Planet Crossroads
Site Design Versions

Last updated 02-10-2004, 10:18

May 12th 2008, 02:58 BST

Site Map - You Are Here:

Planet Crossroads > > Versions

Design versions for PC are in the format X.YZ, where X is a major revision (say, a redesign of the entire site), Y is an minor increase (natural development of the design) and Z is very minor revisions (bug fixing and other changes not designated as a majorily-minor change if you see what I mean).

  • Version 3.00 FP - October 2004
    • Redesigned front page hence the FP tage - shifted all the news off of it and made it into a generic introduction page with links to common stuff. Seemed worth it really. As it's the first page most people see, its changes constitute a version upping. And this is it.
    • Reduced length of the time and date stamps - seemed a good idea at the time, now annoying.
    • Pulled news archive up to June 2004 - the rolling service will still work but only goes back to June 2003.
  • Version 3.00 - September 2004
    • Planet 3 is an almost complete rewrite of the under the hood code for Planet:
      • Brand new common functions including the self building image HTML code complete with dimensions as I always forget to close this tag properly in XHTML
      • New "last modified" text for pages
      • New "pick the table colour automatically" function on non dynamically generated pages where this wasn't happening already
      • A "Clean HTML" function, as I was too idle to go through and convert all the > > to their correct entities. Could probably be expanded for other HTML errors.
      • Build new custom error handling with user friendly messages for stuff we can predict such as no database available
    • A few pages redesigned. New black to blue gradient top and tail of the site. All "tall tables" issues should be sorted now for Mozilla/Firefox users.
  • Version 2.31 - July 2004
    • Fixing of "tall tables" in Firefox browser on home and sub index pages
    • Rollover effect in navigation offset in Opera and Firefox
    • Both updates with thanks to Hymagumba.
  • Version 2.30 - November 2003
    • Under-the-hood functionality enhancement - new "wrapper" functions for each and every single page so they all use exactly the same HTML for the top header, the navigation bar and the footer.
    • The enhancement makes the individual PHP files smaller (so the focus in future will be the page content and not the wrapping) albeit by less than 1k but this makes the wrapping act like a stylesheet, controlled by the content of one file. Yes.
    • Take the opportunity to fix the size of the top left and bottom left graphics in the code, now elminates the "jump" downwards when loading for the first time.
  • Version 2.22 - October 2003
    • Not really an update to the version, more of a general "site enhancement" that doesn't IMO qualify as an increase to 2.22. Added one of those "Report errors with this page" things, see bottom of each page. Doesn't work with URLs with ? in the address though during offline testing but seems to work online...
  • Version 2.21 - September 2003
    • Changed rather silly hardcore colour value that would screw everything up come the colour tweaks for Christmas
  • Version 2.20 - August/September 2003
    • General cleaning-up exercise
    • Tall table issues in Netscape for "You Are Here" sorted - Hymagumba
    • Annotated and cleaned up the stylesheet so everybody knows what's going on - Hymagumba sorted the silly px v pt thing which I was clearly never arsed to fix myself
    • Menu bar missing breaks sorted out to match IE and NS - Hymagumba
    • Missing bottom line from header not showing in Mozilla - Hymagumba sorted it as well. Buy this man a drink, somebody.
  • Version 2.12 - late August 2003
    • Design rolled out to main Planet Crossroads site - first public sighting
  • Version 2.11
    • General fiddling around and minor revisions and expanding of alternating purple colour scheme and black header on deep blue background.
  • Version 2.10
    • Make some new smaller less chunky "in-yer-face" buttons to fit in with the new smaller navigation area, if only because I was sick of great big buttons. Keep the red tint effect though as I still like it.
    • Re-ordering around of sub sections and rewrite some of the section description text.
    • Fix a silly little error with the red roll-over effect which doesn't work as I forgot to apply classes to it. Oops.
  • Version 2.00 - Summer 2003
    • Decide full revamp is in order because I feel like it.
    • Site will have some actual structure and look this time as opposed to being a floating light blue square on a black background.
    • Therefore, make some new graphics in PSP5 and knock up a template. Fiddle with that for ages on end without affecting off-line copy of main site.
    • Version 2 has more structure to it now: an actual header with the logo in the outline style of a letter P (subtle branding if I do say so myself), an area for the navigation stuff and a bottom bar. No longer just a blue square.
  • Version 1.20 - Early 2003
    • After going for months on end without fiddling with the site look and design, finally take the hint and relegate great chunks of the navigation buttons to various subsections.
  • Version 1.10 - Early 2002
    • Added little double pointy arrow type things to the navigation bar which then grows endlessly with the site.
  • Version 1.00 - September 2001
    • Initial launch of Planet Crossroads, September 17th, 2001. Pretty much all sets the tone for the next 16 months...
    • Forum already up and running six weeks before launch.
  • Version 0.5 - August 2001
    • Knock final template up, blue square on black background. Only to be a temporary look until I can do something better (in hindsight, it ended up lasting the best part of the next two years!).
    • Decide to learn PHP and do a site in that as a bit of fun and learn something new. Remake said template in PHP format and add interactive elements to it. Template doesn't work anymore. Oh dear.
  • Version 0.25 - July 2001
    • Do basic sample page in .htm format.
    • Realise that this is going to take far too long to maintain manually and source better alternatives for such a project.
  • Version 0.1 - July 2001
    • Decide to launch a Crossroads site after official site is very lacking in content and updates. Decide I can do it better.
    • Crossroads Online board goes through very bad patch. Set up Ikonboard on free webspace, very successful if a pre-stable server.
    • Plot in head what to do with site and how to make it look and fit together. Should be fun.

Pictures © Carlton 2001-3. Text and site design by Neil Jones 2001-4. All rights reserved. This is an unofficial fansite for Crossroads 2001-3 and is not endorsed by Carlton Television.

Planet Crossroads Site Design version 3.00 FP
Problems with this page? Click here to report it.