Announcement

**Lee Enfield-Burke** · January 21, 2005, 03:20:26 AM

Folks,

I'm starting the rollout of the new YW.com pages this weekend.

Can I get some of you to have a look at the pages and see how they display? The sitemap is here --

http://www.youngwizards.com/YWComSitemap.html

(Note that not all the links in the dropdown menu will be working as yet -- there are still some gaps to fill in before the weekend's over.)

A particular question: Is anyone seeing the banner at the top of the page as a series of vertical stripes rather than a smooth transition from one color to another? If so, let me know what browser you're using and what resolution you're viewing the page at.

Thanks!

**Agent M** · January 21, 2005, 06:53:59 AM

Oh my god, that looks awesome Lee!!! Way different but the site's changed a lot since I first got here... we'll get used to it, it rocks!
Oh, and no stripes for me, least I don't think so

**Kathy Li** · January 21, 2005, 01:35:00 PM

Banner looks good for me--great design!

Are the YW individual book pages supposed to have a grey background? (they look good, regardless, but wasn't sure if that was a bug or a suppposed-to).

Also, got busted links (404) for the first two feline novels on the Map, but not the third...

**Lee Enfield-Burke** · January 21, 2005, 03:08:37 PM

Originally posted by kli6:
Banner looks good for me--great design!

Great! Thanx. The problem is that some browsers seem not to be rendering the 24-bit graphics correctly -- or maybe it's a video card problem. Anyway, the attempt to view it as an 8-bit graphic makes it come out in stripes.

Are the YW individual book pages supposed to have a grey background? (they look good, regardless, but wasn't sure if that was a bug or a suppposed-to).

That's an on-purpose. The book covers differ a lot in colors, and DD wanted a neutral background. None of the blues really seemed to work, so we went for gray.

Also, got busted links (404) for the first two feline novels on the Map, but not the third...

S'okay, will be taking care of those over the weekend.

**Wilf** · January 22, 2005, 10:30:12 AM

http://www.youngwizards.com/AboutOurMakeover.html - "These pages have been tested in EI 6.0"... do you mean IE?

**Sunstar** · January 22, 2005, 05:47:17 PM

I like the new look.

The W@W link lead me to this modified 404 page
http://www.youngwizards.com/404.html

**SilverMarine** · January 23, 2005, 08:04:32 PM

That looks very cool! It's definitely more organized and very compact.

**Peter Murray** · January 23, 2005, 08:51:42 PM

Originally posted by Lee Enfield-Burke:
A particular question: Is anyone seeing the banner at the top of the page as a series of vertical stripes rather than a smooth transition from one color to another? If so, let me know what browser you're using and what resolution you're viewing the page at.

Strange. It's smooth in Safari, but banded in Firefox (0.8 Mac OS X). The screen's set to 1280x960 and... thousands of colours? Hmmm. (Razzin' frazzin' Sims game!)
Ok, at millions it's smooth. The difference between Safari and Firefox may still be worth noting, though, so I'll leave this in.

on DianeDuaneBiography.html
a live action theatrical feature, DRAGONGOLD (formerly known as "Kingdom in Twilight"), due to premiere in the US and Europe in November 2004

That seems to need a bit of updating, such as "Ring of the Nibelungs" and a change of tense.

**Gibby Gibson** · January 23, 2005, 09:16:45 PM

So far, out of all the pages I have checked out, there have been no problems except for a few pages that said they were not there. I am not going to say which ones for I am sure you have already recieved comments about such. Just so everyone knows, I am using FireFox 1.0 for Windows XP.

**Nathan** · January 24, 2005, 02:39:14 PM

Lee: The new layout and organization look great, and I'm really enjoying the new content. However, you might want to know that all of the links to covers (viz., the links in http://www.youngwizards.com/Publicat...nHistory3.html, http://www.youngwizards.com/Publicat...nHistory4.html, http://www.youngwizards.com/Publicat...nHistory5.html, http://www.youngwizards.com/Publicat...nHistory7.html and http://www.youngwizards.com/Publicat...nHistory9.html) in the publication history broke when you moved the pages to their current location from http://www.youngwizards.com/Publicat...nHistory1.html, et seq. (Note that the links to larger versions of the covers shown on the first two pages listed are broken in the old location as well--also, the link to the 'Uptown Local' poster excerpt is not broken in either location.) While these may be the pages that Gibby was referring to, the links remain broken, warranting their mention. Also, the dropdown menus in some of the new pages (viz., "Introduction (2)" http://www.youngwizards.com/Introduction2.html, "About the Author" http://www.youngwizards.com/AboutTheAuthor.html and DD's bibliography / filmography http://www.youngwizards.com/DianeDuaneBibliography.html) drop down behind the 'content block' in Safari 1.2.3 on Mac OS X (though not in IE 6.0 on Windows XP)--the other drop-down menus I've tried behave properly (i.e., drop down in front of the 'content block') in both browsers.

