Part of Merging these two sites together is making improvements to the existing parts and pieces. One of their parts is the tutorial System.
Up until now the tutorials have always been a page that I had to edit to create the menu for the next tutorial and previous buttons. Now I am going to create a dynamic script that will generate the menus on the fly, as well as allow users to submit tutorials.
My current thought is to redo all of the basic tutorials for Republic Commando, and Killing Floor. But instead of using the RC or KF specific Unreal Editors they would be done using Unreal Tournament 2004 (the same engine and editor). They would only cover the basics, they'd also have tips that would be just for Killing Floor, or Republic Commando.
There are some subjects for both Republic Commando, and Killing Floor that only apply to them, these would be in their own category. Think of a Tutorial for building a working Trading in Killing Floor, it wouldn't make since to show it in the UT04 tutorials seeing as there isn't a Trader Volume, but on the Volumes tutorial we would have a link to the KF Trader tutorial.
Users will be able to submit their own Tutorials, I'm working on a way to make the submission process as easy as possible. Currently I am leaning towards having multiple Steps that you go threw to submit your tutorial.
Step 1:
Name and Notes to Admin
Step 2:
Uploading Images used in the tutorial
Step 3 (final Step):
Tutorial Body and submission
The Notes to Admin in the first step would be what the Admin will see when they go to view and possibly approve the tutorial. I don't want to lose the Quality control that we have currently, and Admins approving the tutorials is the best way to do it. An admin will also be able to leave a review to just the user that would be shown on a "My Tutorials" page, that would state the problems and what needs to be fixed.
Uploading the Images would be a looped Upload, it has to come after Step 1 because that is when I would create the folder to hold the images. The upload would be just like the one used in the Download section of the KFMod Site (I think RCMod has the same one now as well) It uses Ajax and an Iframe to allow multiple uploads and has a pretend progress bar (a progress bar that is just a looping .gif animation)
The final step would just include pasting your tutorial body into the text box. I'm thinking that the images that you upload will be available one of two ways, and I need your help deciding.
1. A box on the site with the image names inside, and a button that will move the image into your text. The problem with this is I am unsure if I can get it to insert into the middle of your text, or if it will only work at the end of the text.
2. Add a custom [BB] code that will allow you to put the name of your image inside and it will then grab the correct path from the folder when you submit. Something like [tut]firstbox[/tut]
Thats all I can think of right now, this is the system that I am currently working with, and will most likely be done first.
