I know in website visitors there's often a desire for new things, and things have been very quiet late in terms of the site systems. So this is a quick update (ramble) of things on my mind for those of you that are eager for new things and sometimes ask when something new is going to turn up.
Last time on Lost...
While I was unemployed for six months last year, my main thing was moving the news sites (and I managed CSI Files too, so it's all plural) to Wordpress. I could have done more, but I got lazy. I then had three months of long hours in a job, and now I'm in another job where work/life balance is back in order and I should start pulling my finger out.
News sites
The content management system (CMS) was a big job, but I am tempted to change it again. Bonz does not know this, and will probably kill me for even contemplating this. I want to kick myself too, given the time involved. It's just I found a new CMS which I've fallen in love with, and is so flexible and would counter the issues I've found with Wordpress. However, no promises or plan here and it wouldn't offer huge differences to you the users, more for us behind the scenes.
New design
There will be a new design to the sites. I've been feeling uncreative, but am interested in getting this going. Particularly as my job now involves web design again, I'm back in that mindset. But the sites desperately need a face lift, to remove the '90s styling, simplify layout and allow for mobile version.
Messageboard
The forum software that I migrated us to over two years ago has done very well. We've not pruned once, and it's held up. However vBulletin is aging. They have changed the pricing structure to (IMO) stupid prices, and are now focusing on content managment systems. Much like (for you oldies) Madrona Park/Infopop/Groupee dropped the ball with ubb.threads and destroyed it, I fear vBulletin is going that way. In years there has been no significant advancement and their attempts to do so have been bad (like social groups, which we trialed at CSI Files and were just bad).
To that end, we won't be renewing licences with vBulletin, and are investigating alternative systems. However there is no urgency to migrate again.
Premium members
I'm hoping to offer a new feature for those premium members that have iPhones... soon. Hopefully.
Speed
I do have some things to improve the performance of the boards hopefully, it's just been a time issue - and as it involves meddling with databases, I don't want to rush it. Hopefully some improvements will be made soon.
Spaceman Spiff
There's still no cure for his condition, sorry.
Any ideas?
If you have any specific feature requests, shout out in this thread.
Last time on Lost...
While I was unemployed for six months last year, my main thing was moving the news sites (and I managed CSI Files too, so it's all plural) to Wordpress. I could have done more, but I got lazy. I then had three months of long hours in a job, and now I'm in another job where work/life balance is back in order and I should start pulling my finger out.
News sites
The content management system (CMS) was a big job, but I am tempted to change it again. Bonz does not know this, and will probably kill me for even contemplating this. I want to kick myself too, given the time involved. It's just I found a new CMS which I've fallen in love with, and is so flexible and would counter the issues I've found with Wordpress. However, no promises or plan here and it wouldn't offer huge differences to you the users, more for us behind the scenes.
New design
There will be a new design to the sites. I've been feeling uncreative, but am interested in getting this going. Particularly as my job now involves web design again, I'm back in that mindset. But the sites desperately need a face lift, to remove the '90s styling, simplify layout and allow for mobile version.
Messageboard
The forum software that I migrated us to over two years ago has done very well. We've not pruned once, and it's held up. However vBulletin is aging. They have changed the pricing structure to (IMO) stupid prices, and are now focusing on content managment systems. Much like (for you oldies) Madrona Park/Infopop/Groupee dropped the ball with ubb.threads and destroyed it, I fear vBulletin is going that way. In years there has been no significant advancement and their attempts to do so have been bad (like social groups, which we trialed at CSI Files and were just bad).
To that end, we won't be renewing licences with vBulletin, and are investigating alternative systems. However there is no urgency to migrate again.
Premium members
I'm hoping to offer a new feature for those premium members that have iPhones... soon. Hopefully.
Speed
I do have some things to improve the performance of the boards hopefully, it's just been a time issue - and as it involves meddling with databases, I don't want to rush it. Hopefully some improvements will be made soon.
Spaceman Spiff
There's still no cure for his condition, sorry.
Any ideas?
If you have any specific feature requests, shout out in this thread.
