CineSmall

Looking good Roxics!

yes family members, The Sanctuary is back in the hands of it's founder.

I've enjoyed being it's caretaker, but it's time for this change.

The community will still go on, I'll still be around, and this place will only get better.

Let's give Roxics the support he and this place deserves!

btw - very cool about the Trailer Park addition!

Thanks for the support Richard. You did and awesome job with the Sanctuary. I know life can get in the way of things, hence the reason I handed it off to you back then. Now it seems we've switched positions. I just hope things smooth over for you as well. A big thank you going your way for your time, energy and commitment to this community.

Hey everyone, I know things are a little different around here. Sometimes change can be hard to get used to. My intent is to keep the community in tact as it's been all these years since it first started. That means keeping things simple and based around the community itself.

I updated the site for a few reasons. The first being that it was an older site and some people were having some issues. Hopefully those are resolved now. The other reason is because Richard had some ideas, as did I, and the only way I really knew to make those ideas happen was go in a slightly new direction.

Like anything new it will take a couple days to get used to it, but from there it will feel like home again.

Good luck with getting it all sorted out!

Mr Conway made it

Roxics, i sent this to your PM, but thought I'd post here since i didn't see a "Hey you got PM" indicator...

just a thought... maybe on the home page you should have some kind of directions. Like Yes, you have arrived at The Sanctuary! go ahead and login with your normal Sanctuary login.
Might help any confusion that members may have.

Looking pretty good so far...

Hey Guys. Yeah there will be a chat room. I'm working on that right now actually. Looks like I'm also going to have to fix the images in the forum.

Richard. I added some directions to the front page.

Cool Roxics.

hey Erik!
Long time, how things going for you?

hey Erik!
Long time, how things going for you?

Just checking the quote field

um I've seemed to have lost a few threads?

Filmsail
Possibly not. A lot of topics that were on the 1st page of the forum before, seem to be on page 2 or 3 now.

ah ok I see it, guess once we've settled I will have to go make them relevant again So far getting used to it. I would say I cant seem to find a good back to forum list button once I am in a thread? Also posting isn't as easy I have to preview and then save. The "Save" throws me off I guess.

Thanks for the heads up. You don't need to preview anymore when replying. I'll see what I can do about changing the word "save" to "post".

Adding a back to forum button up top is something I'll need to look into further. However, you'll noticed now that links to the individual forums now appear on the left under "The Sanctuary".

I'll be tweaking the site further over the next few days, so I really do appreciate all the input you guys give me.

Very cool looking, Roxic.

Glad to realize we wern't hacked. Coming into the place and seeing a completely different sign hanging was a bit of a scare.

I actually like the new interface.

Hang in there Roxics...
getting this all tweaked is going to be an undertaking.

Yeah it's actually growing on me as well.

Oh Roxics any plans on maybe something to flag your favorite threads?

Thank you, Roxics.

Life has been too crazy for me to do anything other than work and school.

I like the new look!

No problem Skye. I know how these things go. Honestly as great as this place is, work and school are certainly more important. When I handed this place off to you guys years back I was in the middle of cutting my first feature, my son had just been born and work was getting time consuming. So I know what you mean.

Thanks for all your hard work the past several years here.

YAHOO is shutting down GEOCITIES !
So,I moved my GUESTAR webzine to
http://guestar.wordpress.com
I think its easier and for me, more fun to do.

Sup Roxics?

Love the new layout... The change is for the better and I'll try to post more often.

BTW, Any chance of us going back to VisionEngine? I really dug that name... No offense to all involved but the name CineSmall just sounds sooo sad.

What about a rockin' logo to help motivate users to post more often, entice people to become members or simply boost moral?

Lol, I see where you're coming from. Unfortunately Vision Engine is gone forever. I let it go a few years ago and a cyber-squatter snatched it up. I registered CineSmall because I thought it was a cool name for a little movie camera. It was the only url I had already that made any sense with the type of site this was. I only put the CineSmall banner up top because it makes sense with the url.

I'm curious, did anyone notice the reflection on the banner and what it says?

Hey guys just a quick update.

I'm still working on the trailer park and the chat room. Apparently those seem to be more complicated then I previously thought. But they are coming.

I've added a Flickr feed to your profile. So if you have a flickr account, when you edit your profile there is a space for you to put in your flickr username and it will grab your latest pictures from flicker and thumbnail them in your profile.
So whether it's just general photography you have on flickr or behind the scenes photos, it's just another way to show your stuff off. You can look at my profile as an example.

I've also added a spot in your profile for you to link to your latest project. If you have any other suggestions for things you'd like to see in profiles then shoot them my way.

I don't want to blow this place up to be all crazy with features, just the core stuff people will actually use and be useful.

I did not until you said that, so I scrolled up to check. Awesome.

Edit: Might want to change the quote color/font/whatever.

Damn Cybersquaters...I wonder how much that loser wants for it?

