Formatting your Storefront [Guide]

[ViZion]

This is something I worked out best part of two years ago on my old-ass storefront, and try to tell new people when I see them.

You ensure that you have the final post in the thread. You want to bump the thread - but you'd be double posting.
Well...

Hit edit post.
Copy all of the text from the editing window and any formatting to the clipboard.
Delete the post. This will move your thread back to the date of the previous last post in the forum.
Go to post a new post. Paste the contents of the clipboard. Post.

You have now bumped your thread, stealthily.
It looks so much more professional than just;
bump
bump
bump
*order*
bump

haha I'm guilty as charged for doing that at times when I don't have a good "bump" post (new product, special promo, etc)

[Maltropia]

Thanks for saying that Para; I know a few people do that trick, including myself, but it's always good to help people keep their threads tidy.



I personally have made great use of the float tags in most of my storefronts, especially at the start where I like to stick a kind of "quick facts" box. Just for example, here's the one from my shipwrights' storefront -

---

MARITIME IMPERIAL

---

---

Corporate Information

---

CEO: Keith Mulcahy
Headquarters: 24, Bóthar na Long,
Esrium, Maltropia
Revenue: ▲ MD€ 488,145,543,742

---

For which the coding is

Code: Select all

[floatright][box][align=center][hr][/hr][color=#00137F][b][size=140]M[/size][size=115]ARITIME[/size] [size=140]I[/size][size=115]MPERIAL[/size][/b][/color][hr][/hr][hr][/hr][size=110]Corporate Information[/size][hr][/hr][size=90][b]CEO:[/b] Keith Mulcahy
[b]Headquarters:[/b] 24, Bóthar na Long,
Esrium, Maltropia
[b]Revenue:[/b] [color=#00BF00]▲ MD€ 488,145,543,742[/color][/size][hr][/hr][/align][/box][/floatright]

And that looks insane.

[ViZion]

haha insane? Maybe. Cool? Absolutely.

[Coulter Bay]

Malt... I'd like to "hire" you to help me do some fancy shmancy dazzle stuff to this storefront: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=227238&p=13143139 *nods* And no tables allowed. To make change it up on you. I'm out of ideas... but something clean, contemporary. Thoughts?

Thank you

(And, yes, this is ViZion. I "bought" this nation from New Azura a couple years ago, so this is actually part of ViZion)

[Maltropia]

Malt... I'd like to "hire" you to help me do some fancy shmancy dazzle stuff to this storefront: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=227238&p=13143139 *nods* And no tables allowed. To make change it up on you. I'm out of ideas... but something clean, contemporary. Thoughts?

Thank you

(And, yes, this is ViZion. I "bought" this nation from New Azura a couple years ago, so this is actually part of ViZion)

I can't actually think of anything it needs. I'm slightly busy with my own stuff at the moment (map-making; Lamoni's asked me to help with his storefront's design; working on Maltropia's current policies), but I can take a look at it. You're as much an expert on this as I am, if not more, so I don't really know what advice I can give. The only complaint I'd have is the use of spoilers, which I never like being used to hide all the information on the cars, but I know that to be a matter of preference more than anything else.

[ViZion]

Malt... I'd like to "hire" you to help me do some fancy shmancy dazzle stuff to this storefront: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=227238&p=13143139 *nods* And no tables allowed. To make change it up on you. I'm out of ideas... but something clean, contemporary. Thoughts?

Thank you

(And, yes, this is ViZion. I "bought" this nation from New Azura a couple years ago, so this is actually part of ViZion)

I can't actually think of anything it needs. I'm slightly busy with my own stuff at the moment (map-making; Lamoni's asked me to help with his storefront's design; working on Maltropia's current policies), but I can take a look at it. You're as much an expert on this as I am, if not more, so I don't really know what advice I can give. The only complaint I'd have is the use of spoilers, which I never like being used to hide all the information on the cars, but I know that to be a matter of preference more than anything else.

haha I reworked my product section, still used spoilers, but gave a bit more info + pic outside the spoiler.

[Aurora Confederacy]

[Port Charlotte]

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=228122
this is my store front
Its not full ly complete as you may see
But can I get some pointers? On how to increase productive

[Aurora Confederacy]

Sorry only weapons open for now! And down to APC-69 Now open Space!

Who are we?..
A section here about your company, one to 3 paragraphs

Where are we based
A section here about your production outlets

Why choose your company
what makes this storefront stand out above all others

Terms and Conditions
-We can deny a purchase for whatever reason at any time.
-Please be respectful.
-All Prices are in NSD.

