Author Topic: Check Out The New Site  (Read 24952 times)

History Buff

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #15 on: March 23, 2008, 07:57:16 PM »
There are lots of things we could tell you at this point:

It's alive!!!

If you build it, they will come.

Anyway, don't get in any rush.  We're a patient crew.  Remember, we all enjoy the slow life and the charm of an 1880s town in the Ozarks called Silver Dollar City.
Always SEEKING Memories Worth Repeating

History Buff

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #16 on: March 24, 2008, 07:11:35 PM »

I like the SDC bag idea. I have always enjoyed reading and looking at all the ads on the bag. General Store, Ice Cream Parlor, Glass Factory, Candles, Corsets...

I noticed that, at least in the Hospitality House, alongside the classic paper sacks, they have a supply of plastic bags - like they use at Celebration City.  I hope this doesn't mean they're getting rid of the classics.
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shavethewhales

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #17 on: March 24, 2008, 09:36:56 PM »
Alright, the site is ready for a weak soft-launch as soon as I get the content put in, which shouldn't take too long. There'll be a lot of problems with it, but it'll be good enough to work with for a while. At least updates will be a hell of a lot easier, so I'll be able to actually post news updates more frequently.

You'll notice a lot of empty spaces or areas with 'coming soon' written on them though, but bear with me for a while until I get them up.

Also, I've only checked the site in FireFox and IE7, so if you use a different browser, speak up now. (though there's probably not a whole lot I can do if you're still using IE6)


Edit: Never mind, I've decided to wait once again and launch the site when it's more complete. As it is, it would be usable, but there's so much stuff to fix... I'd rather wait till it was more complete.

What I will do is hook up the current home page to my news module so that I can keep more frequent updates up until the time that I can launch the full site. Don't worry, if I have any time at all, the new site should be done soon, maybe by next week if I can work on it every night. There's just a lot of new features with this upgrade that I haven't ever built before like this.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2008, 10:35:22 PM by shavethewhales »

shavethewhales

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #18 on: March 29, 2008, 10:58:12 PM »
Update: I've worked some more on it, but there's still a ways to go before it can be called anything close to done. I'm getting close to where I could launch it, but I still want to wait a while longer till I have more features done. After all, if I went ahead and launched it now, the only new thing would be the layout, and it isn't all that hot. Once I get all the backend stuff and user-features done, I'll probably design a new skin for it.

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #19 on: March 30, 2008, 08:14:15 PM »
I don't know if you've already said you were going to do this or not but I had an idea for the new site. And this should probably go in the Suggestions category but I thought it worked better here because this is the thread for the new site upgrade.

For the new site have you thought of Silver Dollar City having it's own news page and Celebration City having its own news page? I think it would work better this way because right now on the SDCFans home page it all looks kind of cluttered. On the Silver Dollar City page you could put all of Silver Dollar City's news and then you could have a User Submitted area for just SDC. And then Celebration City would have it's own page and White Water also. I just think it would make the site easier to navigate and understand.

It's just an idea.
"May there always be a Silver Dollar City..."

shavethewhales

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #20 on: March 30, 2008, 09:16:56 PM »
^Meh, it's a thought, but the thing is that CC and WWB don't usually have enough noteworthy news to warrant a separate page altogether. Besides, it would be harder to find stories and would increase the time needed to get info from the site.

I may eventually have it set up to where news from CC and news from SDC can be sorted, but I've got other things to work out right now.

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2008, 09:21:13 PM »
Well maybe instead of having two different pages maybe you could just split the home page in half. You could have SDC on one side and CC on the other. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But this is SDCFans.com and not SDCCCFans.com
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shavethewhales

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #22 on: March 30, 2008, 09:39:07 PM »
Eh, there's not much room as it is, but I'll think about it when I do my revision of the template for the new site system. I really just need to get that new system up and running right now though, it's just been a wild ride with one bug after another popping up and throwing me off track.

shavethewhales

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #23 on: April 05, 2008, 07:55:56 PM »
Okay, now it's truly almost done. I just need to fix a couple of bugs, finish the user panel, and put all of the content on the site into a database. It'll take a while longer, but if I get a few productive hours in during the next few days, I can get it done. We'll just see what happens though, I've got a few other projects to do as well, including painting my house.

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #24 on: April 12, 2008, 05:36:39 PM »
Just a head's up - I'm going to try to pump out the rest of the site tonight and tomorrow, but when it goes live there will still be a number of issues to fix up. It should be up by tomorrow night unless - as always - I run into some sort of huge problem, or something else comes up and I don't have enough time.

Heh, I still can't believe how long it took me to do this, but now that it's done running and re-theming the site will be so, so much easier. In fact, I'm already working on a new template that will look so much better than this new one.

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #25 on: April 13, 2008, 04:46:33 PM »
Ok, it's actually up and running now - for the most part. I still need to do a lot of tweaking, and a bunch of pages need to be set-up on the new system, but at least the system itself is up and working.

Tell me if you guys experience any bugs, specifically browser bugs. I've tested the site out in IE7 and Firefox, but I haven't even glanced at it yet in IE6, so I'm sure there are some problems there. I haven't actually worked with the registration page too much yet, so it may not even work right now, but I'll fix it later.

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #26 on: April 13, 2008, 06:03:04 PM »
It won't allow me to log in but maybe that is because you might now have it set up yet. I don't know.

I can't wait until you get all the features on there and you get it all hooked up and working properly. I think it'll look a lot better once it is all up and running.
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shavethewhales

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #27 on: April 13, 2008, 07:11:08 PM »
You'll have to set up a new account on the main site. Hopefully I can eventually tie both the site and the forums together, but they're both set up on different databases, so I'm not sure how it all would work out.

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #28 on: April 13, 2008, 07:19:53 PM »
That is weird. I'll register up though.

EDIT: I clicked on Not a Member at the bottom of the page and it didn't work. I'll be patient for the new site to get up and running though. This is exciting!
« Last Edit: April 13, 2008, 07:22:07 PM by Coaster »
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shavethewhales

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Re: Check Out The New Site
« Reply #29 on: April 13, 2008, 08:28:52 PM »
^I sorta fixed that. You can now sign up, but you'll get a minor error when you do.  No worries though, it's not a big deal.

Anyway, after I get all the old content switched over, I'll be building a feature allowing select members to post editorials on the main site. I'll pretty much allow anyone to write editorials, but I'm going to ask everyone to ask me for permission first, for spam reasons and such. Next, I'll start the lengthy process of figuring out a system to allow members to write reviews/guides/whatever's of rides, attractions, and eateries. Eventually I'll get around to setting up member photo galleries, but that will take some doing due to the heavy scripting it will take to block large images and handle the hundreds of folders and galleries it will create.

And this is still just scratching the surface of what I've been planning, I've got a long way to go.