Website Facelift!

Since you're here at the website, you should notice something different about it. A couple of things right away, and then some more...if you don't...I'll assume you're a new player and just hadn't seen the old look. During staff discussions, we decided the old look needed to go...

During staff discussions it came up that we (the staff) didn't like the look of the site. We had also gotten disillusioned by Joomla! the CMS engine we were using. Here's a brief list of the issues:

• Joomla in recent times has had to issue emergency updates due to various security vulnerabilities
• In fact, it was one of those vulnerabilities that mangled our old site, _possibly_ including the old forums
• I've pretty consistently found Joomla...clumsy? on the administration end of things
• Cosmetically, the site was too somber--the all black theme felt oppressive and combine that with:
• Somehow, the layout was crowded and claustrophobic.

Those last two we could have solved with a new theme (CSS) design. But the combination of all of those, and that I'm working on a site using Drupal CMS for a client motivated me to "test run" a transition on another account.

I really loved the banner we had on the old site, so I sought a theme (developing a whole new one would take too much time!) that I could graft it onto and still be aesthetically pleasing, while maintaining all of the functionality.

Playing with designs, I decided while I loved the braid and gemstone motif, it was one of the things that contributed to the crowded feeling so I gave up on including it in the designs.

Lots of messing around with several different themes, a couple of passes at "from scratch" themes, an content import, many add-on installs, and a quick coding of an add-on...and you have what you see here.

Let us know what you think.

Feaelin