Maidenfans version 3.9 – The Geek Version
So…. Where do we start! Well firstly, 3.9. Why 3.9? Well mainly because its not finished yet so I can’t call it 4.0. There is an awful lot of work still to be done but its good enough to begin testing so I can improve it gradually over time. 4.0 will bring lots of new features and a completely new theme loosely based on the Somewhere in Time artwork. Don’t worry though as this Powerslave theme will still be available. In fact I hope to create several themes based on several different albums – possibly even reviving Maidenfans layouts of old.But enough of whats still to come. I’ll go into that in more detail in time. What I am going to explain is whats changed.
Obviously this news script is new. It’s been custom built for our website including all (eventually) the features we want and need in a news script and all the features YOU want and need but may not even know it yet. We’ve added short and full stories so we can display a brief article on the news page and if theres a lot more information we can have it on a separate page. The comments can now be added without going into the forum. Images can be attached to articles without the need to upload them to external webspace. A list of related articles can be generated to provide links to other stories of interest. We’ve also added a simple archive of our old news sorted by month which can be viewed at the bottom of the news page. Eventually we will also add a search feature and a subscribe feature so you can be emailed when we add news or even receive a monthly/weekly news digest with all the stories we’ve posted over that period.
The tourdates page is in the process of being upgraded with extended details for every venue in the world ever to have hosted a Maiden gig though this is obviously time consuming so we’ll se how that goes. Chances are we’ll only fill in the full details for new gigs as they are announced. Thankfully Maiden are having a touring break for a while so that can wait
The albums page has been expanded to include albums, singles, live albums, DVD’s and more. All with album artwork, tracklisting, lyrics and links to the Iron Maiden Commentary for that album. We’ve also added links to Amazon.co.uk where you can buy the album. Remember that a percentage of the sale goes to us so buy using these links you are helping the future existence of maidenfans.
The frontpage of the website has been tidied up as well so everything is in line and we also promise to update this page much more often than before.
Unfortunately I have broken lots of things. The tourdates, reviews, interviews and links are all a little ropey or non existent, but all these will come in time and will be better than before. I’m not going to reveal all my secrets yet but this site is going to get MUCH better in the next few months.
Please let us know what you think of the changes and any problems you find by leaving us a comment.
3 Comments
Congrats RW !
Good job so far RW. As a geek myself I'm anxiously awaiting v4.0. I remember once asking you about RSS, which is existent, but, I tend to use integrated aggregators in firefox and IE (Sage and Pluck respectively) to access my news feeds without having to actually go to the site or another online aggregator. Do you have an actualy *.xml or *.rss URL where this feed can be accessed for these integrated aggregators?
Not yet. I'm working on adding RSS feeds soon as well as email alerts