 of Enterprise and Trek can go back on track and be successful again.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Starship Spotter was a stopgap project for Mojo as he was working on Unseen Frontier (this was before I came to the project). It was quite hastily assembled, and it obviously does show. Also, they used a guy for the tech writeups (Alex R.) whose bias towards TOS-era tech wasn't the best mesh for the mostly TNG book, IMO.

Mark
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 

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Originally posted by Mark Nguyen:
Starship Spotter was a stopgap project for Mojo as he was working on Unseen Frontier (this was before I came to the project).
Mark

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...and yet, The Unseen Frontier was scrapped too was'nt it?
I sure as hell waited long enough in anticipation of that book....(sigh!)
 

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Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
 
Can you please explain what your role was on the project? My apologies if you have already discussed this, but I am interested in how these projects come about and then make it to press. Is The Unseen Frontier dead or on hiatus, or can you not comment because you are under contract or under terms of a non-disclosure agreement?

I guess I shouldn't be so critical of the people writing the books, they are only human. Printing errors and spelling mistakes can and do occur. And its really annoying to find them after reviewing the material several times and only seeing it when it comes back from the printer and 500 copies have been printed on a 1200 dot linotronic printer and the book has been perfect bond with a unit cost of $20.00 a piece. The horror!

Sorry, I am a perfectionist and I'm a tough audience. I imagine that most of the printing, book dimensions, and page count decisions were out of the hands of "Mojo", Alex, and the other contributors and rested exclusively with Pocket Books. Pocket was also probably responsible for the final desktop publishing and galley proof editing and perhaps the authors never got a chance to see it for a final check before it went to the printers. Its too late to worry about it after you've printed several thousand copies. They certainly wouldn't want to shred them, fix the error, and reprint them all. Sometimes you just have to live with good enough when large sums are involved. Just hope that there is a second printing to fix the mistakes.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 

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To some extent Pocket Books have only themselves to blame. They super-saturated the market with mediocre and plain poor content.

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Its inexcusable the number of spelling errors there are in Starship Spotter.

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Originally posted by MinutiaeMan:

After all, if there are such excellent sources out there as Ex Astris Scientia, Federation Starship Datalink, TrekMania, and others... then why shell out $50 for the Encyclopedia when you can find any of the info you need on the Internet for free?

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Originally posted by Triton:
Can you please explain what your role was on the project? My apologies if you have already discussed this, but I am interested in how these projects come about and then make it to press. Is The Unseen Frontier dead or on hiatus, or can you not comment because you are under contract or under terms of a non-disclosure agreement?

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UF is pretty much dead. We've still got the material and outlines, and I think Mojo is holding it against the day where some of it might be useful in another project, which is why I generally don't talk about it. Don't bother asking me for any material; I ain't sayin' nothing, except that what we *did* do looked reaaaaaaaaally nice. If you're gonna see anything, it'll be via Mojo; he likes to show it around when he's guesting at sci-fi cons.

My job on UF would have been as a writer and tech consultant, plus doing the background and continuity checks. Remember the USS Centaur in the ST Mag a while back? I helped a bit with the research and compromises in the design (that made it look nicer), and which would have ultimately seen the model in the Dominion War section of UF. There would have been corrected models of ships that Foundation had been using, plus other new CG models for the book, including the New Orleans and Ambassador, which I was really pushing for... I also did some technical and historical writeups and captions describing some of the artwork. I had no contact with Pocket - Mojo did the coordination between guys like me, the CG artists that were being contracted, and the publishers.

Ahh, CPO Jamie Francis-Meyer, how I'll miss him...

Mark
 

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Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
 
Mark thank you for commenting as much as you could about the project and your experience with "Star Trek: The Magazine". I wouldn't dare ask you to post any of the content.

Alas for "Unseen Frontier." It sounds like it would have been a great book if it had gone into print.
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 

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Originally posted by Mark Nguyen:
I also did some technical and historical writeups and captions describing some of the artwork. Mark

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I hope you aren't in-charge of labelling the pictures for the Fact Files!
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
HELL no.

Mark
 

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Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
There must be something wrong with my browser, I can't get the site to really work worth shit. If I go into the 'library' and say look at 'ships', I can only see the first 20 and no link or forward button on the site to see the next 20...

I would assume the page isn't completely loaded, but I allowed it plenty of time to load but still can only get the first page of every library list.
 

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Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
 
Futurama Guy do you see the slider bar at the bottom of the page? It looks like it was created using Macromedia Flash 6. I would try upgrading to Macromedia Flash Player 6 or reinstalling the Flash Player on your computer.
 

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Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
 

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Originally posted by Sol System:

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To some extent Pocket Books have only themselves to blame. They super-saturated the market with mediocre and plain poor content.

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Examples? The "nonfiction" Star Trek book market took a nosedive beginning with the spectacular failure of the Enterprise D blueprints, which, while not perfect, I would hardly describe as "plain poor."

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