Ok, so I thought I'd give you an update on some things happening with the site.
When the site was created it was to be just a spell book, but it has obviously grown into a whole lot more. The original layout of the screen was a book with 2 pages. Some pages were placed in a scroll instead of a book because the layout worked better for those pages.
When I redesigned the site about 2 years I placed everything in a scroll and abandonoed the book idea for the time. Because a large number of people still used screens with resolutions of 800x600, a book just doesn't fit well. My idea was always to go back to the book layout once less then 5% of the visitors had these smaller screens.
However, like I said, the site now has membership areas, covens, and much more then it did in the past and a book layout just doesn't work anymore, neither does the scroll layout.
So I am now in the process of redesigning the site as a typical website, made for screens with a resolution of 1024x800 or larger. I am also going to create a spellbook site for just spells, as was the original idea. The spellbook website will list all the spells publiclly available, and the spells will still be available on the main site.
------- THE SPELLBOOK --------
You can view the spellbook site here: http://book.spellsofmagic.com/
The spellbook site is now complete and will remain how it is now (for the most part)
------- THIS SITE --------
Will remain, for people who have the smaller 800x600 resolution monitors. However, new features such as friends lists and the new covens will not be added to this site. The URL will change as well. In the future this site will be available at: http://scroll.spellsofmagic.com/
Although this URL currently works, I would not use it yet, since the server is still programmed to reply as www.spellsofmagic.com (What that means is if you try to log in it may log you out)
------- THE NEW SITE --------
Will become available in about a week, and will be designed for a 1024x800 screen. It will appear on http://www.spellsofmagic.com/ and this current 'scroll' version will be available at the address listed above. (Don't worry, navigation between all these sites is easy, and in most cases everyone will be using this new site all the time anyways).
New features include:
- a chat method integrated into each page. This way you can still surf the website and see all the current chat conversation right on the page
- new covens - anyone will be able to instantly create a coven
- friends list - you can create friends lists
The layout will be more typical of a normal website and no longer be cast over an image of a book or scroll.
------- THE MOBILE SITE --------
I am also in the process of creating a mobile site, so people can use the site on their mobile phones.
You can view the mobile site here: http://mobi.spellsofmagic.com/
This, right now, is just a work in progress. I don't have a mobile device so testing is at a minimal, but eventually this will be a mobile site, complete with forums and an online chatter.
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Once all these sites are working I will be moving us to a newest, faster server as well. We are currently on a machine which is about 7 years old and can no longer keep up with the growth of the website along with all the other websites currently running off the server, so things will be much faster then as well.