ThunderCats Lair -- Taking the Site to the Next Level

This is going to be a long post so please bear with me. I’ve been wanting to bring this topic up for awhile now, but wanted to make sure the time was right before I made the post. Hopefully we can all contribute to this topic in a constructive manner.

While I haven’t really said much about moving the site over to a content management system, I have been doing a lot of research and experimenting for the last four or five months. In that span, I’ve definitely learned a lot and tried to understand what type of system would best fit the site.

Also, the last time I brought this topic up was about two meetings ago…and there was some concern regarding how much control people were going to have over their section and what type of changes would occur.

I’ve taken all of this into consideration and made some decisions that will have both a positive and negative impact across the entire site.

Let me start off by saying I know there will be some hesitation towards what I’m planning to do. And I understand that people are going to disagree with the changes. But, the main reason why we need to make this move is to make it easier on everyone to contribute to the site.

I think a lot of us would agree that HTML has been the biggest hurdle to overcome when it comes to adding content to the site. We’ve all come a long ways in regards to HTML and I applaud everyone for their hard work. That being said, wouldn’t it be a sigh of relief if HTML was the least of our problems? What if publishing content was as easy as posting on the forums? No more dealing with Dreamweaver or pulling our hair over why one page isn’t viewing correctly on IE or FireFox.

That’s what this system will do. I’d like to make it so that someone like Matt can easily add content to his section without having to worry about someone helping him with HTML.

I’ve also found it rather tedious to try and expand certain areas of the site without having to change every single page. Case in point: I’ve been planning on adding a Movie section for awhile now, but unless I update the nav bar (which would be a pain in the ass), it’d be practically impossible to do. With the management system, everything will be automatic. If we want to add a link to the nav bar, it’d take less than 10 minutes for me to do.

Focus more on the content and less on HTML. I think that’s pretty much my goal with this move.

I’m going to be straight with everyone – in order for this to happen, I’m going to need the support of everyone on the site, and that means having the team’s trust that I will be able to do this move the right way.

What this entails is for myself to have full control over the backend of the site including the design, navigation, and layout for the first phase of the transition. While I do not plan on making any radical changes to the layout, I do want the design to be universal throughout each section and still allow the section managers to control the content placement.

For those who have been here from the very beginning know that I would never toot my own horn…but, I do feel that I would be able to effectively make the site much more functional than it currently is. I know the original site layout and design wasn’t the greatest thing to look at, but hopefully its enough to show that I am capable of doing more.

This has nothing to do with the current layout being bad; in fact, I feel that it is fine the way it is. However, in order for the site to evolve, we have to continue to improve and change things around and this is no exception.

The front page will probably have the biggest facelift. I’ve wanted to make changes to the front page for a long time, but could never fit everything I want. With the move, I will be able to be more flexible with news postings and still be able to feature different sections and put emphasis on the forum discussions.

Basically, each news article we post will have it’s own page with the possibility of having visitors comment or link back to the forums for further discussion.

In addition, we’ll have space to prominently feature site updates and exclusive features without having to scroll down the page to find them. It’ll be organized and easy to navigate without being intrusive.

Lastly, I’ll be implementing a script that will allow the front page to show the popular threads on the forum and allow visitors to join in on the discussion.

Let’s just say the new front page will be amazing.

As for the different areas of the site (Toys, Cartoon, Animation Art, Merchandise, etc), I’ll work with the section managers and find out what type of features they’d like to implement in their sections. For example, I know we’ve wanted to connect the encyclopedia and episode guide so that they function together…with the new system, that will definitely be possible.

With the Toys, I have some cool ideas on how to improve the toy guide and other aspects of the toy section. It’ll look really awesome!

There are also some neat things we can do to make the other sections much more amazing!

Whew, long post! I guess I made this post in the hope that I could get everyone on board (and excited) with the idea of moving the site to the new system. It’s going to be a big project for me and that’s the reason why I’m bringing it up now. I’m super excited about the possibilities that we’ll be able to have with the new system!

I’d really like to have everyone jump in on this discussion with your comments, questions, or concerns. I want to know what everyone thinks of all of this and hopefully get the greenlight so that I can start testing out the new software and show you guys what I’ve been working on!

Presumably, as the “guy in charge” of the site, I feel this move will allow us to expand the site without having to worry about the technical aspect. I know by making this move, we’ll be better prepared for all the cool stuff that the movie will bring in the future.

