Bharat Rakshak

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 15 Jan 2005 03:30

After four and a half years, the Bharat Rakshak Main page has been redone.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/

The Individual section updates are not yet active - but will be made live in the course of the day.

The page graphical design has been made by BRF member and fellow hyderabadi

mnkumar (aka Naresh)

Entries of news headlines and testing of the news section is being done by BRF member and news junkie JaiS.

Give them a virtual hand folks. Comments and suggestions welcome.

Rakesh's Note: Bharat Rakshak's main page gets a facelift after nearly five years and boy what a 'lift' it truly is! All credits go to mnkumar aka Naresh, who is a web designer by profession. I am truly in awe of the new page and his web designing skills. The main page has been designed on a 'portal' concept with the most recent news articles on the left and the latest forum discussions on the right.

At extreme left, we have the three main segments --> BR Sections, BR Lounge and BR Tributes. Each segment contains links to various sub-sites in BR. Right in the middle is a google search engine, which will now enable you to have the BR main page as your home page, when you open your internet browser. Right below the search engine are three sub-sections which list the various updates in the Army, Navy and Air Force sections. So you don't have to visit a seperate page to find out the updates, it is right there staring you in the face. At right are the links to BR's new online journal, Security Research Review and below are links to the BR Book & Video Store.

I am confident that my fellow BRFites will like the new page. Please do give us your comments and suggestions. On the occassion of Army Day (Jan 15), Jagan and me have updated the Army, Navy and Air Force pages. I am not going to list out all the updates, as it is better that you see them yourself - especially now that it looks so jazzy and cool. Isn't that the words kids use these days?

This is just phase one of converting BR into php and getting away from html. In due time, the entire website will be more interactive and easy to use. So the front page is just an indication of things to come. Thanks and Jai BR!

Himanshu · Post by **Himanshu** » 15 Jan 2005 03:32

C:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:L

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 15 Jan 2005 03:41

Just to elaborate on the front page history, This is the Version 4.0 of the main page.

The first three main pages were static pages. They can be viewed here

1. January 1998 Version and an extension of it 1999 January

2. May 2000 vErsion

3. The August 2000 Version was the predecessor of the repladced Frontpage which evolved into this http://web.archive.org/web/200306042207 ... index.html

4. Finally Version.4.0

JTull · Post by **JTull** » 15 Jan 2005 03:44

Oh baby! Got the shock of my life. At first I thought site's been hijacked.

It is soooo coool.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 15 Jan 2005 03:45

The New Design is Awesome.

Nandai · Post by **Nandai** » 15 Jan 2005 04:08

Very nice indeed, I too thought something bad had happened as good old BR looked diffirent, but change is almost always good, and this looks good, very good. A very well done job by mnkumar, a salute

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 15 Jan 2005 04:25

Like it

vinodv · Post by **vinodv** » 15 Jan 2005 04:26

wow! the page looks great ..

One grouse though..

The page width seems to be fixed at some lower resolution. I have a widescreen 1280*800 resolution and the current page covers only about 60% of the width , unlike the old main page which covered the whole screen.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 15 Jan 2005 04:33

Cool! How much of the ideas came from IF front page?

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 15 Jan 2005 04:41

acharya wrote:Cool! How much of the ideas came from IF front page?

Naaaah! any similarity is purely coincidental. The multiple column, multi section format was inspired more by my earlier www.warbirdsofindia.com/index2.html (which was a manually updated one

) than any other website.

JCage · Post by **JCage** » 15 Jan 2005 04:43

WOW

Krishna · Post by **Krishna** » 15 Jan 2005 05:07

Snazzy!

My hats off to mnkumar, JaiS and the admins.

Could the we have a link to the old front pages somehwere on BR ?

Krishna

AshishN · Post by **AshishN** » 15 Jan 2005 05:48

Great work mnk, Jai....

High visibility but low profile (for unfriendly environments

)....

venkat_r · Post by **venkat_r** » 15 Jan 2005 06:12

Great style sheet design. Great work done in desigining the main page.

