Joystiq (now with new & improved galleries!)

by Christopher Grant { Feb 12th 2008 at 10:20PM }

There are some improvements underfoot here at Joystiq, and we thought we'd take a moment to share them with you. It's no secret that we've never been happy with our gallery system; it left a lot to be desired in just about every area. So we're hoping, after you join us for a look at the brand new gallery system our talented, handsome (and did we mention talented?) crack design crew turned out for us, that you'll wade once more into the delicious fields of images.

You can take a self-guided tour through one of our most popular galleries ever right here (note the attractive, new in-post preview) or follow us on a guided tour after the break.

Gallery: Lost Planet entries: the best of the rest

High-resolution button and low-resolution preview: so that you can quickly jump back and forth through a gallery of pics and be able to see the entire thing without having to scroll down, the default gallery layout is for low-res pics. If you click the "Hi Res" button in the upper right, you'll be switched to the high-resolution layout, which will have the same basic navigation elements, but you often won't be able to see the whole image on your screen at once.
Navigation: pretty self-explanatory, really. The left arrow takes you to the previous picture while the right arrow advances you onto the next ... did we have to tell you that? Probably not, so we will share something new with you. The arrow placements are fixed, unlike in our previous gallery system, so you can rest your cursor over the next button and casually click your way through an entire gallery of Lost Planet mock-ups.
Gallery preview: looking for one specific pic? Don't bother clicking through the entire gallery to find it, quickly scan the thumbnail previews to see if you can't pick it out. Yeah, we know they're pretty small; we're hoping for a solution to that in the coming months.
Comment field: now you can leave comments on your favorite pics! Love that Lost Planet cover with the little puppy? So do we! Let's share our love with the world!
Speed: even though you can't see it in that screencap above, it's there. The new gallery system loads images quicker, so you can spend more time ogling pixels and less time loading them.

And there you have it, a brief rundown of the new and improved functionality. We're going to be tweaking and adding to these, so please let us know what you think about them and if they can be improved at all. Again, thanks to our design crew of Matt, Mark, and Erik!

If you want to spend even more time in our galleries, take a peek at some of these fan favorites or look through every gallery we've ever made:

Gallery: BlizzCon Costumes

Gallery: Joystiq Pumpkin Carving Contest '07

Gallery: TGS cosplayers

Gallery: Square Enix Store -- Japan

Gallery: Pac-Man World Championship (Xbox 360)

Gallery: Valentine's Day '07

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

dolla @ Feb 12th 2008 10:26PM

pretty

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 12th 2008 10:34PM

Nice... I like the presentation...

I like to see the evolution of Joystiq... now we need little profiles for everyone of us =)

Off topic: Is it possible to make money from a blog?

Christopher Grant @ Feb 12th 2008 10:35PM

I thinkkkkk so :-/

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 12th 2008 10:39PM

The thing is... I have a lot of free time... lately, the work is a little slow... my economy is a little low this days =(

I want to start a blog to earn some extra cash... I spend most of my time in the computer and I want to take advantage of that.

Chris, can you give some tips and advices? Or anyone can help me?

rock_rules20 at hotmail

Noshino @ Feb 12th 2008 10:47PM

the greatest blog would be one run by a Sony fanboy, a Nintendo one, a 360 one, and a PC elitist...

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Feb 12th 2008 10:49PM

Ads on your blog will help generate revenue.

At least that's what I hear

Vegnagun bwf @ Feb 12th 2008 11:01PM

You already have a blog. It's called "joystiq.com". You post here non-stop, they just rerouted your checks directly to Nintendo.

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 12th 2008 11:19PM

Joystiq... please don't redirect my check to Nintendo anymore... send the checks to Laredo, Tx, please... =)

Full name: Fernando Paramo Mares

Address: Nintendoland Av. #64

Vegnagun bwf @ Feb 12th 2008 11:25PM

No, see they're directing it to Nintendo so that the good men at Nintendo can put all of it into a fund to make a giant golden statue of Miyamoto dressed up as Santa Claus with Iwata sitting on his lap. You'll get it sometime in November at the rate your going.

wootman @ Feb 12th 2008 11:25PM

if you can get the sony defense force and the nintendo defense force and all their other equivalents to make a blog, I WILL PAY YOU.
:P

Anticrawl @ Feb 13th 2008 12:44AM

Fernando, go look into adsense. Then after that check in on Anticrawl to keep crawlers at bay.

Mr.ESC @ Feb 13th 2008 1:10AM

"the greatest blog would be one run by a Sony fanboy, a Nintendo one, a 360 one, and a PC elitist..."

If they all share an enthusiasm for furry, yaoi and pantsu you just described kotaku except for the 360, Pc fan boys.

Anticrawl @ Feb 13th 2008 1:18AM

Also Fernando I think you would have a better chance partnering with samfish to create a peachchan.org website. Clearly there is a market for it when you consider all the questions he's had pertaining to his hot Peach pictures.

But seriously, I hope you have a great name and "image" in mind for your site. There are so many out there and a great many big sites so getting into the game now may be a little difficult.

Anticrawl @ Feb 13th 2008 1:20AM

Also I was entirely serious about the Anticrawl software and wasn't making some lame joke.

Idea
Material
Adsense
Anticrawl
????????????
Profit

Anticrawl @ Feb 13th 2008 1:22AM

Please stand-by for software promotion in.. 3.. 2.. 1..

http://www.anticrawl.com/

DemonGSides @ Feb 13th 2008 1:36AM

Noshino, that idea interests me greatly.