Thoughts?

It sounds brilliant!

My only concern is will this mean any pages of the site will have to be taken down for long periods of time? or is it possible to work on the new site in the background and then when all the work is complete, do a few clicks and it’s done?

I’m hesitant of the site coming offline for long periods. That’s my only concern.

Chris here…

OK, first of all can I preface all my comments by saying that, as is always the case with these types of threads, I think all of these types of issues are exactly the sorts of things that we as a team should be discussing - it takes guts to actually tackle potentially contentious stuff like this, so my hat goes off to you MannyF, and likewise I think it’s fantastic that everyone here is so cool, committed and level-headed that we can discuss issues like this in such a constructive manner!

That said - I do have a number of concerns about this.

I remember the last time this was brought up, the two biggest “naysayers” about this were Kyle and myself. I can’t speak for Kyle, but hopefully he’ll chime in a bit later, as I’d be interested to hear his own comments.

For myself, on the one hand I agree with the HTML concerns. I’ve spent many hours wrestling with HTML for this site basically when nobody (through no fault of their own) has had enough time to do it for me, and have gone through much trial-and-error getting the two sections I’m directly involved with online and site-worthy. I’m aware that there is a great deal of content kicking its heels ready for addition to the site, particularly from Matt’s perspective such as the mini-figures, and it would be good in that circumstance if the site could be made “user friendly” for both the current team and any new members that may join us, in order to maximise the speed at which we’re able to add new content.

However - if I’m honest, my biggest question would be, how much would this alter the design and appearance of pre-existing pages on this site, and yes, I am thinking first and foremost of the Cartoon Section and Comic Section! For the pages in there (including the Encyclopedia), Kyle and I have put in many, many, many long hours of work designing templates and pages for those two sections, and there are some pages of which I’m particularly proud - for example, if you go to www.thundercatslair.org/comics, and then go to the index for the Original Comic Art Gallery, those two pages I created from scratch and, due to my HTML inexperience at the time, between them they probably took me 10 hours to build. Ditto another couple of hours designing the template for the Original Comic Art Gallery pages, ditto Kyle spent a great deal of time creating the templates for the Episode Guide and Encyclopedia, ditto he & I both spent a long time working on the index page for the Cartoon Section - you get the idea!

Now, I’m definitely not opposed to tweaks being made to these things if there are ways they can objectively be improved - but, I do get nervous when I hear talk of creating a uniformity of appearance between the sections, because unfortunately, by virtue of the fact that all the sections of this site have been designed by someone different, that does mean that at least one section manager’s concept of how their index page should look would have to go out the window. Now, if those changes have to impact the design and layout of the Cartoon and Comic Sections I will respect that decision and won’t leave the site in a huff or anything like that, but, being straightforward and honest, I will be very annoyed if those designs and layouts have to go down the toilet…

My other concern, which I remember raising when this first came up, is how much control this format change would allow a section manager to have over the layout of their pages. See, whilst I’ve struggled with HTML over the past couple of years, nonetheless as I’ve learnt more and more about it, the thing I love about it is that theoretically it will allow me to make a webpage look exactly how I want it, if I can figure out the code - whereas any website design I’ve done in the past has been done with software (MS FrontPage, Serif WebPlus, etc.), and thus I’m limited by what that software’s shortcuts allow me to do, HTML allows me to do whatever I want design-wise. This is why I’ve never fancied the idea of downloading Dreamweaver and editing TCL webpages that way, even though it would be quicker, because HTML gives me the control that I want. So again, whilst I will go with a majority ruling, that’s something I’d be loathe to sacrifice…

That’s my $0.02, at least for the moment - I hope nobody is offended by my comments, which are intended to be both honest and helpful. Like I say, I think things like this are important to discuss and debate, and I think this is a thread that all the team should contribute to - I’m looking forward to reading the others’ responses!

Take care…

Without raising any points that have already been risen,.. I think it is important that we see an example of such a system (a trial page or something) so we can see how we would add content. This will allow me to determine if I still have the freedom to create a custom page layout for my ideas in the same vein that I do right now..

If so.. then I am all for it, providing that it doesn’t (as others have raised) take 10 years to set up..

Lets get a working example we can try out.

Chris here…

I agree with this completely, and actually thought about adding it to my original post but felt it was long enough already!

