Hosting Renewal, Site Future, 4th Anniversary Discussion Thread

Site Discussion Team Discussion
21

Chris here…

Apologies for the double-post - just thought this was a thread worth reviving…

Obviously the meeting never happened, and to be honest I’m not sure a full team meeting with every member of the team present is ever likely to happen again. However, what would be great would be to have a really open and exciting (positive) discussion about this site’s future on the team forum, which folks can add to as their time schedules allow! :slight_smile:

I agree completely that a “real time” chat is much better for bouncing ideas around - but, to be honest I can’t see it happening, and if we wait to try and pull it off, it could delay future movement for the site. :slight_smile:

For my own part, although I’ve always resisted the concept of a site re-design, to be honest in recent weeks I’m starting to change my mind. I’ve always been very protective of the HTML work I’ve done on the site - but, over the past 9 months I’ve worked on developing my HTML skills a LOT, and it makes me realise just how bloody bad some of my early HTML work is, LOL! :smiley:

So, where I used to resist the idea of altering the work I did, to be honest I’m thinking I was wrong. Therefore, if the site re-design is still on the cards, I’m definitely open to working with MannyF and taking an open look at every aspect of the site that pertains to me, to see if it could be improved. It may be a bumpy road, as I’m sure he & I will still disagree about some aspects! :wink: But, I’d definitely be up for doing it! :slight_smile:

If re-designing the site with Wordpress is off the agenda, or shelved indefinitely, I have learnt a few things with my HTML work that I’d like to suggest could add uniformity and also ease of mass updating to the site - however, obviously if Wordpress is still the way forward (which I’m completely open to and excited to see put into effect) then obviously that wouldn’t be necessary (and, of course, my ideas may also be crap, LOL! :smiley: ). :slight_smile:

Anyway, no worries and no problems, but just thought I’d chime into this thread again - even though my “offline” life gets in the way, I’m still completely committed to this site and want to see it continue to grow and develop. The other day I remembered how, back in 1999/2000, I used to fantasise about working on a ThunderCats site like this - hard to believe it’s been 4 years since my dream came true! Maybe I’m biased, but I think together we’ve built the best ThunderCats site on the Internet, of which I’m very proud to be a part of it. I should probably do more to look after it, and if I can somehow get some free time from somewhere, I hope to do exactly that! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

22

What are your thoughts Manny? I’m keen to support the redesign work you intended.

23

First off, it’s nice to see some old faces posting again! :slight_smile:

I don’t have very much time to write this, but going straight to the point…

I’ve been getting help from people who are familiar with the theme we purchased well over a year ago for the initial site redesign. It’s taking a lot longer than I expected with so many things going on with my personal life, but I’m still definitely up for doing the redesign.

I know I mentioned that the redesign would coincide with the site’s anniversary this coming December, but perhaps it would be best to do the redesign early next year to help celebrate the ThunderCats’ 25th anniversary. I really wanted to do the redesign to help promote the movie, but since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, using the 25th anniversary as our so called ‘marketing’ for the site would be a great way to get fans excited again.

It also gives me more time to work with the people who are helping me refine my skills at customizing the theme for our site.

It’d be nice to get input from everyone about these suggestions and any other ideas they might have.

Chris: Glad you’ve had a change of heart. :thumbsup: It’ll be fun working with you and everyone else again!

24

Chris here…

Hey Manny, many thanks for getting back to me/us about this! :slight_smile:

I agree, particularly Neil & MannyC - nice to see some activity in the old team forum, just like old times! :thumbsup:

This all sounds like a good plan, and if it means that the site redesign will start being implemented soon (even if it takes a while to fully realise, working steadily through it), I think that’s good news for the site and good news for the team - plus, whilst our “offline” lives are keeping us from contributing so much new content, it makes it look as though the site is still alive! :slight_smile: Someone on the forums commented recently that they could “hear the wind whistling through this site” (or words to that effect), intimating that it’s dead or at least semi-dead, so it would be nice to address that with a site overhaul! :wink:

Well, to be fair, I have to say that I don’t think I’ve ever been as negative about the site redesign as some folks have thought I’ve been - I think some of the points I’ve tried to raise when discussing the issue have been taken a bit out-of-context. :slight_smile: It’s all water under the bridge though… :slight_smile:

What I definitely have been is protective of the work I’ve done, particularly HTML layout work - whereas, having spent most of this year learning about HTML and CSS, I now realise that a large portion of the work that I did (not Kyle’s work though) is a steaming pile of crap! :smiley: I can now see so many possibilities for improvements, and I hope, Manny, that we’ll be able to work together to execute some of those improvements! :slight_smile:

To give you an idea of some of the things I’d like to change:

  • Visual appearance of the Cartoon Section’s home page. I don’t think we should go mad, but it would be nice to see this spiced up (and I think you did have some plans regarding this with the site redesign).

  • Layout of the Cartoon Section. Out of Kyle & me, I was the one who came up with the layout of the section, i.e. where everything goes. I’ve always been really happy with it, but lately I’ve been starting to wonder if it could be simplified somehow. I know this is something you & I have disagreed on in the past, but it’s something I’d definitely be willing to take an objective look at (and would also welcome the input and ideas of the other members of the team too).

  • The way screenshots work on each Episode Guide page. To be fair, Kyle & I always wanted to make the screenshots load in a new window, sized to fit the image, but never got around to doing this. In fact I can probably now code this so that this works, and also know an alternative way this can be achieved using Javascript - but, it means I’ve got to paste in the code 12 times per page to about 40 pages. So, it would be nice to use Wordpress to come up with a slicker, easier way of doing this.

