My final project for ART 3560 (Web Design) has inspired me to do a complete Maikeru On overhaul. Nothing is happening in the immediate future, but in the next month or so I’ll be overhauling the entire site, including:
- New appearnce. The entire site look will be overhualed, including new themes for registered users to select from. Those users that have donated (or will donate in the future, before time is up) to the Help Mike Switch fund will have a new unique theme based on the new site appearance.
- Better integration. I use WordPress to manage as much as I can on Maikeru On, and I’ll be taking this even further in the overhaul. What this means for users is an overhauled registration, login, and customization panel that is fully integrated both with the site appearance (no more jumping to the funky WordPress login box to login) and WordPress itself. Theme information, for example, will be stored in the WordPress database and will no longer use cookies. This includes the MORPG (see below).
- More stuff. This includes the portfolio of my work (professional or otherwise) that is part of my ART 3560 project, a web comic (seriously: don’t ask when), the initial public launch of the MORPG, and maybe a few other things. The MORPG itself will be fully integrated into the site proper: anyone registered with Maikeru On will no lnoger have to seperately register for the game, and the game itself will be a section of the Maikeru On site and not a seperate entity.
- Various enhancements. I’ve installed the latest version of WordPress (2.5 Release Candidate 1), and it’s pretty great. A lot of the improvements are on the backend, but there are a few nice additions that users can enjoy too, such as native support for Gravatars.
The WordPress upgrade seems to have disabled my rich-text comment plugin; I apologize to anyone that really loved it, but I don’t know when—or if—rich commenting will return. If anyone out there has ideas for making the site better, please leave a comment.
chadwick757 said on March 24, 2008 @ 9:45 PM:
This site needs a better way to return to the main page. It took me forever to figure our were the button was. In short th welcome button should be on the other side of the page. I feel that as the only person to read this blog I should be able to convince you to make it more Me friendly.
Maikeru said on March 24, 2008 @ 10:00 PM:
Oddly enough, the new design will incorporate a much more obvious way to get to the home page.
chadwick757 said on March 25, 2008 @ 6:31 AM:
WOOT