First things first. Hello, and Happy New Year!
As you can see, I’ve redesigned the site. This is something I’ve promised for a long time and have been working on even longer. Since October of 2007, if you can believe it. This thing has gone through so many revisions and so many different ups and downs, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to finally bring it to you.
The new site is being powered by WordPress and Tyler Martin’s excellent ComicPress content management system. Tyler was of great personal help to me putting the finishing touches on the site. He helped me not only to customize the archive, but with some of the CSS and page layout as well. He was a very patient teacher and a great help. If you have a webcomic, you NEED WordPress and you NEED ComicPress running things behind the scenes.
Of course, there were others who helped me along the way. I cannot understate the value that my good friend Brian Arnold brought to the project. Brian is a good friend of the site and has actually being hosting Theater Hopper for years. Not only that, but he’s been my go-to guy when things go kerflooey. He has an amazing talent for scripting and is always willing to help. I can’t tell you how many jams this guy has pulled me out of, but in regard to this latest revision, he was INVALUABLE in helping to transfer over 1,000 pages of content from the old database into WordPress. I can’t tell you how much time that saved and I am truly grateful.
Words of thanks also have to go out to Steve Wallace, who was an early contributor to the project. Steve helped me get my head around WordPress and helped me piece together a few layouts.
And last but not least, I have to once again thank David Buist. Dave put together the original PHP database that managed Theater Hopper for years and years practically from scratch. It was a great system, but I would always find a way to break it. He was always very patient and helpful when I sent panicked e-mails to him in the dead of the night. I have to thank him for his contribution or else Theater Hopper would have never lasted this long — and that’s the truth.
I’m taking special care to give a shout-out to all of these guys because this redesign was not an easy process for me. It forced me to adopt some new technologies that I didn’t completely understand and these guys patiently showed me the way. The best I could do was come up with the look and feel. These guys helped make it fly. This change would not have been a success without them. Thank you, guys.
Now, on to business.
There are a lot of big changes all around the site, but I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much at one time. I encourage you to look around. Hopefully you’ll notice that there aren’t as many dead links in the navigation like there was before!
Most prominently, I’ve brought back the Theater Hopper THorum. So, if you’re looking for a place to hang out and talk to other fans of the comic about movies or whatever, it’s open for business!
I’m moderating the board very heavily at the moment because the last THorum was overrun by spammers. I’m approving everyone individually right now, so it might take some time before you can participate. But I’m very much interested in cultivating a community aroud Theater Hopper and plan on working hard to make the THorum the kind of place that I want to hang out as well. So once you’re in the door, you’re going to like it a lot. I promise.
In the meantime, the second big addition are comments under every blog post. If the THorum sounds like too much of an investment, this is your opportunity to leave your thoughts and contribute to the discussion in a different way!
Comment areas can sometimes be dodgy and I’ve had some contemporaries talk me out of including them. But I plan on heavily moderating these as well. If things get hairy, I’ll take care of it. But, for now, I’m interested in them as an avenue for instant feedback to the strip, the site or whatever.
So what do you say we test them out? What do you think of the new site? Do you see any room for improvement? Some easy fixes I could make? What do you like about it? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for visiting!
You were smart to skip town after the holidays!
The lines in the movie theaters were nuts! Shoulder to shoulder!
...parents with screaming kids - bringing 'em to movies they shouldn't be seeing in the first place!
So where did you go for vacation?
Disneyland. Yeah, it was a good time, but...
...my over-exposure to humanity means I can only tolerate you in five-second bursts. So... bye.
Hey Tom, like I said on Twitter, I love the redesign. It’s clean, the ads look better integrated, and I really like the banner image. It just pops.
The only slight issue I see right now is that the rounded corners on the blog entry don’t quite work, but then I’m using IE6 at the moment (not by choice), so that’s probably the problem right there.
Tom,
Love the new site. I only see one problem: the top lines of the 2nd panel are cut off, like the comic doesn’t fit the frame. It may just be my browser. Is any one else having this problem?
Also, Theater Hopper is my all-time favorite webcomic.
Cody, thanks for your feedback. I see what you’re saying about the cutoff. That’s weird, because it displays fine in the folder (http://www.theaterhopper.com/comics/2009-01-05.jpg). I’ll have to see if maybe there isn’t some CSS that’s cutting it off up there.
Jay, I know there have been some problems with IE6 – I use it myself at work and have the same problems. But I think we’re good everywhere else!
Thanks for the compliments from both of you guys!
Looks great here Tom, I know a good deal of work went into it! I checked in a couple of browsers and IE 7 & 6 does cut off a bit of the top of the strip (the words “You were” are chopped). In firefox it looks great!
Am I missing the link to REGISTER at the THorum? I can find log-in, but no registration link….
Bishma approved.
I like the new website design, Tom. Less dark than the last one, more chipper and cheerful. Brighter, even.
For the record, not all of your ads show up and some of the ones that do are not very contextually relevant (ie: why is there an ad for anorexia pills?). I’m not sure if you can control the content of your ads, but if you’re trying to keep the site kid friendly then you may want to consider trying to get rid of the “you’re too fat” ads.
Nice! A minor quibble: The space between the ads/graphcs/stuff alongside the strip could be reduced a little bit so that it’s the same height. It’ll just look a tiny bit cleaner that way.
Kayordeath – I don’t know what was going on with the THorum, but the Register link is now back on the site. It’s in the upper right hand corner!
Trevor – I’m not sure why all of my ads aren’t displaying unless there is something I’ve done wrong in the setup. Or are you at work? Because sometimes I notice ads blocked at work that aren’t blocked at home.
I can control the context of my ads somewhat and I agree that those anorexia pills don’t fly. Thanks for giving me the head’s up on those. I’m going to try and take them down.
Gordon – Are you saying adjust the spacing with the stuff on the left so it matches the height of the comic? I can do that for the most part, although I have some guest strips that don’t match the height (thinking about pulling those out of the archive and giving them their own page). I need to go back in, though, and add a copyright, year and URL to all of my comics for people who try to link directly to the strip.
Great feedback, guys! Keep it coming!
Tom,
Love the new layout. I especially like the “Tag this Page” feature. Helps keep my “Bookmarks” folder in Firefox, nice and clean.
Tom, as a reader since near the beginning, I was slightly apprehensive about a new design, but you really hit it out of the park with this. It looks fantastic, so clean and sharp. Very well done.
Also, I’m really looking forward to the Year 3 book. Glad it’s finally ready to go!
It’s a rare occurance, but I love the new lay-out.
Way to bend WordPress / Comicpress to do your bidding. You have a really nice site design, Tom. But, if you think you’re done, you better think again. Once you learn how to get under the hood, you will want to constantly tweak things. It’s like a drug addiction.
The site looks great to me, Tom.
Love the new look Tom, WordPress/Comicpress are a brilliant method when used correctly and you have 😀
@Tom: I see what Gordon is saying. If you look at your comic and the ads opposite it, there’s a lot of space between the ads which cause them to be slightly longer than your comic page. I think he’s suggesting that you lessen the space between the ads so that they are the same height as your comic page.
I’m still tweaking things a little. What I’ll probably end up doing is increasing the size of the comic image to include a copyright, date and URL. So, that way, when people link directly to the image, there’s still a chance they’ll come back to the site.
That added height should even things up with the ads.
hey there, love the new site layout,
one minor quibble- you seem to have lost the navigation options at the end of the Blog bit, not major but I’m just lazy and usually leave it till there’s a few comics to read but like to catch up on the blogs too!
oh and happy new year!