RajGuru · Post by **RajGuru** » 15 Jan 2005 06:24

Thanks

kgoan · Post by **kgoan** » 15 Jan 2005 06:56

Great stuff folks.

Lovely design.

BTW, I notice that both the Monitor and the Review have a link on the front page. Is BR going to be publishing *2* online journals/magazine?

It would be remarkable if we could. Perhaps the Monitor could be the magazine type with all the "know your armed forces", news updates etc, and the Review being the dry journal type thing.

Would be a fairly spectacular output if it could be managed.

Rishi · Post by **Rishi** » 15 Jan 2005 07:49

^ Second kgoan here.. who has yet to fulfill that 2 yr old promise

?Also, Admin log, could you make the BRF links on front page such that clicking on them takes us to the latest post, and not the 1st page

Danke.

(And... yes.. nice front page)

Pranay · Post by **Pranay** » 15 Jan 2005 08:10

Keep up the good work... the makeover was much needed. Congrats to all involved!

ChetanP · Post by **ChetanP** » 15 Jan 2005 08:17

Congrats. A great new face for the BRF, looks very appealing and user friendly. A great job and congrats to all concerned involved in the project.

Sohum · Post by **Sohum** » 15 Jan 2005 10:07

Holy S**T! That was THE biggest shock of my life. Great job Naresh!

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 15 Jan 2005 10:26

kgoan wrote:BTW, I notice that both the Monitor and the Review have a link on the front page. Is BR going to be publishing *2* online journals/magazine? It would be remarkable if we could. Perhaps the Monitor could be the magazine type with all the "know your armed forces", news updates etc, and the Review being the dry journal type thing.

KGoan, Rishi,

The idea did cross some of our admins minds - but the lack of potential contributors kept us away from reviving the monitor. The SRR Team's experience in bringing out their BRM issues, which involved a fair bit of work in chasing the authors for contributions and getting it cross checked etc suggested that the same is required on the BRM then it will be difficult at this current stage. Or atleast it would be difficult for the current site admins to do it in addition to the regular site updates.

Rishi,

The forum topics listing hack needs to be re-written. So till the time I find something ready on the Internet or we re-write it , the last posts retreival wont come up. This might take a couple of months atleast.

vinodv,

Yes, the page is designed for 800x600 resolution, thats because nearly 50% of the net population (and a higher percentage from India) still use that resolution on their desktop. Also the same reason that most of the other websites CNN.com, BBC.com, sify, rediff, indiatimes, indiainfo, pib, ebay, bazee, military.com etc are also designed for the same resolution. Till the time the 800x600 falls into disuse (it has to go below 25% usage) i would assume this trend will continue.

(Random Ramblings)

The primary motivation for the front page design and the other sections is to present the latest contents of the website's different section right up there on the front page. Whos got the time to click thru three to four whats new pages to find out 'whats new' in the website?

A decision to seperate the Army and the rest in the land forces from each other - hence direct access to Army, Special Forces, Para Military, Police etc from the front page. Sometime down the week, the Coast Guard link will be added, as soon as Naresh sends us the graphics

.

The news section too has been re-written - the search engine now enables 'searching' for reports on a specific force for a particular month, or a particular year. The results are paginated. future releases will include search facilities for specific forces like Police, Coast Guard, Para Military etc. ( http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/ )

We finally have a 'formal' Multimedia section - ( http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/main/Multimedia.php ) . Including the listing of Video Clips that Shiv had made for the forum at various points of time.

I hope over this year all the rest of the sections should also see a facelift. for the main page sub sections

Aditya G · Post by **Aditya G** » 15 Jan 2005 10:54

Good.

I have noticed that over time many parts of the website have been converted to a PHP + database format; Officer Data, News, IAF awards. This is a step in the right direction and it improves BR as a searchable research database. I suppose Jagan will make kill listings in database form too someday.

With regards to the 800x600 issue, what you can do is to place the entire content in the center. It will no longer look awkward to those with higher resolutions.