…These are just three examples. I must admit, I’m happier with the way the Comic Section looks overall and I don’t think there’s a lot in there that needs changing in terms of individual page layouts - but, there are a fair few tweaks that need doing to my amateurish coding on some of the pages, so again, definitely worth taking an objective look at the whole lot IMO! :slight_smile:

Also (with apols for making this into an even longer post), I notice now that a lot of the coding Kyle & I were doing back in 2006/2007 has now been depreciated in the new HTML 4.01, and, whilst obviously most of it still works in most browsers, it would be nice to bring some of that coding up-to-date, which is almost impossible to do completely in the current site design - so again, I realise now that that’s something the redesign would fix. :slight_smile:

So, I now say “Bring it on!” :thumbsup: Let’s work together to make the redesign happen and make the best ThunderCats site on the Internet even better! :thumbsup:

Take care… :slight_smile:

25

Simply. Awesome.

Manny, let me know what you need from my end, I stand ready to help in any way.

26

Chris here…

I’ve recently been doing a bit of HTML work for the site that has once again made me aware of the fact that some of the coding of this site (particularly coding that I personally did, back in the day) is becoming very out-of-date. Some of the pages I designed for the site back in 2006/7 and tested out on Internet Explorer 6 no longer display correctly in some more up-to-date browsers (like Safari for Windows, which is what I’ve recently been favouring). :frowning:

These things once again make me really embarrassed about having been so protective of the work I did for the site, because (having studied HTML / XHTML / CSS for the past year), I realise how poor a lot of it is. :frowning:

I’m conscious of the fact that web browsers are moving forward, and that the Internet is changing fast, and thus conscious of the fact that a lot of the coding that I did for the site back in the day is likely to look like a jumbled mess in future web browsers, probably only a couple of updates away. (And, as I say, some of the pages I made already look like a jumbled mess in more contemporary browsers.) :frowning:

So, with apologies for sounding like a broken record - I was wondering if there were any new updates on “ThunderCats Lair 3.0”, a.k.a. the site upgrade via WordPress? :slight_smile:

I’d very much like to see this put into action, as I feel it’s very much in this site’s best interests to update the structure and coding to better suit the modern Internet. :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

27

Sorry for not being very active…it’s been SUPER crazy for me. No one told me being in a relationship was a huge undertaking! Just kidding! :smiley:

Middle of February and the whole month of March will be focused on this site. I’ve tried to free up my schedule for those two months to meet with everyone on the team and get the redesign moving forward again.

Going to get some PMs sent out this month for preliminary things…I’d love to get an updated logo for the site (Kyle you for it?) :slight_smile:

By the way, belated Merry (Happy) Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

I’ll try to post more often!

28

Just wait till you have kids…crazy will never end

Thanks for the update Manny, we all can understand how crazy things get. On my end, well same old…Ill be flying out to my Australia trip on the 19th and will get to Oz on the 21st. If you guys want to track my trip via blog I will be doing updates while im over there. The website is apmexbonzertrip.blogspot.com Ill be updating it with pictures from all the tours I will be taking. After that I am going to Safety Officer course for a few weeks and back to the clinic for 12+ hour days

29

Chris here…

Great to hear from you, Manny & Manny! :stuck_out_tongue: :thumbsup:

LOL, yeah, I’ve always found it too hard to deal with, hence why my longest relationship to date was…well, either 5 days or 5 months, dependent on your POV! (Long story!)

Awesome news! I stand ready to assist in whatever capacity I can! :slight_smile:

I’ve been thinking for a while it would be nice if the Lion-O artwork in this site’s header could be replaced with something that Kyle created - I’d wondered about using one of the animation frames from when Kyle re-animated the TCats opening sequence for our YouTube promo video… :slight_smile:

It’s all cool, Manny, and a Happy New Year to you too! :slight_smile:

As I say, I think this site would benefit from bringing the coding of this site up to date with modern browser standards (Manny, once again - you were right and I was wrong! :wink: ), so I’m looking forward to seeing it happen! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:
Merged Post:
Just found this article and thought it was a fantastic example of what can be achieved using WordPress - again, Manny, you were right and I was wrong! :wink:

Check out the gorgeous looking websites shown in this article: http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/01/20-awesome-non-blogging-websites-using-wordpress-as-cms.html ! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

30

Yeh!, I would like to do a special piece for the header of the site!.. Will add it to my to-do list :wink:

31

Chris here…

A Kyle Lambert original on the header of ThunderCats Lair would be fabulous icing on an amazing cake - nice one, Kyle! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Take care… :slight_smile:

32

Hey guys, in time for our anniversary we’ll be rounding a few milestones here at the site…

We recently got up to over 110 active forum members, I assume this means something like 110 people who have posted within the last few months (not sure how many).

We are at 944 registered forum members, and should get to over 1000 by the end of this year (easily).

We have over 1,600 fans on the facebook page that Chris secured for us and it is growing.

Over 1,500 signatures on our petition for Larry Kenney.

33

You forgot one thing Mark. After the end of this year we will be considered a “classic” website for Thundercats Fandom Award purposes

34

Now you’re making me feel old Manny!

I just rediscovered my MOTU and T-Cats site that I made in University in 2000. Now THAT is a real classic.

http://web.archive.org/web/20011020023630/www.motu.f2s.com/tcats.html
Merged Post:

And here is some He-Man humour from Mark back in the day…

http://web.archive.org/web/20020105131225/www.motu.f2s.com/adult.html

35

Hey Manny, how are things looking for plans on the relaunch? What can we do to help?