- Nations are not allowed to resell the purchased equipment to a third party without authorization from The Empire of Port Charlotte

[b]

Code: Select all

The equipment you would like to purchase:[/b]
[b]The Number of quantity you would like:[/b]
[b]Total cost of the purchase:[/b]


Multiple Products Order Form

Code: Select all

[b]The equipment and quantity you would like to purchase:[/b]
[list]
[u]Name - Quantity[/u] 
 -
 -
 -
[/list]
[b]Total cost of the purchase:[/b]
[/b]

---

heres what i would do

[Maltropia]

Could I ask you to spoiler that, Aurora? Thanks.

[Aurora Confederacy]

done

[Port Charlotte]

hey how do you make like an excel box type of deal?

[Maltropia]

hey how do you make like an excel box type of deal?

What do you mean, exactly? If you mean something like this

Length Overall	290 metres
Length (waterline)	268 metres
Beam	38 metres
Draught	16 metres
Displacement (full)	67,000 tonnes
Propulsion	3 x Enmar Industries DT-13 diesel engine = 135,000 shp / 100 MW
Speed	20.2 knots
Capacity	5,300 TEU
Crew	14
Price (excl. extras)	85,000,000 NSD

which is from my shipbuilding storefront, what you're looking at is the [ table ] coding. You put everything you want inside that table tag, and inside that you have [ tr ] tags which put in horizontal rows. Inside each of these, then, you have [ td ] tags which put cells into those rows. When you're putting in multiple rows, you make sure you have the same number of cells in each row to avoid it looking weird.

A note on this - when you make your table, it helps to leave lots of spacing when you write it up so you can see everything. However, before you press submit, make sure to get rid of all extra spaces or lines between each tag, as those will make it move down the page and leave a big empty space.

This is a table	I'm putting in spaces between every tag.
This pushes it down the page	Because it counts each line
As if it were outside the box,	Like the space above.
I didn't put it there.	On the next line I will leave a cell out
To demonstrate how it doesn't work.
So now that his demo is over	Good luck on your own table!

The code for that table looks like this:

Code: Select all

[table][tr][td]This is a table[/td]
[td]I'm putting in spaces between every tag.[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]This pushes it down the page[/td]
[td]Because it counts each line[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]As if it were outside the box,[/td]
[td]Like the space above.[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]I didn't put it there.[/td]
[td]On the next line I will leave a cell out[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]To demonstrate how it doesn't work.[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]So now that his demo is over[/td]
[td]Good luck on your own table![/td][/tr][/table]

And, without the extra spacing, makes this:

This is a table	I'm putting in spaces between every tag.
This pushes it down the page	Because it counts each line
As if it were outside the box,	Like the space above.
I didn't put it there.	On the next line I will leave a cell out
To demonstrate how it doesn't work.
So now that his demo is over	Good luck on your own table!

No extra useless gap. Hope that helped.

[ViZion]

Here's a couple more things I've done for my storefronts. I learned this from Jenrak actually quite some time back from one of her threads I believe.

---

+
+ +T h e + P r e m i e r +

G l o b a l +A i r l i n e

Welcome to ViZionair, the largest airline nationally and internationally in flights and routes. Founded in 1915, we offer quality food, unsurpassed customer service, comfortable seats with room to stretch, and so much more! In addition, safety is a top priority for our customers, your skies, and your airports! Very few airlines can boast such a reputation that ViZionair has in quality, safety, comfort, and customer service.

---

There's actually a couple tricks here. The offset working that floats like that it one. But also, the spacing, which can be used to give a little space between floating pictures or the seemingly Malt-trademarked ( ) floating tables...

Using the spacing, I also use that for some storefront headers, shown below.

---

A S T Y R I A N + A I R W A Y S
We Fly People.

---

I actually use that header on a couple storefronts, but do things differently with the text itself to where they look quite a bit different.

Now, the coding for the floating and spaced "Premier Airline" design, used on my ViZionair storefront...

Code: Select all

[floatleft][color=#f5f7f4]+[/color]
[b][color=#f5f7f4]+[/color] [color=#f5f7f4]+[/color][color=#FF4000][size=135]T h e [/color][color=#f5f7f4]+[/color] [/size][size=170][color=#FF4000]P r e m i e r[/size][/color] [color=#f5f7f4]+[/color]

[size=135][color=#FF4000]G l o b a l [/color][color=#f5f7f4]+[/color][color=#FF4000]A i r l i n e[/size][/color][/b][/floatleft]Welcome to ViZionair, the largest airline nationally and internationally in flights and routes. Founded in 1915, we offer quality food, unsurpassed customer service, comfortable seats with room to stretch, and so much more! In addition, safety is a top priority for our customers, your skies, and your airports! Very few airlines can boast such a reputation that ViZionair has in quality, safety, comfort, and customer service.