Why not just do a twist off the name? "Vision Machine" "Vision Factory" "Vision Vacuum" I don't know... Just brainstorming...

Very smooth on the reflection Roxics... I didn't even notice it until you pointed it out.

I'm sure I'm not the only one noticing that the forum has quieted down to a murmur. I don't know if that has to do with the new format or there are too many movies to see. I will say that the name "CineSmall" turned me off when I saw it. I understand that it might be synonymous with MicroCinema, but it doesn't sound as cool as that. It sounds like under-aged hobbyists. Though a lot of members are, they probably would like a name that is open to higher aspirations. CineIndie, CineManiacs, CineArtists, CineSanctuary, CineGroup..........anything but "small", is just my opinion.

Love the new profile photos! t0iletphish's is classic. What I don't like is that threads only fill half the screen, width-wise, especially when you scroll down past all the navi stuff. When linking into a thread, it should fill the screen, or at least 3/4 across. There is no need for Navigation and all the other stuff to be visible, when inside a thread. (Or perhaps on top, where is won't affect thread size.)

When not in a thread, for instance the thread list page - I think that the Navigation sidebar stuff should smaller. I love the new Navigation lists, but the Forum list of topics should be the main focus; easy to see and large enough to be inviting you in.

These are just my own observations. (well, Sheila's too. She was wondering why all this green was filling the screen.) If they are helpful, cool. If format requirements dictate otherwise, take them with a grain of salt.

Oh, yeah - emoticons. I need to insert a smiley! :>)

Mike the only thing I can offer you is a new theme. Go into your edit settings in your profile and switch your theme to "colorise". It may be more to your liking.

I'm already here - every day, multiple times. I love the green. I'm just wondering about those members who became scarce and if it's because of the above changes I mentioned...and also didn't, yet. For example: email notifications to post responses seems to have stopped. That feature made things much more interactive.

I do my best to promote the site - and it's nice to see Plutone and Chet Simmons sign up, since the IndieMeet - so I definitely care about what happens.

I understand that you probably had to change domains and format. I don't know enough about site management to know what you can or can't do. Perhaps having a smaller forum window is just something that you like. If you prefer that or can't do anything about it, I'll leave it alone.

Thanks for listening.

My goal is to make members like yourself happy. That said, I'm still working on things. This site is a work in progress. I just don't want to make too many changes too soon or too often that people get confused.

We're working off an entirely new backend now. So there have been some trade-offs. This new backend isn't focused on just being a messageboard like the previous site. As such the messageboard features aren't as comprehensive as they have once been. So you're bound to find features you had before that are missing now. The upside is that the site itself can (potentially) do more. That's where I'm hedging my bets.

The interesting thing is finding out how people use the site, because everyone seems to use it a little differently. I know how I use it, but I'm not always aware of how other people use it. So it's good that you bring up features that you feel are missing. That way I can try to put them in for you. But as they are different systems, they don't always support all the same features. Some things I may never be able to put back in. In which case we have to rely on good old human nature to adapt.
But I will try my hardest to put in what I can when alerted.

As for the traffic here. Things seemed to have slowed down before the hand off. So I'm under the assumption we fell into a bit of a slow period which is pretty normal for communities. You could say that may have been a bad time to switch the community over since people might get confused. or you could say it was a good time to switch the community because things were slower.

I had to deal with some car issues the last week or so (my car dying on me and finding a new one) so that took a little time away from working on the site. But that's taken care of now so I have some more time to work on the site again.

You know me Mike, I'm always happy to hear your opinions (good or bad) and try to do what I can to make everyone happy. I know you guys invest a lot of time here, the community belongs to all of us. I appreciate everyone's commitment immensely.

Hey guys. Sorry i havent been around much lately. The new site is looking great! The layout and colors really look pretty sweet.

Thanks for that response, roxics! Your attitude is very even keel, and thats a good quality. Yeah, sometimes just change in itself can be a major factor. I also like hearing what Movieman21, Mario and others think. Like I said, I like seeing the face of who I'm talking to. The Navi's good and the rest is growing on me.

Smileys test

As I spend more time really taking in the new site, I came across a few things I think could be improved on. The top of the pages seem to have too much empty space and take up a large portion of the screen. Perhaps make the shadow effect under the logo a little smaller, and remove any additional spacing you have above the logo. It might also help since the logo is left justified, and the search box is right justified, just put them both on the same line so that the search box isnt all by itself in the top corner.

Also, is there a way we can make it so that the catagory list on the left would change somehome to indicate new posts in that catagory?

Yeah movie man I'm going to switch back to the old Bulletin Board style system we were using. This one isn't working. I tired it out it and thought it would be better, but it just doesn't have the kind of features and layout everyone wants.

BTW, Any chance of us going back to VisionEngine? I really dug that name... No offense to all involved but the name CineSmall just sounds sooo sad.

Yeah that was part of the problem I had over the last week. I got a new domain name and things got messed up. I'll be switching the site over to the new domain name and old classic message board system in the next few days.