I definitely think seeing a couple of examples of this new set-up is key - I don’t mean the front page (which really doesn’t impact the way anybody works or anything anyone else has created), but both a bunch of example pages integrated into the new system (giving an indication of what type of unformity we’re talking about here) as well as how it would work and what scope it would give us to work with. I think really this is essential on both sides - I may be worrying completely unnecessarily and the results be absolutely mindblowing, equally there may be some element(s) that one or more of the team are unhappy with. So, I agree with Kyle, let’s take a look at the system in practice and form an opinion then!

Take care…

Here are my thoughts on this matter:

This decision should be made based on what we as a team need vs what we as a team want.

I’ve spent time crafting my section to look exactly the way I wanted it, and you all know I’m very protective of my section However, when I step back and think about what we need this site to be, I can’t help but conclude that Manny is on the right track. We need to be able to add content more easily. The reason people will keep coming back to the site is all going to come down to the quality and volume of content.

The direction Manny wants to take us in will support the site’s needs and our goals of having the premier T-Cat site on the net. What I really need is to be updating my section more frequently and posting a whole lot more cels and production art.

The software Manny is talking about will also let visitors to the site post comments and upload their own content which we can approve or reject for addition to the site. This setup is consistent with where the web is headed.

What I think this comes down to is what our role should be as content managers of our sections. We shouldn’t be going through the painstaking effort of writing code or trying to figure out the beast of a tool that is dreamweaver. We’re here to make sure that great content gets on the site, and that the site looks great.

The role that we each hold is to get great content up. The role that MannyF has is to make that easy and to ensure that the site looks great. Frankly I think this is Manny’s call. But being the democracy loving guy that he is he’s asked for our opinions.

What may help answer some of the unasked questions here is: how much control over the placement / design would each section manager have when using the new approach? I’m confident that from what I’ve seen of similar applications, we’ll still have a fair amount of control over how the section looks. We will each have to get comfortable though with a greater amount of uniformity across the sections. I actually think that will be a good thing for the site visitors, which is again what we need to make our focus here.

Another long post…

Everything will be done behind the scenes. Everyone can continue updating their sections. Nothing will be affected while I work on the new system. It’s pretty much as you mentioned Neil…when the work is complete, I’ll do a few clicks and everything will be online.

You’re right in wanting a working example. That being said, this software isn’t free. It’s a lot of money. And since I knew there would be concern in regards to the move, I did not want to commit my own money before I got the support of everyone on the team. I would be able to use this system for other projects, but this site would be the main reason why I put down the money.

I can however, setup up a test site where everyone on the team will have the ability to play around with the features and post test pages and basically get a feel for the user interface (UI). That’s the extent I will be able to go when it comes to giving an example.

What the test site will not cover is the customizable aspect of the software which is where most of the concerns are.

Chris & Kyle:

I know you guys have worked really hard on your sections and I have definitely made an effort to make it possible for everyone to have control over how the content will be laid out. In my original post, I mentioned that I wasn’t going to make any radical changes to the way the sections look except to make it fit within the site skeleton and functionality of the system. What I meant by this is, with the exception of a few tweaks, the pages will look the way you want it to. When I used the word universal, I meant the functionality of the site and the basic skeleton of the design. The body of the page will still act as a ‘playground’ in which the section/content managers still have the freedom to do what they want.

I’m not trying to take away control from the managers and in my original post, I mentioned I would only have control over the design and layout for the first phase of the move. Once I feel completely confident in the design and layout, all control will go back to the managers.

The point of the system is not to take away control from anyone: it’s to allow much more freedom for everyone to contribute without the technical aspect.

Also, while I made it seem as though HTML will no longer be used…we all still have the ability to add HTML into the new system…you’ll just be copying and pasting it into a text box like you would on the forum.

The current site is heavily focused on Web 1.0 technology. What this means is we are having to use HTML more than we need to. And as we know from experience, HTML is inconsistent. Most websites of our size don’t use HTML as its central coding. It’s the main reason why He-Man.org hasn’t been updated in ages…because it’s too difficult to add something without breaking the rest of the site.

We’re getting close to that point and so I’d like to make the move before things go awry.

I don’t know what else to say except that if we do continue under this current system, it’s only going to get more difficult updating the site. It’s easy updating within a specific part of the site, but what about an update that needs to be made across the entire site? How do we expand the site with new sections without having to manually update the nav bar on all 700+ pages? It’s possible to do, but again…wouldn’t everyone like to spend the small amount of time they have on the site adding content rather than making changes to the coding?