Perhaps... If you were a Sony or PC elitist... me, you, and fernando could start our own little shindig...

Anticrawl @ Feb 13th 2008 2:58AM

@DemonGSides

Now that I think about it that sounds promising. Add a crazy cynical and a bit arrogant person in there to criticize each side regardless of their personally views because that's their style and they have a wealth of random ass knowledge to throw around and then you have an interesting thing going. Not only would one be getting great news by a colorful cultish clan of consumerists and cynicists, (hopefully just one) they would also be compelled to check in to see what will happen next.

And yes I realize the second sentence sounds like well me (At least I'm not in denial about being cynical douchebag. It isn't because I enjoy getting a rise out of people or that I'm a pessimist, because I'm not. I just find it fun and I usually don't bullshit my statements much either, most of it is based on something specific and true.)

In any case I'd be willing to put my good polish friend Fernando's back against the wall if need be. Actually use to be pretty hard on him until I figured "it" out.

If said site does exist regardless of anyone here being involved there must be a strict rule against the term, "bash" and its use on the internet. Eventually when the site has gained enough support they could begin a Revolution to remove the word (or its internet definition) from our vocabulary unless we are about to attend some live RPG event and plan on stating they are about to physically bash someone in the face with their plus one mace (damn I'm good.)

If that doesn’t work out there is always peachan….

DemonGSides @ Feb 13th 2008 12:35PM

I'm for it. Email me at demongsides@gmail.com

Deck @ Feb 12th 2008 10:34PM

Ooo this is nice! Way to go Joystiq!

Anni @ Feb 12th 2008 10:45PM

It links back to the article and everything! Much more functional and quite a bit prettier. God jorb, Joystiq.

Vegnagun bwf @ Feb 12th 2008 10:47PM

Yarp, Good Jorb.

Zeus.:God @ Feb 13th 2008 1:35AM

Coach Z in the horse!

Vegnagun bwf @ Feb 12th 2008 10:54PM

Cheers guys! Now fix the comment system! It breaks into my house and steals all the good cereals.

NukeAssault @ Feb 12th 2008 10:54PM

Thats really cool. Glad its black too. Easy on the eyes. =)

Alistair loveless @ Feb 12th 2008 11:07PM

The layout removes too much from the rest of the site, its confusing and feels tacked on.
I still absolutely hate the new-er joystiq layout as a whole. big fail. i still prefer engadget's.
i even like a certain '***-updates' layout better. and that site sucks so hard. its like standing next to keanu reeves while he "acts"
But thats just my opinion.

Vegnagun bwf @ Feb 12th 2008 11:08PM

Is that a bad yahtzee impression or are you trying to unconstructivly criticize?

Anticrawl @ Feb 13th 2008 12:47AM

How could it be a bad Yahtzee impression? It's called ZERO PUNCTUATION, not TOO MUCH PUNCTUATION. Doesn't qualify as an impression if it is the polar opposite.

john @ Feb 12th 2008 11:06PM

It's nice, but come on. Isn't it time for a little javascript so we don't have to reload the page each time a new picture is displayed? I only get through about 3-4 before I'm tired of it. Give us some ajax. I'll write it for you if you need me to, but there are lots of libraries out there.

John

ps. I'm guessing the reason for the reload is to load a new ad each time...

severian00 @ Feb 12th 2008 11:08PM

Love the control, much better than before. I may actually look at more than a pic or two in the galleries now.

colin @ Feb 12th 2008 11:25PM

on mouseover = IE @ work crashes

Christopher Grant @ Feb 12th 2008 11:37PM

On mouseover on what element?

colin @ Feb 12th 2008 11:53PM

i click on the gallery i want to see and it pops up just fine. then i click on the picture i want to see, and the new screen opens with the picture stretched too largely. sometimes it flickers back and forth between that picture and an enlarged translucent search box over the black background that shows "JOYSTIQ" text in caps and "Search". As soon as the cursor rolls over the picture IE freezes.

fco. @ Feb 13th 2008 8:25AM

Same here. All I get now is a black coloured mess, and then IE stops responding.

Jerry Paxton @ Feb 12th 2008 11:42PM

Not for nothing - they look good - but you should have used Ajax for the gallery image changes. Having to refresh the page every time a new image loads takes away from the gallery.

hvnlysoldr @ Feb 12th 2008 11:59PM

Who shall be the first to exploit this newly refined ammo for the fanboy wars?

Jack @ Feb 13th 2008 12:44AM

Hey nice use of Skitch! Great program isn't it?

Mr.ESC @ Feb 13th 2008 1:13AM

So the reply system is next in the list right?

J/k (An edit button would be really helpful)

To be honest I rarely click on the galleries but this is nice, adds style I guess.

Hawko @ Feb 13th 2008 8:39AM

It's a great update, I actually want to go into the galleries now, in contrast to before, where I tried to avoid it unless it was something very special. Good job!

But there is one issue that annoys me.I prefer to browse in hi res. It works fine if I change the pictures using the arrows, but when i click the picture itself to change, it switches to low res-mode.

Will there perhaps be a fix for this?

kip @ Feb 13th 2008 8:41AM

Umm.. kind of a big issue here guys.. the "low-res" image is exactly the same as the high res image, except the img tag has smaller width/height values. This means the browser still has to download the same high-res image and then make it smaller. It'd be better if the low-res image was truly low-res.