Rishi · Post by **Rishi** » 15 Jan 2005 11:04

Jagan wrote: KGoan, Rishi,

The idea did cross some of our admins minds - but the lack of potential contributors kept us away from reviving the monitor. The SRR Team's experience in bringing out their BRM issues, which involved a fair bit of work in chasing the authors for contributions and getting it cross checked etc suggested that the same is required on the BRM then it will be difficult at this current stage. Or atleast it would be difficult for the current site admins to do it in addition to the regular site updates.

You want Bakras (not in the Paki way), then ask! Or was that a hint-hint nudge-nudge thing?

Well, you may shift the donkeywork responsibilites to new chaps (yep, ppl will volunteer for that

), and let the SRR team be big bhai and just do a final edit once a BRM issue has been compiled.

It might not be the same BRM, with the heavyweights shifting to SRR.. a Son-of-BRM, or BRM Junior

i suppose.

Give it a try. Start a thread calling for volunteers (editors,contributors and gadhas). And don't put a deadline (but who knows, maybe a BRM vs. SRR mortal kombat will ensue

)... let it come out when there is enough for an issue. One can discuss scope/agenda etc in the new thread. Also, as Kgoan said... BRM can be wetter (as in, less dry) than SRR.

Do it I say...

And yes, Donkey No.1 reporting for Duty.

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 15 Jan 2005 11:24

rishi wrote:You want Bakras (not in the Paki way), then ask! Or was that a hint-hint nudge-nudge thing? Well, you may shift the donkeywork responsibilites to new chaps (yep, ppl will volunteer for that ), and let the SRR team be big bhai and just do a final edit once a BRM issue has been compiled. It might not be the same BRM, with the heavyweights shifting to SRR.. a Son-of-BRM, or BRM Junior i suppose. Give it a try. Start a thread calling for volunteers (editors,contributors and gadhas). And don't put a deadline (but who knows, maybe a BRM vs. SRR mortal kombat will ensue )... let it come out when there is enough for an issue.

Do it I say...

And yes, Donkey No.1 reporting for Duty.

Rishi, I will make good of your offer - only you can change the title from Donkey to Slave - both mean one and the same thing, but latter fits our work style! -

Fully agree with the Son of BRM thingie, it will make the right amount of 'light reading' to the SRR's heavy stuff. But did you notice that even though the old BRM had a 'Know your Army' section the fresh contributions were relatively very few. ultimately SRR had to relink back to old updates from other sections.

Second, I think there should be a time line, dead lines associated with the issues. Because without them, people will tend to put away the stories (ask me - I do that every time!). Articles never come in otherwise.

orBat.com tried to bring out such a KYA magazine called 'Jawan'. They sufferred from the same problem - lack of contributors. Ofcourse BR's reach is different and the BRM KYA Lite can certainly be done with some chasing and diligence.

Aditya,

Page centering will be done in a week or so. thats already been thought off. But only after doing a poll on which looks better.

Reg the Kills section moving to DB - I doubt it will happen right now. But other sections related to lists - Unit COs, Command CinCs everything related to personnel will be moved to DB. In the Army and Navy site, we will probably move the Awards to DB and integrate it with Air Force awards.

AnantD · Post by **AnantD** » 15 Jan 2005 17:31

This is really professional looking....Excellent work!

Adi · Post by **Adi** » 15 Jan 2005 17:35

As it happens, just a few days ago I logged onto the BR home page and remember thinking how plain and static it was for a site of this stature. In fact, it's hardly changed for the past 5 years! Since I wasn't in a position to offer to help, I was hardly going to b*tch about it.

Anyway, now that it's done, I've checked out CNN and I feel the font size of BR navigation menu could be bigger, as could the "Bharat Rakshak" on the logo. Excellent job though.

I also just noticed the fadeout texture on the right side. These are the kind of details, as opposed to heavy visible graphics, that make the design professional.

Incidentally, no plans to write "Bharat Rakshak" in Hindi as well?

