PartiallyClips: About the New Site Design

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

More About the Strip:
| Archive Search | New Readers | About/FAQ | Special Extras | Con Schedule | Link to PClips | Transcriptions | Advertise with Pclips | Redesign Changes | Email Rob |


	About the Redesign Hey folks, Galatea here from the Forums with the skippy on the changes you'll find in the site redesign. What's New Comic & Archives » The "Current Strip" and the "Archives" are no longer split up onto separate pages. You can go immediately into the archives from today's strip. » The massive archives table that lists every strip has been moved to its own page and combined with a search feature for both titles and full-text. » There's now a Drop Down navigation menu on the comic page to allow you to jump straight to your favorite strip. » The Post-It note. This may be the shiniest toy on the redesign, and Rob informs me that he'll be using it a lot. It's for important bulletins that all readers of PartiallyClips should know about, which is why it pops up over the comic. But due to the wonders of Javascript you can drag it out of the way to anywhere you want on the screen, or just close it. Sub Pages » Navigation to Sub Pages is now handled by the brown animated nav bar up top as well as text links underneath the nav bar in some areas in case the java/CSS nav bar breaks on your browser. Forums Integration » You've probably noticed the "Welcome Guest" message at the top of the screen. This is the first sign that Rob's finally got forums that work. The forums are running SMF software and should feel familiar to anyone who's used a web bulletin board system. The integration of the forums has led to a lot of changes in how the site is run. · Commentary is now served up directly from the forums and readers can post comments to the commentary by following links back and forth from the comic page. · News posts are also served up from the forums, same thing as Commentary. You'll actually see this setup used in several places around the site -- Cliptoons and Elysium Stone have their own forums with news posts just like the comic page. · The Guestbook has been integrated into the forums. You'll see it in the second forum from the top-- it's the only one where non-registered readers can post their comments. · That being said, all commentary on PClips and Rob's other projects (except for "Get Nifty") is going to be directed to the forums. This includes comments from readers who use the LJ mirror of the comic. » The Forums have a special theme for WAP users so that you can check in from WAP-enabled portables. » We've tried our best to make the new layout friendly for folks on all monitor resolutions, but we had some issues making the integrated forums theme behave properly. I've included a link that will swap out the wide-resolution forums theme for one that's much easier to use on lower resolution monitors -- it has all the same content, it's just not quite so wide. » The forums were one of the main reasons that the redesign happened to begin with. Rob needs more friends, so we figured that if we made his online "house" prettier and the doors easier to find, more people would come to play with him. Premium Content » Donations and permissions to access Premium content are handled through the forums as well. You need to register with the forums to donate, but once you've donated you're added to a special forums group with both access to the TotallyClips area of the main site and access to special Premium Members Only areas of the forums. You'll also get a special designation by your account in the forums if you donate so that everyone knows you're a supporter of PClips. RSS Feeds » There are now several RSS feeds on the site. There's one for the strip only, one for the strip with commentary, and numerous options for the forums. If you want us to add any others (such as, say, a feed with the last five strips listed for those who use Firefox Live Bookmarks...) drop me a PM in the forums and I'll do what I can to spawn something. You can access all the feeds from the forums. Transcriptions Project » Rob wanted to be able to have the full text of his strips accessible by search engines. He wisely figured that transcribing 300 some odd strips himself would be a frighteningly impossible task, but that if every reader transcribed one strip it would be finished in no time. The "Transcribe" link and the transcriptions area of the site are both dedicated to that end. By transcribing a strip, readers can contribute to the architecture of the site itself, as the transcriptions become available in the full text search and the keywords are automatically added to the meta tags for a strip's page. Feel free to debate keywords in the forums. The Store » There is one. Two, in fact. The Locally based store handles books, CDs, and probably eventually song downloads and the like; things that Rob can stock in his own apartment. It also allows you to buy high quality prints of any strip, suitable for framing. The second store is hooked into the local site but is really a front end for CafePress. Through this portion of the site you'll be able to buy t-shirts, mugs, stickers and all that kind of swag that CafePress does far better than Rob ever could ourselves. Banners » We're in a transitional time with banners. The banner spots that were used in the original site design have been dropped in favor of five smaller buttons in the header, a wide tower ad on the main page and a smaller tower on the forums page. The forums ad is saved for featured members of the site to advertise things that are important to them: it will be available to winners of forums contests, folks who make particularly solid efforts to participate in the community, stellar fans and stalkers. Pricing on banner ads will likely change somewhat as we figure out what the pageview and clickthrough averages are going to be now that we've got a new layout. Publications Area » The special password protected area for the papers that run Rob's strip has been substantially upgraded. It's much prettier and more informative, and allows the editors to give feedback on individual strips as necessary. Other New Goodies » There's other fun stuff scattered throughout the site. Can't give away everything now, can I? Click around, you may find something useful that I've left out... What's the Same Comic & Archives » It's the same comic, same artist, same sense of humor. We've just changed the pie crust recipe, it's still PartiallyClips pie. » There are still two versions of each strip, one large and one small. » Commentary is still hidden from view by default, but will stay open through the archives once you've opened it. Sub Pages: » Most of the original subpages from the old site are still hanging around, just looking somewhat spiffier. You'll still find the About Page, the Special Extras, the Talk Like a Pirate Day feature... it's all still around. Cliptoons: » Hasn't changed in the slightest, except that you can now give feedback on Cliptoons news posts. Backstory Since it's not entirely a normal thing for a webcomics author to outsource his webdesign, I figured I owe somewhat of an explanation as to why CuteFuzzy Multimedia wound up doing the new PClips layout. The PartiallyClips redesign project was dropped in my lap back in December of 2004 or so. At the time I had only a modicum of knowledge of PHP and was somewhat doubtful that I could take on something the size of Rob's site. Even so, various mishaps, errors and craziness led to me suddenly having a huge amount of free time on hand to both a) learn PHP and b) tackle this site. I brought on my friend Swingerzetta to take care of the more intense graphics and started reading up on secure and rapidfire PHP. That was in late April of 2005. It's now mid June, which is actually not quite as long as I initially thought this project would take. Questions, Bugs, Comments Feel free to post in the forums if you have questions, find bugs, or have any comments on the redesign. Alternately, you can send me an email at webmaster(at)cutefuzzy.net or drop me a PM in the forums. Thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the new layout!


	PartiallyClips is featured on Yahoo!, and at these fine sites: Site Design by: