[size=150]Update 1: Information about the new forums (including issues) are now attached on the bottom of this post.[/size]
[size=175]Pixar Planet is getting a whole new look.[/size]
Hey Planeteers! As most of you would know I have not been on the forums regularly for months, but I do come back with some great news. I am pleased to announce, on behalf of the Pixar Planet staff, that Pixar Planet will be relaunching with a whole new look these coming months.
It’s been a year in the making and this is a highly anticipated project. I have been working hard on the past year preparing the forums, designing new code & graphics, and beta tested our development projects over the past 14 months.
Many of the new features with the new Pixar Planet site include:
- A whole new Pixar Planet main website (pixarplanet.com) - your one place to digest Pixar news, what’s been happening on the boards, and seeing if any new Pixar Planet publications or episodes from our Media Division have been released.
- A new-look, easier-to-use, up-to-date forum! The software currently being used for our Pixar Planet forums is more than 5 years old - and, as the regular Pixar Planeteer would know, that the software has aged and problems have developed. Our relaunch will fix that - our forums will be upgraded and sport a new, fresh, & modern look!
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A new-look Upcoming Pixar - Upcoming Pixar is trusted by Pixar fans and news sources alike, and Upcoming Pixar is one of the leading Pixar blogs - recognised by Pixar themselves! With the relaunch, Upcoming Pixar will take on a much-needed refresh - same content, new look and an easier interface to navigate. Oh, and searching too!
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Relaunch of Radio Pixar and Peach Magazine. Radio Pixar is arguably the most trusted and most popular Pixar podcast on the net, and Peach Magazine is the only Pixar fan publication. Since these are volunteer-run, both have been out of action in 2010. But we’re pleased to announce that these divisions of Pixar Planet will be launching again!
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Easier registration process. One of the biggest gripes of Pixar Planet is the registration system - as the “human verification” process is tedious and hard to do. The new registration system is based on Capacha - you simply only need to read the words and type it in, and viola! After verifying your email, you’re part of the Pixar Planet family!
- Making the Pixar Planet community a Pixar Planet family. By continuing our off-site interactions with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, deviantArt, and more, we will be bringing Pixar Planeteers closer to the Pixar Planet family.
- Other features include Facebook integration (currently registration, full integration to be confirmed), a new and improved Private Messaging system, a new, more stable chatroom, and more forum post creation controls and features.
Here are some notices for your information:
- All posts on the Pixar Planet forums will be carried over. There is absolutely nothing that you need to do for the relaunch. Feel free to post on the Pixar Planet forums until we temporarily suspend the forums (for a day or two) as we install the new forums.
-Every single theme from the 11 Pixar films will not be fully available until Late 2011. This is because each theme to create is a meticulous process. We have decided to push the new forums and create all other themes over the next 3 months. The themes that will be able to be chosen at relaunch is Toy Story and Up. Other themes will follow after relaunch under this order: Wall-E, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, and A Bugs Life.
- Usergroups, after relaunch, will be unavailable until further notice. We regret to inform you of this and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. This is something that cannot be carried over, and we will be outsourcing a programmer to develop this for us.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to private message me or email me at phileas [@] pixarplanet.com.
We’ll be starting our relaunch this week, and we hopefully will have Stage 1 (forums relaunch) completed by next week! Stay tuned for more information throughout our relaunch.
[size=120]UPDATE 1[/size]
As you can see, the new Pixar Planet forums has finally been implenented! Thank you for your patience during the relaunch process - all minor fixes will be made as soon as possible.
The biggest minor issue with the forums is with image resizing - a feature that was working during our beta testing but is currently unavailable due to technical issues. An image resizing solution is currently being worked out, I please ask for your patience while this is done. I am personally striving to fix this problem as quickly as possible.
Again, as stated in this info posts, only Toy Story & Up themes are currently available. All other themes are currently in production - more information in the post above.
You may have noticed that there are new ways to do things and new features - please feel free to discover them and try them out. This is due to the new forums software installed - different from our five-year old forum software we have upgraded from. I understand that it may be confusing at first but I invite you to please stick your head around and see stuff for yourself.
If you would like to change the size of the fonts on the forums, click on the icon as shown below (it’s on the top right hand side of your page) until you have the size desired:
Unfortunately, we were unable to transfer over the “About Me” entries from your profile. You are welcome to create one again by going to Profile > Profile (Tab).
[size=120]UPDATE 2[/size]
Progress has been really slow with the progress of redevelopment, but we’ve reached a milestone! The forums are finally completed, with the completion of the themes of all the Pixar movies! To select a theme of your choice, go to Menu > Change Theme. Progress is being made with both Upcoming Pixar and the mainsite, so stay tuned!
– Phileas
P.S. Criticism is welcome but please be aware that all changes have been thought out and is for the good of the community. Constructive criticism is appreciated, but downright verbal abuse is not tolerated as per to the Pixar Planet rules.
