[TUT] How to place a download button in your project page

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Combinebobnt
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[TUT] How to place a download button in your project page

#1

Post by Combinebobnt » Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:26 pm

Hello I am Bob and today I am going to tell you about how to place a download button in your project page. Ok so you have a new complex brutal omega ghouls vs zdoom mod and are excited to post ANOTHER alpha/beta/delta/omega/unfinished version, or maybe you actually finished it (rare)? Well your project thread will of course have a lot of fluff explaining what it is and stuffing as many words as you possibly can so they never leave your page, but you must get the most important part of the page correct: the download button. Yes, without the download button, they cannot get the precious project you spent so much time explaining.

Making the actual link for the download button is your problem. Just link to idgames, or if it is unfinished, some website not from a 4th world country that has an uptime of more than 3 days, preferably. This tutorial is about where the download button is on your project page though.

Ok here is the best possible choice for you to place your download button:
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There is no way they can miss the download, and they will be able to click it at any point in the page. However this option is kind of stupid and too in your face, so the second best choice would be this:
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This is what you should strive for: There are TWO download buttons, one at the top of the page and the bottom. Why is this awesome? Well the download button at the top of the page let's the reader know the most important part of the project, getting it on their hard drive first. Don't forget that not everybody looking at your project thread is doing so for the first time too, some just want to get the download again or whatever. Having to go through all that first-time reader story fluff and spoiler jungle is annoying just to get the link. And to complement this first button, we have the one at the end of the post. This is the download button for all the first-time readers, who after grinding through all your lovely story text and information, are treated with the download grand prize.

The other half as good solutions are only placing one of these two buttons. Both of these options have downsides, however.
Button only at top: When a first-time reader is done reading, they have to annoyingly scroll all the way back up to the top of the page.
Button only at bottom: People just wanting the download have to scroll through all the fluff text just to get the download.
So in order to please both parties, just place both and call it a day. You will feel awesome knowing that it is extremely easy for people to download your project that may or may not be struggling for playtime anyway.

However, one of the main reasons I wrote this tutorial is because there are some bad offenders out there. I may be guilty of only placing one of the two download buttons from above, but would never want to commit the atrocities I've seen listed below:

Offender 1: Small and unimportant
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I see this offender a lot on the zdoom project forums. They write up a small epic of story and mod information then place a very tiny download button at the end that you might as well easily confuse for the rest of the filler text, except it has the little url underline and color. Please don't do this. This is the new internet age where everything needs to be BIG and in our face for our 2 second attention spans and need for instant gratification. If you place the download button at the end, make it look different from the rest of the post, and preferably, bigger and more shiny than everything else too. Don't frustrate people by having them scroll through your jungle of filler text just to find the download link for the mod you've been going on about for paragraphs.

Offender 2: Addon aids
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This tends to happen with big gameplay wads that try to do everything in one wad. Finding the download isn't usually as much as a pain (although it's almost always at the end of the post), but there is a new problem instead. The wad comes with 500 addons and special editions and skins and music packs and they are all in 12pt font and clustered together annoyingly. Please make the main download the biggest button because it is also the most important, as well as the fact that not everybody wants to download all those addons. It is even better to separate the main download from the addons through a header or empty line or whatever. Yea do that.

Offender 3: Broken button or no button
If your download button is broken, nobody will play your project at all (unless some good/bad soul mirrored it somewhere else). This happens when awful 6th world country download sites with 50 required memberships are used or you just suck at bbcode. Some people also forget to put download buttons entirely, awful. If you purposely leave out the download, you should probably say so, or you will get someone posting "cool but where is download?".

So yes, in conclusion, just put a big button at the top and bottom of the page and call it a day. I don't care about all the 50 expansion packs and addons so I don't care where you put those. And make sure you actually put a download button in the first place that links to a website that won't go down tomorrow. Ok thanks.

Download
Last edited by Combinebobnt on Sun Aug 07, 2016 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ARGENTVM
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Re: [TUT] How to place a download button in your project page

#2

Post by ARGENTVM » Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:31 pm

good tutorial now teach me how to not play odamex priv

Catastrophe
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Re: [TUT] How to place a download button in your project page

#3

Post by Catastrophe » Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:33 pm

Needs a sequel on how to post screenshots

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Sean
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Re: [TUT] How to place a download button in your project page

#4

Post by Sean » Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:34 pm

Image
<capodecima> i dont say any more word without my loyer jenova

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