Editorials
The following articles are written by fans and may not contain factual material and may be opinionated, whether is it correct or not depends on user discretion. Please respect the authors and their opinions. Please send in your editorials to GrandTourMail [at] Gmail.com correctly formatted and spell checked with your screen name, e-mail address, and title of the editorial. Submissions are not guaranteed to be posted.
The Do's and Don'ts of Creating a Website (Son-kun 2005)
International Dragon Box Users Gypped: Dragon Radar Remote (Son-kun 2005)
Dragon Ball AF: Fact or Fiction? (Son-kun 2003, 2005 ed.)
The Do's and Don'ts of Creating a Website (Son-kun 2005)
Since 1994 I have been using the internet and I have seen a lot of terrible websites. This I hope will be a short guide to anyone who is starting to make their own website or at least correct some common mistakes.
1. CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT!! Plan out what you are going to place on your website before you make it! DO NOT plan to put anything on your site that you do not own. DO NOT promote your site if you have nothing on it! Your users are not going to care if you are going put anything up "soon" and are not going to come back. This will only decrease your traffic.
2. The layout should be based on the content of the site. Try to keep the layout simple but unique while using the same layout for all the pages. Try not to clutter the site with large file types, this slows down the page load. NEVER use frames unless you have to, they are annoying, hard to maintain, and do not work well with search engines. An alternative to using frames is using Cascade Style Sheets (CSS) and tables. Which reminds me, you should at least know basic HTML, if you don't know HTML and are using a program to assist you I wouldn't recommend creating a website, because if there is a problem then you have no idea what is going on or how to fix it. There are plenty of free online resources to learn HTML.
3. A very important attribute of a website is color and light/dark contrast according to the layout. I will explain how this balance is used correctly in the Grand Tour and later what you should avoid.
Header: Your eye is first going to look at the top right corner of the screen, this is where you should put your most important information about the site: the title. The title needs to somehow indicate what the name of the website is and what it's about. What I have done with the Grand Tour is I named it "Dragon Ball GT Grand Tour" and that's all you really need to know. When the factor of color comes in to place I used the same color scheme as the rest of the website, but added texture and depth to make it stand out. So basically a title needs to stand out from the rest of the page but blend in so that it is not distracting.
Navigation: The next place your eye is going to look is on the left corner of the screen just below the title. This is your second most important information about that site. Your navigation menu is critical because it tells the user what the website contains. Since the Grand Tour is such a large website I've decided to use a vertical side menu and categorize each major page by a subtitle. However you could use a horizontal menu for small sites (for large sites I suggest drop down menus). The links need to stand out and be clear! Otherwise users are not going to be able to find their way around. In the Grand Tour's case, I used contrasting color and organization.
Body: This is the third part of the website that your eye will see. This is where the content of the site will be located, such as this editorial. I used orange, larger font to highlight the title of the page and a muted light blue that contrasts nicely to the background color.
Footer: And lastly your eye will meet the bottom of the page, where yes you guessed it, the least important information goes (or at least that the user will care about). I would consider this optional, but it is a prime location to place your copy write notice, disclaimer, or alternative website layouts. The Grand Tour's disclaimer is unimportant to the user so I've used very small font, the light blue color, although I did italicize the font to stand out more to users looking for legal documentation.
Things to Avoid: Now that you've got a good idea what to strive for I'll tell you what NOT to do. DO NOT use harsh colors like bright red or yellow as a background, instead use a muted variation or a dark background color. DO NOT use a font color that you can't see very well or read. Try to use a layout that will fit in a 800 x 600 resolution, because nobody likes to horizontal scroll. Avoid creating a site completely out of Flash or using complicated scripting. If you must do so then create an alternative HTML version. Trust yourself if you think that something about the site bothers you, try making small changes until you are completely happy with the result.
5. Make sure that your site can be viewed correctly with different types of browsers. People are stubborn and are not going to change their browser just for you.
6. DO NOT use background music. It may be cool the first time someone visits the site, but gets annoying afterward. You want to keep people coming to your site, not repel them. On average a person will spend 3 to 10 seconds on each page.
7. Consider the fact that you may have users with disabilities. Try to make your website friendly to all users. Always give your images alternative descriptions (alt tag) and make sure that you can navigate your website only using a keyboard (use the Tab and arrow keys).
8. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. If you learn a neat little script that looks cool but clashes with your site or complicates the performance... DON'T USE IT! There is no reason for you to use it and you shouldn't use it. Examples: animated GIFs, blinking text, flashing JavaScript, weird cursors, random Java applets, etc...
International Dragon Box Users Gypped: Dragon Radar Remote (Son-kun 2005)
When the great sensation of the Dragon Box hit the market fans from all around the world pre-ordered this limited edition product like hot cakes. In the later released Dragon Ball GT Dragon Box, the included 'special gift' was a Dragon Radar remote which you could program to your TV and DVD player to receive that full on experience of Dragon Ball fandom.
Beside the fact that the instructions and remote labels are completely in Japanese international users cannot program the remote to their native TV and DVD player. How frustrating it is to try and figure out these instructions and time after time fail to program the remote. My suggestion is to forget it. Put some batteries in, enjoy the fact it beeps and lights up.
The reason why the remote is not able to be programmed for international use is because of its code limitations. In the instructions it says to press both of the + buttons simultaneously for three seconds and enter the TV/DVD code in the table they provided underneath the instructions. Problem: These codes will only work for Japanese TV/DVD players (NTSC-J) and on top of that the remote will only allow you to enter 3 digit codes. All American TV/DVD players (including region free) have a 5 digit code making it impossible to program the remote.
The solution would be to buy a Japanese TV/DVD player with knowledge of what the 3 digit code is. It really isn't worth the bother so suck it up and accept that international fans were gypped. The Dragon Box sets were intended for a Japanese audience, so celebrate that you have one!
Dragon Ball AF: Fact or Fiction? (Son-kun 2003, 2005 ed.)
DBAF is an internet rumor and joke. Sorry to burst any one's hope for a new series coming out, but the evidence of DBAF not existing is strong and here's why:
"Dragon Ball AF is supposed to be a new series but never made! The creator never got a chance to develop the series and there is only one single picture of it (down right). It's supposed to be Gokuu at Super Saiyajin level five. But others say its developing and should be out by the end of 2002 or later. Dragon Ball AF is being made by right this moment! They will be making around 250 episodes."
Akira Toriyama never got the chance to develop it? That's a load of crap. He has had plenty of time to do it, considering that Dragon Ball Z ended around 1994 (Mr. Toriyama didn't develop GT as a comic book and had little say on its television production). Well considering that it's been ten years since then and it took about ten years to make Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, it's fairly unlikely that a new series will be coming out soon. Also take into account that from my own personal experience with some students at Fort Wright Mukogawa Institute (a local college for Japanese girls from Japan) that they know all about Dragon Ball/Z/GT, however they have never heard of AF before.
Dragon Ball AF was a misreading from an organizational website that used the Dragon Ball characters. There is a disclaimer. For more info on this, check out the rumor bin at DaizenshuuEX. After some time of people believing this, I'm sure they started writing fanfics about it, and that's how a plotline was developed.