For someone who’s built sites from the ground up without Dreamweaver, I know how it feels. I’ve been coding websites since 1998 when Geocities was the only place to make free websites. Having to maintain a HTML-based website is tedious and time consuming…it’s okay if you’re only worrying about one part of the website…but what about the entire site?

The last point: I’m pretty sure everyone is thinking to themselves: “Manny never comes through on these types of things. He’s going to take forever.”

I can’t argue with that. It’s going to take time. But go back to August 2005 when I was showing everyone the design and layout. Do you guys remember how excited I was and how much time I put into the site? That’s how I feel right now. I feel reinvigorated. Maintaining a site may not be my cup of tea, but building sites (designing) has always been my driving force. It’s why I wanted to make this site in the first place.

This project isn’t going to be completed in the next six months. I’d like to launch the site for the anniversary, but realistically, it might take a year to get everything going. The sooner we all get on board, the sooner I can get started.

Whew…sorry for the long post…

Cool.. as long as there is as you say a html input for the body area of the page.. i’m col

that was mt only real concern given how html centric my encyclopedia page layout is..

I’m sure the teams only objection or concern about this will be the time frame…

A nod from me

All right those are some long posts but…I love to read every single one of them. Im not much into writing long posts…thats what school is for . But FWI here is a few things that are of my concern. The toy section layout is perhaps THE best out there, things as simple as the viewers make it stand out from the rest. Basically my main worry is that such a neat feature of the toy section would go away and we would be stuck with a single action figure picture to show. Basically Im hoping that this feature will not go away as i feel it gives an immense depth to the toy section.

My other concern is if the site will be like wikipedia or Thunderpedia for that matter. While it is nice to have that Im not sure that I can handle people posting away content (but that may be fixed by an approval feature of content posted). Also I just love the layout and the graphics of each page we have, Id hate it for the graphics to go away at the expense of adding content with the pages looking bland.

I think what this new system is sort of like Wikipedia where people can add content at anytime which is great but it means that we will be having much bigger roles and will need constant tracking. Its cool I think though because that gives us more control of the areas.

I’m all for change (please dont think Im pro Obama) but we have all seen that with the experience Manny has provided, good change will follow. I think though that we need a working page for us to see what its like.

Lastly Manny there is funds in our PayPal account from the advertising and I want to say that the funds need to be used to offset purchasing such an expensive program…or I can work my magic and attempt to get it for free

Can i get a software name??? Perhaps i can work my magic and get oit for free

Pirate Manny lol

http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoonguide/encyclopedia/evilcharacters/profiles/thirdearth/hammerhand/1.jpg

It’s not Wikipedia. The only access visitors will have is to post comments on news articles and possibly uploading fan art. That’s pretty much all the access they will have.

And it will not look like any type of Wikipedia site. It’ll look like ThunderCats Lair.

Sorry for the long posts! Also, it’s not the software we’re paying for, it’s rather the license to use it. Kind of like vBulletin except the license is for life rather than renewing annually.

Freaking awesome…I’d like to play around with a few pages myself

Seriously though… It all sounds good and you have never disappointed so you got my vote. Remember that if you need to offset the costs though that Paypal funds are available. We should be receiving the rest of the advertising payment soon too.

Aye Aye Captain!!! I cant hear you…Whooooooooo lives in pineaple under the sea, its Manny Squarepants…Sorry i got carried away

Thanks Manny. I’m glad everyone is open to the idea. I’m even happier that we can discuss this in a civil manner.

Also in regards to the toy pages, I plan on updating the Flash and improving upon what we already have…adding some really cool stuff. I know you will LOVE it.

Chris here…

Just a brief post from me about this, as I’m pretty knackered after a hard rehearsal earlier this evening, LOL!

First of all, to MannyF, thanks for all your detailed comments, they make for insightful, enjoyable and stimulating reading my friend! I’m glad you weren’t offended by my comments.

On the subject of the software itself - I for one would love to see any sort of test page that would allow us to check out the user interface, although I hear what you say about the funds. I also think that, whilst I have no idea how much this software would cost, I for one would be more than happy with the concept of any or all TCL funds currently in the pot to be spent on this. In this way, again we’d actually be able to get a flavour for this change without you having invested any or much of your own finances into this.

