Cartoon & Comic Section *FINALLY* ready for update! :)

Site Discussion Team Discussion
1

Hi guys,

Well, it’s taken me a hell of a lot longer than I expected, but, at long last it looks like the Cartoon and Comics Sections are completed ready for the site relaunch! I very much appreciate your patience while I’ve been struggling on with this - hopefully it will be rewarded, as we now have a huge new subsection ready to go up in the form of the ThunderCats Original Comic Art Gallery, officially the largest single gathering of ThunderCats comic artwork anywhere on the Internet! Whilst it’s fair to say that the majority of these pages are available to view elsewhere online (notably in the members’ galleries of www.comicartfans.com), they are nonetheless kind-of hidden - this is the first time to my knowledge that this many pieces of original ThunderCats comic art have been gathered together and presented in this way! :slight_smile:

The good news is that this section is already uploaded to its intended destination - check it out:

http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/gallery/gallery_index.html

Secondly, all the pre-existing Marvel Comics pages are transferred into the new template - the pop-ups for me don’t work, yet would appear to for MannyF, so perhaps you guys could take a look and LMK how these are for you?

http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_01/index3.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_02/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_03/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_04/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_05/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_06/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_07/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_08/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_09/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/marvel/marvel_10/index.html

All of these will need moving from the “comic_trial1” folder into the regular “comics” folder - the reason I haven’t done this already is because I’m scared of accidentally revealing the new site design too early! :smiley:

The Tim Perkins interview and Woolworths articles from the Comic Sections’ Special Features section have both been transferred with MannyF’s help:

http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/features/interview_tim.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/features/woolworths_feature.html

I’ve created “placeholder” pages for the DC/Wildstorm and UK Comics subsections - whilst I do have a fair amount of content ready to add on the Wildstorm front, for now I thought the update has been delayed long enough! :wink:

http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/wildstorm/wildstorm_index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/comic_trial1/uk/uk_index.html

THE COMPLICATED BIT:

I’ve created a new Comic Section Special Features index page in the new site design. Because of where I’ve positioned it in the “comic_trial1” folder, when transferred to “comics” the address on the navigation bar for all the new Comic Section pages will unfortunately need changing. Currently, the nav bar links to http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/features.html , whereas my updated version would be located at http://www.thundercatslair.org/comics/features/index.html . I’ve basically positioned the index page for the Special Features subsection where I would naturally put it, and if possible this is where I’d like to keep it - however, I realise that altering the links on over 100 pages is a bit of an undertaking, so if you guys would prefer we can just position the new index page so that it will be in its old location! :wink:

A WORD ABOUT THE CARTOON SECTION:

As you guys know, I’ve worked as hard as I can on here, but there are still a lot of placeholder pages. The one thing whilst typing this that I realise I’ve neglected to do is create a “US airdate order” version of the Episode Guide page located here - http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoon_trial2/cartoonguide/episodeguide/usdates.html . Could I be really lazy and ask if someone could help me with this, i.e. find me a list of the episodes in US airdate order that I can pretty much copy-and-paste?

This area here - http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoon_trial2/index.html - is where the most up-to-date version of the Cartoon Section is located, and any other versions (e.g. http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoon_trial/index.html ) have been superceded by this version.

I’ve recently amended that front page to show the changes requested by Mark with a view to the Animation Art Section - hopefully this is all OK with him. One thing I’ve done is moved the “Scripts” subsection from the proposed “Animation Art & Production Materials” section into the Cartoon Guide, as I got the feeling that Mark would prefer this.

IMPORTANT!

Like I say, I’ve worked very hard to integrate material into the Cartoon Section, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to transfer everything - some stuff that I wanted to re-organise (like the commercial bumpers, which I decided were cool enough to warrant a category of their own) has not yet been transferred into the new site design. Getting these integrated will be a priority for me once this update is complete - but, can I request that the content from the old version of the Cartoon Section be archived somehow, so that I may refer to it later?

This is also true of the official Rankin-Bass synopsies for the Episode Guide - I haven’t been able to find Celesta’s original text for these located anywhere in the staff folders, and so consequently have been copy-and-pasting the text from the pre-existing TCL webpages. It’s very important this information is saved as well! :slight_smile:

Well, that’s me pretty much done for this update (apart from my oversight with the Episode Guide page). Like I said in another thread, once this is processed my intention is to take it a bit easier with the site for a couple of weeks before getting back to the grind, however I think psychologically when this relaunch is done and dusted we will all of us feel better! :wink:

Take care guys, and thanks for reading such a long post! :smiley:

2

First off Chris let me just say that you have done a fantastic work I am very impressed with what you have done so far and Im definitely looking forward in seeing what new tricks you have up your sleeve…Awesome job. The comic pages look excellent however you are right in that when the imaage is clicked there are no pop ups except for the very first link:
http://www.thundercatslair.org/comic…01/index3.html which works excellent and there is a pop up image when clicked. Perhaps there is no link for a pop up image I dont know. I dont think it is a major issue but something that needs to be looked at once the relaunch is done.Even with the old layout we were still finding things here and there and fixing them along the way so it is really no big deal. Again Chris…Great Job, you deserve a little bit, just a little one my friend.