On a somewhat different note, the excerpt from Wizards at War up at http://www.youngwizards.com/The_Book...erExcerpt.html is notably different from that currently on YW.net (at http://www.youngwizards.net/YoungWiz...cerptPage.html), presumably as it's from a later stage of editing--you might want to clarify this matter somewhere on the new excerpt's page, especially for those who have already read the earlier excerpt.

[Edit:] While it looks as if you've fixed the problems I brought to your attention above, I now have to report that the 'vertical stripe problem' afflicts the banner in Opera 7.54 running on Windows ME at 1024 x 768 and 16 bit colour. (Oddly, I don't remember noticing this on previous viewings of the updated pages with this computer/browser combination, and the 'striping' is pretty blatant.) Also, with regards to the W@W excerpt, an allied question I forgot to ask earlier: Is the appearance of this updated chapter a harbinger of things to come? (That is, should we expect to see postings of the updated versions of chapters two and three in the future, or will they first appear to the public in print?)[/Edit]

Nathan

**Zgirl** · January 24, 2005, 06:13:05 PM

That looks GREAT! I love it, truthfully I didn't like the old one much because it was very disorganized but this one I like. But I miss DD's picture on the front page, (not a real picture but her avie, I love that thing.)

**Sunstar** · January 24, 2005, 08:15:58 PM

I was looking at a few pages when I noticed that the "Oath background" in the lower right corner was breaking up occaisonally. Every couple pages part of the picture move up or down causing the image to appear staggered. It seemed to be completely random and sometimes went back to normal after clicking it a couple times. I'm not sure what that means to you but I just thought I'd say something.

If it helps I'm using Internet Explorer 6.0 on 128-bit Cipher Strength.

**Lady Rhiannon** · January 24, 2005, 10:23:32 PM

For me eberything is running smoothly. Which is unusual for my computer, so this seems to be an amazing job that you guys have done.

The backgrounds seem to be working fine for me, on all of the pages, as is the top bar. There weren't any noticible errors anywhere. I really like the sitemap, that is quite a helpful feature.

Really, everything looks great from here.

Oh, IE Version 6, I think.

**Lee Enfield-Burke** · January 25, 2005, 04:34:11 AM

However, you might want to know that all of the links to covers...

Nathan, thanks, I really appreciate this. As usual, there turn out to be ten million little things that need fixing as a site goes up. I think I got all those cover links sorted out, anyway.

Also, the dropdown menus in some of the new pages (viz., "Introduction (2)" http://www.youngwizards.com/Introduction2.html, "About the Author" http://www.youngwizards.com/AboutTheAuthor.html and DD's bibliography / filmography http://www.youngwizards.com/DianeDuaneBibliography.html) drop down behind the 'content block' in Safari 1.2.3 on Mac OS X (though not in IE 6.0 on Windows XP)--the other drop-down menus I've tried behave properly (i.e., drop down in front of the 'content block') in both browsers.

Hmm. I genuinely have no idea what to do about this... Which makes it a good thing that the sitemap is there. (Second thoughts: those dropdowns may have been "cloned" from a slightly different version of the menu: might be only a few keystrokes' difference. If you have the time/inclination, can you give me a list of all the ones that come down in back of the container? No rush about this.)

On a somewhat different note, the excerpt from _Wizards at War_ up at http://www.youngwizards.com/The_Book...erExcerpt.html is notably different from that currently on YW.net (at http://www.youngwizards.net/YoungWiz...cerptPage.html), presumably as it's from a later stage of editing--you might want to clarify this matter somewhere on the new excerpt's page, especially for those who have already read the earlier excerpt.

All I know is that DD passed it to me last week and said, "Here, swap this in." I don't know if there's any more material coming, and I'm hesitant to bug her because she is apparently nose-deep in Romulans at the moment.

While it looks as if you've fixed the problems I brought to your attention above, I now have to report that the 'vertical stripe problem' afflicts the banner in Opera 7.54 running on Windows ME at 1024 x 768 and 16 bit colour. (Oddly, I don't remember noticing this on previous viewings of the updated pages with this computer/browser combination, and the 'striping' is pretty blatant.)

Argh. Is anyone still using ME??? Our stats wouldn't suggest it much. (Well, OK, about 6%: as against 13% for 98 and 60% for XP, with various other OS's scattered hither and yon. (0.67% Linux...)

Announcement

New YW.Com rollout

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