And for the header?

Code: Select all

[align=center][size=150][b]A S T Y R I A N [color=#ffffff]+[/color] A I R W A Y S [/b][/size]
[size=125][i]We Fly People.[/i][/size][/align]

One thing you'll notice... you'll see the "+" on the floating/spaced sample, where as you won't on the airline header. Why? Because I used 2 different colors for the +'s... the two background colors used on the posts - look at the background color of this post, versus the background color of the post above. Starting with the first post of the thread, it alternates between the off white and the white, each post.

[Dungeyland]

Nice job!

I'd add that whilst making a big storefront, BBcode can get really, really, really annoying to use. What I do in that case is "save draft" and pick up later, or I just make the whole thing a picture using Inkscape or Photoshop and [img] the photo in the thread.

[ViZion]

Nice job!

I'd add that whilst making a big storefront, BBcode can get really, really, really annoying to use. What I do in that case is "save draft" and pick up later, or I just make the whole thing a picture using Inkscape or Photoshop and [img] the photo in the thread.

Yeah, I've got probably 5-10 drafts saved right now actually for various new threads and thread responses actually. :-p I use that a lot, especially to save thread ideas for down the road.

[Rumostan]

How do I put an image onto my storefront?

[ViZion]

How do I put an image onto my storefront?

At stated earlier in the thread...

Code: Select all

[img]http://...[/img]

[Rumostan]

How do I put an image onto my storefront?

At stated earlier in the thread...

Code: Select all

[img]http://...[/img]

Oh sorry, well thank you, now I know.

[ViZion]

At stated earlier in the thread...

Code: Select all

[img]http://...[/img]

Oh sorry, well thank you, now I know.

No problem

[Caribica]

Hmm, this is helpful

[Maltropia]

Hmm, this is helpful

Glad you think so! Let me know if you've any questions and I'll do my best to help out.

[Free China]

Hello!

I may be gravedigging, if so then I apologise! I'm curious about how I can establish a banner for an airline as I'm interested in establishing a storefront namely, (As like real-life) China Airlines. If you know any sources that I can use, much help would be appreciated and additionally, I am new to establishing my storefront. I plan to construct perhaps close or similar to Valkea Airlines — Come and Fly Away.

Thanks!

[Maltropia]

Hello!

I may be gravedigging, if so then I apologise! I'm curious about how I can establish a banner for an airline as I'm interested in establishing a storefront namely, (As like real-life) China Airlines. If you know any sources that I can use, much help would be appreciated and additionally, I am new to establishing my storefront. I plan to construct perhaps close or similar to Valkea Airlines — Come and Fly Away.

Thanks!

Graphic design help is just a step outside the remit of this thread (the Better Business Bureau is a good catch-all thread, in future), but basically there are three things you want access to if you're working on that aspect: fonts, images and an image editor.

• You should have some decent fonts installed by default on your computer, but there are thousands of nice fonts on sites like dafont.com, which I use frequently for this sort of thing. Just download the font(s) you want to use and install them in your computer's Fonts folder.

• There are many, many resources to which you can turn for images, whether they're photos, logos, assets or something else. The classic is a simple Google Image search, but there are plenty of other good destinations. I often turn to Wikimedia Commons when I need elements for a new flag or coat of arms, for example. I've also found images I later used on news websites, Reddit and God only knows where else. It's only a matter of time before I use photos I took myself in storefronts and factbooks.

• Once you have all your pieces, you'll want to bring them all together in an image editing programme. Inkscape and Gimp are the free vector editors of choice, whereas I do all my design in a raster image editor called Paint.NET. Resize and move things around until it looks right. Play around with colours: most real-world companies try to stick to a palette with only two or three colours as part of their branding. Look at other airlines, both real and NS, to see what motifs they go for. Wings are obviously common. Do you want your airline to be ordinary or to stand out? If the latter, what makes it stand out? Is it a premium or budget experience? Once you have your concept and you're putting it together, you have the most important question: would this look good on a plane?

It might sound like a lot of work, but anything worth doing is worth doing well. If there's anything more I can do to help, please let me know. Good luck with your storefront!

[Ariwana]

this very useful thread for new roleplayers in GE&T subforum. many BBCode is useful to use likes blocktext, quote, table, etc