On the subject of the HTML - that does make me feel a lot better, and I would certainly be very interested indeed to see how the designs Kyle & I have come up with could be integrated into this system.

Mark: First up, double thumbs up from me for a characteristically well-structured, intelligent and persuasive post. I’d love to respond in more detail, but don’t think tonight my brain will work my fingers correctly, LOL! On the subject of this being Manny’s call, to be honest I don’t disagree, the only comment I’d say is that I think Manny is very wise to speak to the team about this before moving forward, not because he really needs our “permission”, if you like, but because every good captain knows that running in a completely different direction to his crew can lead to mutiny! No leader can ever please everybody, but I think once again Manny has shown what a brilliant leader he is by seeking to take stock of the opinions of everyone who works on this site, and for that I think he deserves truckloads of respect.

MannyC: I have to say that, reading Manny’s comments, I don’t think we would be changing over to a Wikipedia-type system - I don’t think Manny wants to set this up so that any joe from off the street can come and add content, but simply so that those of us on the team who are less HTML-savvy (such as Matt, Martin, heck, even me 18 months ago!) would be able to easily create their own pages without having to beg favours off some other member of the team. For myself, one of the most attractive elements of this is the thought of using this technology to speed up the addition of content to the site, which is important not just for now but also in the event of the new movie.

Something else I freely confess I hadn’t thought of until just now with regards to re-jigging the site is that, when the new movie comes out, the site design may need altering to accommodate the altered “brand recognition” that comes with the new movie. By which I mean, in 2003 He-Man.Org redesigned the appearance of their site to reflect the release of the new MOTU toyline - even though if I hate the look of the new movie it will stick in my throat, we may end up having to do the same in order to stay on top and look like the closest thing to an “official” TCats site…

On the subject of the time frame - to be honest, if it takes a year or whatever, that doesn’t worry me at all. My only comment would be that whilst that was going on we would, at least hopefully, be adding content to the pre-existing version of the site, which creates two issues - firstly that this makes more and more material that would need porting over to the new version (you may recall that when we changed over from the very original design of this site to the new version, this site went through a reasonably lengthy period without an update), and secondly, for those of us like myself who may want to add content that doesn’t fit into a pre-existing template, it could create a motivational problem closer to “site relaunch 3.0” - because, what’s the point of creating an HTML page using a certain design, only for it to be superceded a fortnight later! Again, this comes back to my earlier concern about integrating the designs Kyle & I have worked on into the new design, although in reality in this context it’s probably not a big deal…

Phew, that was longer than I expected it to be! For myself, I’d say, perhaps the way forward now would be to a) find out the name of the software so we can all read up about it, b) take a look at an example of it online and each have a play about with the user interface, and c) maybe look into hooking you up with a copy of it, MannyF, using TCL funds - I don’t just say that with an ulterior motive, if you’re buying it primarily for this site then IMHO if there’s money in the kitty (no cat pun intended!) then that should pay for it.

Take care…

Last thing before I head for work…

Brian Gardner is the guy who created the “theme” of the license we’ll be using. Revolution is the title of the theme and it uses Wordpress, which is a free software very similar to Blogger (what we use for the main page), but much more customizable. The reason why I opted to go with the Revolution theme is the fact that it is very customizable to fit the needs of any website.

http://www.revolutiontheme.com/

Live Demo of the theme:
http://www.revolutiontheme.com/demo/

And other sites that use the Revolution theme:
http://www.revolutiontheme.com/showcase

Hope that helps.

As for the funding issue, I’d really like to use my own money because of the fact that I plan on using it for more than just this site. I would feel terrible using the funding for this site for my own personal use. May be I can use a portion of it, but so that there really isn’t any problems in the future, I would rather just pay for it out of my own pocket. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of the money stuff which is why I was hesitant to bring it up in the first place.

Chris here…

Awesome - like yourself I’m going to head off for tonight as I’m a complete wreck, but I’ll 100% look forward to checking that out tomorrow!

Take care…

Ive only browsed briefly thru it and to tell you the truth… I kind of like it. Matter of fact I really like it. It looks really hard to work with but so was HTML and we all know how that worked out for a lot of us HTML dummies

I really like the Pro Media Theme

im all for it if I dont have to beg you guys to upload stuff and its easy and I can do it myself. That would be great, i wouldnt feel so computer illiterate

Just an update. Working on a demo to show you guys…I’ll have something that you guys can interact with sometime this week.

Great, can’t wait to have a play