Other than that, the entire site needs to be "dynamized" with the new navigation menu visible on every page (possibly with a dynamic "tree" like Windows Explorer, but I'm aware that can be somewhat time-consuming to code).

Things like the standard "crumpled paper" texture on the site page probably need to be replaced with a new look. Nothing wrong with it, but it's served its purpose and it's time for a change. Of course I take it all this is being worked upon under time constraints.

Good job and thanks.

Rakesh · Post by **Rakesh** » 15 Jan 2005 17:44

Hi Adi, there are some final touches to be made still. I think we are linking the BR Logo to the actual image size. Naresh is currently away and that will be when he comes back. With regards to writing BR is Hindi, I am not sure where we could fit it. The purpose of this main page is to reduce the clutter and make it more user friendly.

Rakesh · Post by **Rakesh** » 15 Jan 2005 17:45

kgoan wrote:BTW, I notice that both the Monitor and the Review have a link on the front page. Is BR going to be publishing *2* online journals/magazine?

Hi kgoan, Did you see the note I added in the BR Monitor?

Adi · Post by **Adi** » 15 Jan 2005 17:53

Hi Rakesh,

I too was thinking about where a Hindi "Bharat Rakshak" could fit without cluttering. I wonder how it would look if it appeared above the current "BHARAT RAKSHAK", but with one of those transparency effects?

JaiS · Post by **JaiS** » 15 Jan 2005 17:59

Krishna, AshishN thanks.

Kudos to mnkumar, superb work.

Jagan, now that you have updated the site let me confess to you that since the moment you showed to me the new design, it was extremely difficult for me to keep quiet about it !

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 15 Jan 2005 18:09

JaiS wrote:since the moment you showed to me the new design, it was extremely difficult for me to keep quiet about it !

I must have put you in a fix by giving you the the preview

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 15 Jan 2005 18:33

Stunning makeover.

Congrats to the developers.

Radhey · Post by **Radhey** » 15 Jan 2005 19:03

Great effort guys, hats off! The main page is concise, informative and well organised. - Radhey Shyam

Kapil · Post by **Kapil** » 15 Jan 2005 21:10

And Rishi should start reporting to his local Mule Train commander for a change instead of doing hot air experiments with Deccani Air Marshals!

Kaps

MN Kumar · Post by **MN Kumar** » 15 Jan 2005 21:12

Thanks all for the feedback. Truely it was a teamwork.

We have just started and lots of things need to be done yet to make BR a more memorable experience. We welcome your feedback.

Thanks
MNKumar

Katare · Post by **Katare** » 15 Jan 2005 21:29

I almost fell off of my chair......good job chaps. I can guarantee that regular BRFites would frequent main page more often than they used too.

You asked for it so here are two suggestions ----

1) When I click on latest discussions it takes me to first page of the thread, it would be more convenient if takes me to last page?

2) When Rakesh closes a 9 page long thread the discussion gets an abrupt halt before it picks up again slowly in new thread. Is it possible that we get rid of only first 8 pages or copy the last page in the new thread so that discussion can go on seamlessly?

karan · Post by **karan** » 15 Jan 2005 21:37

Man O Man this page is so cool. First time I thought BRF has been hijacked then I realized its a newly designed page.

GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT Job

Amarko · Post by **Amarko** » 15 Jan 2005 22:21

Wonderful makeover ! Congrats !
Amarko.

Rishi · Post by **Rishi** » 15 Jan 2005 22:31

Kapil wrote:And Rishi should start reporting to his local Mule Train commander for a change instead of doing hot air experiments with Deccani Air Marshals!

Kaps

Local mule commander saar, please let it be known that the local mule (moi) has been seen eating from the above mentioned commander's chocolate rations.

Vivek K · Post by **Vivek K** » 15 Jan 2005 22:53

Great Job!!!!!

Bharat Rakshak - New Main Page Launch

Bharat Rakshak - New Main Page Launch

New face

New Web page