3

Unless anyone objects to the scheduling, here is what’s going to happen:

On Wednesday, I’m going to work on getting those pop-up windows working for the pages Chris has linked in his post because they aren’t working on my browser either. I’m also going to fix the white gap in between the red bar and the subsection links for the remaining pages that need the modification.

I have Thursday and Friday off from work, so…

On Thursday, I’m going to archive everything on the site. I think we have enough space on the host to keep everything archived just in case we need to go back and check some things. I’m going to try and get everything ready for either a Thursday night or Friday morning relaunch.

I’m thinking we might have to make the site go offline for a little bit while we move the new pages into the main directories, but we’ll keep the forums up and running.

Hopefully, this timeline is okay with everyone, and that by the end of the week, we can have TCL 2.0 up and ready to go.

By the way, great job Chris…you’ve learned a lot in such a small time span. :slight_smile:

4

Chris here…

Nope, there should be a pop-up in all of those, so that’s something that needs fixing. I have no idea at all why that hasn’t worked, as I haven’t changed any of the coding that Manny did! :frowning:

If a solution could be found for this whereby every time I create a new page from a template that would work OK that would be excellent, as otherwise it will mean that Manny or possibly Kyle need to modify every new page I create for the Comic Section. Given that there will ultimately be a lot of pages (over 100 for the UK Comics section, for example), finding a permanent fix would probably be a good move! :wink: :slight_smile:

LOL, thanks Manny - it’s been hard, but at least I have learnt something! :slight_smile:

As far as the scheduling goes, that’s fine by me - all I’d ask you guys to bear in mind is that I have stupidly neglected that one US airdates-order list for the Episode Guide, so that is something that will need doing to avoid us looking sloppy. If someone can find me a list I’ll try and get that done ASAP, but that shouldn’t interfere with anything you’re doing, Manny. :slight_smile:

If you have any questions, Manny, fire them right at me as they arise and I’ll try and deal with them as quickly as I can! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

5

I think the schedule is fine however I think that if we are to do a forum update that it is best to do it while the main site is down rather than doing it at a future date. Im sure the site won’t be down more than 2 or 3 days and in the end we will have an all out TCL relaunch including the forums as well. I’m cool with whats scheduled so far I just think its best to do both the main sites relaunch and the forum update as well all at once

6

Manny: That schedule sounds good to me! Can’t wait! :slight_smile:

Strange that, because when you showed me the other night they were all working back then for me :? Now like the other guys, only the first one is working for me as well.

[QUOTE=He-Fan]
I’d ask you guys to bear in mind is that I have stupidly neglected that one US airdates-order list for the Episode Guide, so that is something that will need doing to avoid us looking sloppy. If someone can find me a list I’ll try and get that done ASAP, but that shouldn’t interfere with anything you’re doing, Manny. :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

I’ll look into it for you!

Yeah, I think it might as well be done at once. What exactly does the forum update entail? Will there be some new features? Hopefully one of them will be not getting logged out automatically after 10 minutes (I know this is a vbulletin thing because the same now happens to me on he-man.org and it only started happening after the last updates!)

However 2-3 days for the site to be down? Is this true? Because that seems a long time just to change some folders around? I’m not having a go at anyone, I’m just curious is all :slight_smile:

EDIT: Here you go:

Exodus 1/23/1985
The Unholy Alliance 1/23/1985
Berbils 9/11/1985
The Slaves of Castle Plun-Darr 9/12/1985
Pumm-Ra 9/13/1985
The Terror of Hammerhand 9/16/1985
Trouble with Time 9/17/1985
The Tower of Traps 9/18/1985
The Garden of Delights 9/19/1985
Mandora: the Evil Chaser 9/20/1985
The Ghost Warrior 9/23/1985
The Doomgaze 9/24/1985
Lord of the Snows 9/25/1985
The Spaceship Beneath the Sands 9/26/1985
The Time Capsule 9/27/1985
The Fireballs of Plun-Darr 9/30/1985
All That Glitters 10/1/1985
Spitting Image 10/2/1985
Mongor 10/3/1985
Return to Thundera 10/4/1985
Dr. Dometone 10/7/1985
The Astral Prison 10/8/1985
The Crystal Queen 10/9/1985
Safari Joe 10/10/1985
Snarf Takes Up the Challenge 10/11/1985
Sixth Sense 10/28/1985
The Thunder-Cutter 10/29/1985
The Wolfrat 10/30/1985
Feliner (1) 10/31/1985
Feliner (2) 11/1/1985
Mandora and the Pirates 11/4/1985
Return of the Driller 11/5/1985
Dimension Doom 11/6/1985
Queen of 8 Legs 11/7/1985
Sword in a Hole 11/8/1985
The Evil Harp of Charr-Nin 11/11/1985
Lion-O’s Anointment First Day: Trial of Strength 11/12/1985
The Demolisher 11/13/1985
Monkian’s Bargain 11/14/1985
Tight Squeeze 11/15/1985
The Micrits 11/18/1985
Lion-O’s Anointment Second Day: The Trial of Speed 11/19/1985
The Rock Giant 11/20/1985
Jackalman’s Rebellion 11/21/1985
Turmagar the Tuska 11/22/1985
Lion-O’s Anointment Third Day: Trial of Cunning 11/25/1985
The Mumm-Ra Berbil 11/26/1985
Mechanical Plague 11/27/1985
Trapped 11/28/1985
Lion-O’s Anointment Fourth Day: The Trial of Mind Power 11/29/1985
Excalibur 12/2/1985
Secret of the Ice King 12/3/1985
Good and Ugly 12/4/1985
The Transfer 12/5/1985
Divide and Conquer 12/6/1985
Dream Master 12/9/1985
Out of Sight 12/10/1985
The Mountain 12/11/1985
The Superpower Potion 12/12/1985
Eye of the Beholder 12/13/1985
Lion-O’s Anointment Final Day: The Trial of Evil 12/16/1985
The Trouble with Thunderkittens 12/17/1985
Mumm-Rana 12/18/1985
The Shifter 12/19/1985
Fond Memories 12/20/1985

7

That’s a valid point Manny. However, I’m not very comfortable upgrading the forums. The transferring of files for the main site would probably take 3 hours at the max, assuming I run into some problems. It won’t take a full day to get everything done Neil. :slight_smile:

If you guys want the forum upgrade as well, I think I can manage, but I’m not overly confident I can get the forums up by Friday morning.

I can try, but I won’t promise anything (something I’ve learned from the past).

If I could also mention, the board version we are currently running is 3.5.4. He-Man.org is running 3.6.4 so anything you see on their forums is pretty much what we’re going to get. I’ve seen some differences here and there, but nothing to major.

I can have everything including the forums up sometime from Friday to Saturday, or I can get the main site running first with the schedule already mentioned, then get the forum upgrade during the weekend.

I can go both ways, it should be enough time for me to get everything running smoothly.

I’m gonna start working on the pop-up windows right now.

8

Would it be a good idea to do the forum first? That way we have the forum done, dusted and all set! We will then be able to communicate on it in the mean time without any worries. Then when the site relaunch is going through, any problems or difficulties can be easily reported on the upgraded forum? Does that make sense?

9

Yup, it does. That’s why I wanted to keep the forums running while the site was down, so we all have way to communicate with each other. I still have work today, but once I’m done with fixing the pop-up windows, I’ll see if I can try upgrading the forums.

By the way Neil, I checked the settings for the session timeout and it is set to 15 minutes. It’s a new security feature, so I can increase it to 30 minutes…? That should be long enough, right?

10

I have a question…I’m just going to move the directories out of the “xxxx_trial1” folder and into the main comics directory. My question is, if I do that, will all the links redirect to the main directory automatically?

The pages I did (toys, community, about) will automatically do this, but I’m not sure whether or not the cartoon and comic pages will. If anyone can answer this question, I would appreciate it.

I’m hoping they automatically change because if not, we’re going to have to search all the pages and find out which ones are stuck with the “/xxxx_trial1/” and change them.

11

Whichever way things are done Im totally cool with it I think I speak for everyone in saying that we want this to go as smoothly as possible.

12

Manny the Cartoon and Comic sections are designed to work in the location of the existing cartoon and comic sections… just put them in their place.

Good Luck :slight_smile:

13

Chris here…

Just to further elaborate on what Kyle’s said, everything I’ve put together for the Cartoon and Comic Sections have links that don’t need modifying - there may be one or two that I set up to link to pages in the “comic_trial1” folder that I haven’t changed back (just to see how the transition between pages worked), but 99% of pages should link to where they’re supposed to go. :slight_smile:

However - I would refer you to what I said in my first post about the Comic Section’s new Special Features index page. Also, as I said there, the entire ThunderCats Original Comic Art Gallery has already been moved by me to where it should live, i.e. it’s now located in the regular “comics” directory! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile: