Mercenary Design New Website

Robbo

Well-known member
Want to see what XenForo can do? http://mercenarydesign.com.au/

Mercenary Design.webp

XenForo powers everything you see there (aMember will be added later as well though).

From a developers perspective the code has a few hacks here and there but ultimately the whole website is very manageable (helps that I have a custom dev -> test -> prod deployment system integrated into XenForo). Any developers looking for a new platform... this is it!

From the end user... the main areas might seem to be lacking a XenForo integration. This is because I am separating customers from forum users, much like XenForo Ltd does here. However, as explained here, a temporary system is in place which is why I was able to get the upgrade out there. When time permits, aMember (a highly customized aMember tightly integrated with XenForo styling and JS) will power the customer section of the website.

The forums are a customized version of a XenFocus skin.
The rest of the site was designed by Rhyl Mayes who took the colour scheme and went with it.
 
Nicely done, very clear, in particular I like the "What we provide" being so prominent on the main page (so many sites are not that clear for first time visitors).
 
The site looks very good. You need to make the forums use the same theme though, it's weird to have 2 separate layouts :)
Best of luck and keep us posted on the progress.
 
The site looks very good. You need to make the forums use the same theme though, it's weird to have 2 separate layouts :)
Best of luck and keep us posted on the progress.
Done the same way here and I don't see any people complaining.

The forums are for customers and people who have already invested or already know about stuff. The main site is for new people, it is to market and "sell" (sell as in convince them to buy) my products.
I am aware of some annoyances where the main website doesn't show any of your personal stuff but that is because of how customers are going to be separate from forum users and linked the same way XenForo Ltd does here. Then customer stuff would be around the main site with a cart etc.

But how you see it now is how it will be for the next month or 2 since I have no more time to put into it.
 
Robbo, this is the DEVELOPERS forum. It has to remain default, so that you can see how the forum looks like. If you run 2 scripts on your site you should have them work on the same design. It's not my intention to aggravate you, but you shouldn't become defensive when someone is giving you an ADVICE to make your site even more professional. You are a designer, from what I can see on the site, I would expect the entire site (with all its sub-compartments) to have a unitary design, not see everything looking in a different way. not to mention since, if you already have done the main design, tweaking the forums is a 2 hours job. You just copy-paste the HTML into page_container, the CSS into extra.css and you're golden :)

Sorry to hear about the time problems. Hope you'll be able to resume work on the portfolio soon.
 
Design is cool and professional. But it would be even better to make the whole site on XenForo. It applies also to this XenForo official site. Making unified site developers would show that XenForo is not just a forum and can be used as all-purpose cms.
 
Robbo, this is the DEVELOPERS forum. It has to remain default, so that you can see how the forum looks like. If you run 2 scripts on your site you should have them work on the same design. It's not my intention to aggravate you, but you shouldn't become defensive when someone is giving you an ADVICE to make your site even more professional. You are a designer, from what I can see on the site, I would expect the entire site (with all its sub-compartments) to have a unitary design, not see everything looking in a different way. not to mention since, if you already have done the main design, tweaking the forums is a 2 hours job. You just copy-paste the HTML into page_container, the CSS into extra.css and you're golden :)

Sorry to hear about the time problems. Hope you'll be able to resume work on the portfolio soon.
I don't understand how you thought I was getting defensive. Also, I'm not a designer I'm a programmer, I pay people to do designs. Also, send that message to XenForo Ltd? They do the exact same thing. Look around, it is done everywhere - forums are a community section, not a section you market in. They are there for people who want to get involved, not to be shoved in new customers faces.

I do understand it can feel a bit weird but that is because of the lack of the proper customers section described. You guys are all working with forums a lot obviously and seem to feel they should be integrated into the site fully. This is simply not the case, forums have many things done differently then the rest of a site. I wouldn't want a "Members" link on my main site, it is just bad practice for the purpose of my site. If it was a community site (it's not, it is a site to sell stuff) then I would integrate the forums in much more deeply like I have here savagerebirth.com.

Design is cool and professional. But it would be even better to make the whole site on XenForo. It applies also to this XenForo official site. Making unified site developers would show that XenForo is not just a forum and can be used as all-purpose cms.
Everything is 100% powered by XenForo as it currently is. When customer stuff is added the main site areas will be powered by my custom XenForo site with deep integrations with aMember and then the aMember sections are being rewritten to use the XenForo CSS and JS which makes it look very much the same and the controllers are even being re-written to give the exact functionality I want.

This website is a storefront. Not a community. Focus is on marketing and presenting what we do, what we sell and why you should buy it. Not to get people to sign up to the forums (which it does now but only to get the site live before everything else is ready).
 
I love the monetize your site section. I'm currently using none of your mods at the moment but I probably will after the latest updates.
 
I love the monetize your site section. I'm currently using none of your mods at the moment but I probably will after the latest updates.
Heh that is a section I thought was lacking... I am definitely no writer. Will get someone who is to go over everything when I have some spare change.
 
Heh that is a section I thought was lacking... I am definitely no writer. Will get someone who is to go over everything when I have some spare change.
Oh naw I didn't really read it sorry lmao I like it because when it says 'monetize your site' it actually had two great products to support the concept of monetizing a site. Ad Manager and Donation Manager.
 
I think your site looks fantastic and will definately be using some of your addons for my aussie sport site once i finish playing with it and ready to relaunch properly.
 
AND to stop the speculations: YES all my add-ons & premium users from ragtek.org will be moved there...

things need to be right done, we don't want to rush, that's why it takes so long:( sorry
 
AND to stop the speculations: YES all my add-ons & premium users from ragtek.org will be moved there...

things need to be right done, we don't want to rush, that's why it takes so long:( sorry

Hurry up! lol. I really want 'Enhanced Pages'! I'm trying to create many pages for a new site and failing miserably with little HTML Skills! :(
 
Hurry up! lol. I really want 'Enhanced Pages'! I'm trying to create many pages for a new site and failing miserably with little HTML Skills! :(
We are going to try for one add-on moved every day starting some time in the coming week. We are taking time to get it right because managing so many add-ons can be a hard task to to without creating issues. Taking time now will mean we will take less time for releases in the future. I have a few bottlenecks holding everything up in general. Once past them releases should be much faster.

All is coming :)
 
We are going to try for one add-on moved every day starting some time in the coming week. We are taking time to get it right because managing so many add-ons can be a hard task to to without creating issues. Taking time now will mean we will take less time for releases in the future. I have a few bottlenecks holding everything up in general. Once past them releases should be much faster.

All is coming :)
yay!
 
The site looks very good. You need to make the forums use the same theme though, it's weird to have 2 separate layouts :)
Best of luck and keep us posted on the progress.

I was expecting also to see forums using same theme carried across from front-end, something unique to that site. But instead see it's using one of those all too "popular" stock themes with a few minor changes to make it look different. If your going to run a site of that type offering (design stuff), really it needs to be using matching front-end and forum board style to "show off" what you can do right away to visitors coming, and most certainly not using a popular stock theme like that on the forum. It just says amateur to me, it will to many others also that your not able to show something unique off created and used on forums.

Sorry, just being blunt about it. Your entering a hard design sales market were the overall look of your site means everything in getting you business work.
 
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