The Launch (Finally!)

Today marks the first full day of the Imperium Chronicles website! After working on it, including chapter one of Alexander the Prince, for the last two months, I’m glad it’s finally “done.” Of course, it’s not really done since I now have to get to work on the rest of the story. :-)

Over the weekend, I put the finishing touches on the site, including the navigation bar. It actually went a lot more smoothly than I had thought (certainly a lot more than getting our DSL working!). I’m happy with the site so far, but I know there is more to do, including tweaks here and there.

I’ve also registered the site with www.onlinecomics.net so I hope that will increase traffic. I also added Google’s AdSense, which I also hope will add a little income as well (although I’m not expecting much). Actually, even if I only make a penny in revenue, it will still be 100% more than I made for the two years the site was dedicated to the Imperium Online MMORPG. ;-)

So, moving forward, I hope people like the site and the stories I indeed in include. I welcome any feedback from my readers.

Databank

I made progress in the Databank section, porting over the Imperium section (history, timeline, religion, society) from the old site – so the formatting matches, etc. Using a plugin for Photoshop, I also created images for the three planets that will appear in the story: Aldorus, Revenna, and Prill. I’m not completely happy with how the Prill one came out, however.

Today sometime, I hope to work on the page navigation for Chapter 1.

Browser Issues

I discovered a problem with the navbar using Netscape and Firefox. Basically, the bar shifts up on the screen using those browsers. The bar still works, but it doesn’t look as good. The navbar looks fine in IE and the AOL browsers, so push comes to shove, I could simply state that those are the preferred browsers for the site, which is similar to other sites. I also decided on a preferred screen resolution: 1024x768. The lower resolution 800x600 makes the site look too big, making the user have to scroll sideways. Uck!

I also found a website portal (www.onlinecomics.net) where I will try to get my comic based. This would hopefully increase traffic and word of mouth for the site.

To do list:

1) Make intro page.

2) Finish Chapter 1 renders.

3) Make webpages for each page of chapter 1.

4) Launch site.

Nav Bar

I’m getting excited about how the website is coming along. Last night I spent much of the time configuring the navbar. It uses javascript and drops down with menu options. I got it free from a developer website, but I had to tweak it quite a bit to fit with the rest of my site. I also have to decide exactly what I intend to include, even if some of that isn’t finalized yet.

Using the nav bar and the main banner, I made a quick and dirty mockup of a typical page. I even showed it to the wife. She seemed pleased. :-)

What I didn’t consider was the very first page the visitor to the site will see (the so-called index page). It needs to introduce what the site is about and what the stories featured there are about, more or less. I may include a composite from the comic, showing some of the characters. However, since I only have chapter one done, I’m not sure such a composite would be representative of the story as a whole. I may also have updates etc on the first page, but I don’t want to duplicate what I’m doing here in the blog.

Almost done with Ch 1

I only have the last page to finish and I’ll be done with chapter one. The whole chapter will be twelve pages long. I’ve also started work on the website as well. I’ve designed the new logo (Imperium Chronicles) and the main banner for the site. I would like there to be dropdown menus from a nav bar below the banner from which people can access the stories, databank, credits, etc.

As for the banner, I’m pretty happy with how it came out. I created the logo in photoshop and then a star field in bryce. I then added a lens flare effect and put it all together. The original was too large, so I had to cut it down a bit, but I’m satisfied, at least for now!