The Terminator Files Forum

Well... having 'usability' as one of my high standards, and checking the stats for last month (40.73% uses IE8), I think its in the best interest to update it anyway .

Anyone interested: The hack is probably going to be a code that forces IE8 to go into IE7 Compatibility mode. Already read about that a few weeks ago. Not the best of hacks... but thats what you get with a faulty browser (which still 40% uses )

Update: Checking my services and contactsystems, I've still got approx. 2025 articles to review for inclusion (135 Google Alerts with an average of 15 articles related to Terminator in each one of them) and more importantly... another 158 inclusions of fans/companies who have contacted me since the rebuild, which are waiting in my inbox, having contacted them all that the website build has our highest priority.

With that in mind, I'm leaning towards making the website news-less and reincluding those at later dates... or keeping it more of an archive.

Dunno yet... I'm having fun and keep ya all posted through this topic.

I'm almost somewhat affraid to post news on the progression of the new site. Over announced through this topic... and on the main site... saying that the new site would be online this Christmas... well... its bigger and more work than expected.

The progress is somewhat slow lately, since holidays are over and I have lots of ideas I want to implement in the new site. Fortunately for you folks out there... I'm thinking of adding them when the site is live, introducing new functions as we go on.

That said... I do have good news for you all... and that is that I have finished a lot of sections that should make the site go online very soon. Still want to reinclude all articles, which will take some time recoding, then need to finish all Terminator movie sections... some media, desktops etc (which will have a redone interface and selection method) and some other stuff... but all in all I think when that is done, we could possibly launch already.

Just keeping all readers in the loop of things.

Ooh... and beta testers will be contacted later on this month, or maybe February. We need to launch soon, since I see sites around us taking all the glory, whilst we are still the number one source for all things Terminator related. And that will be a FACT, when the new site goes live.

(Having programmed and designed the thing for over 4 months already, the site may seem old to myself, but I still find that its really looking cool and I'm sure when done, and online, all of you will LOVE it too).

Hang in there... its coming!!!

Can't wait to see what it's going to be like!

Nifty little update for you folks that are interested...
I compared the source code of both the old and new website... and came to the cool conclusion that I was able to slice it down by half, or even a third of the original file-size (images not included).

From a load variable and browser view, this is super big news! In essence this means the site should load twice or three times faster as it currently does (not taking your service provider, connection and our possible own server slagg into account).

I also tried to explain other programmers how I build this baby, construction wise with templates, includes and other enabled systems... and allbeit them being somewhat savvy with coding, they were also very impressed and confused about it. I had to do another run at the code and explain it in further detail (and almost lost myself in the translation of the code hierachy/architecture).

Now... I won't call myself some super coding dude... but some of the other programmers who checked my code said I appearently am (or have become). Feels nice to hear... so lets call this little info update some healthy 'self-acknowledgment' .

That said... some new stuff was finished and fully tested, but I also have a few weeks of big work related deadlines and issues upcoming, soo updating might be halted until the next weekend.

More to come in due time... from this 'self-acknowledged super coder' .

PS: I also redid the server architecture, soo if things look strange on the current website or the forums... you all know why.

pfft, show off!

Now I could say that it sounds great and all but you'll keep teasing us!
"Your website, give it to me, NOW!"

On a little side-note: If and when it launches and everybody says, "what was all that hoopla about"... I'm probably prompted to say that the sites coding was the biggest update, since its contents seems the same (which you will all see when its done).

Rest be assured... any webdesigner reading this topic knows what I am talking about when I come with the following tidbits that is mandatory in developing these days:

- Site should load fast
- Site should be visible in any browser, preferably the same
- Site should be visible in any resolution, from 1024 and up
- Site should be scalable in code (making it easy to update)

Just four corner stones of building a site, but if any of them is done incorrectly, the rest have no function whatsoever. I've checked the coding and interfaces of many fansites out there... and most fail on this and other tidbits I did not mention yet. I will not give out names of site either... its in my own best interest to make out site the best, and not talk down on others.

Anyway... updated a bit of coding again, and checked out CSS3 functions, which however do not work in IE7 and IE8... and since the bigger percentage of users is still using that browser, I will not be able to implement the stuff (or I will, but then the second tidbit above no longer applies... and FF3 users see effects that IE7/8 users doe not).

Also coded a new video function... which is somewhat hard to do... so this too will be added to the back of my todos list.

As ever... more to come in due time. Though its getting somewhat harder to give a launchdate, since I still find stuff I want to include into the site, before launching, since I never liked launching incomplete websites (and which is not functional anyway... don't you folks hate sites that say "coming soon" on many of their pages?! I do!!!).

That said... I'm getting back to coding some more ... eeuhm code?

Good luck there bro.

I managed to do some more updates on the new system. For anyone interested... the new site will now also be equiped with jQuery driven interface elements.

Another development tool to add to the stockpile of things I now have planned for the site. I think this thing never gets finished this way... soo I set myself the goal to get the thing launched... and then implementing new functions as we go along.

And to imagine... that I once said this new site would be easier to maintain?! Well... it IS, but I'm still busy recompiling all the data. Thats 14.9 GIG of date folks... so sit back, relax and see ya all in a few more weeks.

All in all... with what I have planned and want to implement, this baby is gonna be big!!! Jippikajee!!!

More to come in due time... (as always).

Finally found a code to force the forum into Internet Explorer 7 Compatability mode.
Forum should work fine... until Microsoft launches another few faulty products (IE9 is coming, and webdevelopers can't wait to see what they fuck up this time around).

No standards compliance since IE5.... juck!!

Anyway... error seems to be resolved... unless you folks type heaps of big post that are around or over the max chars setting of the forums, which is somewhere around 6000 (or 600?!) chars, if I remember correct.

The limit is 60,000 characters and I've only approached that twice.

And since you make the biggest posts ever, you're the perfect test

Mmm... may need to reset that one .

Don't know what server platform your using, but in IIS you can down-force a website into ie7 mode, so you don't need to code

IIS is Microsoft and by definition sucks. Open Source on the other hand is free (to a certain level) and with an open community, freely updatable and expandable.

And coding isn't that hard either... having more control over whats shown is also nice (for instance a previous host I once -12 years ago- used had lots of CGI and FrontPage shyte loaded, with hundreds of unused scripts, but still loaded on the server and sites... but not using any is overload).

Anyway... just my view on things.

Back on topic: Loaded a few new functions in combination with RSS feeds on new website, which makes us able to auto-post to our Google Buzz, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other affiliated accounts... all on-the-fly (or at least within the hour)!

Won't go into details right this instance... but a very very very cool new feature which we are happy to have delved into before launching the full new site.

As ever... hope to deliver those goodies asap. ETA is now within a few weeks time, depending on traffic conditions .