Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

So it begins. As you can plainly see, the main page has been updated and in case you haven’t peeked yet, the gallery update is finally finished. At this point that’s all I’ve changed. Any other section of the site remains in the style of the old design. The thing is that with almost 7000 pages in the gallery, the vast majority of the site has been switched. The other little sections represent something like 10% of the site and those areas will be updated throughout the winter as I get to it.

So what’s different? The site design is wider. Flat out - I changed it to accomodate a larger photo size. Yup. Updates from here on out will feature photos that are bigger and better. At some point I’ll get around to upsizing older photos, but that’s way down the road. You’ll notice the main page has a more visual look and the top featurs the latest updates while the middle and bottom should be familiar to previous coasterimage visitors. In fact, it’s pretty much the same information presented in a different way. I like to think it’s a better way. You can dig through old updates using the search in the top right of pages like this one or clicking the ‘Update Archive’ link on the lower right of pages like this one. That covers this main page stuff for now.

As far as the gallery goes, the main gallery page has pretty much the same info as the old gallery page did. There’s some stats and info in the sidebar along with a random selection of photos. Nothing groundbreaking. However, the gallery has its own search function - completely dedicated to just the gallery…and it’s pretty sweet. Obviously you can search for rides or coasters or parks by name, but you can also get creative in what you search. Go to the gallery and search ‘lift hill’ and you’ll get a bunch of photos showing lift hills. Search ‘airtime’ and you’ll get photos of airtime. Search ’tilt-a-whirl’ and see all the Tilt-A-Whirl photos or search ‘ferris wheel’ and get a page showing Ferris Wheel pics. You get the idea. It’s wide open. Get creative and see what you find. I still don’t have all the metadata filled in so the search function will only become more complete as I find the time to refine it. Really fun stuff.

So those are the most major of the changes from the user end. Look around a bit and get a feel for it. New updates (nice, big, fat photos) are coming this week - and I have 26 park to add.

Speaking of updates, that’s where the major changes tookplace on my end. I totally reworked how coasterimage does its thing and updating the site will be easier than ever for me. When I started this I never imagined (let alone planned ahead for the fact) that I’d have 6000 photos from 100+ parks. The site just wasn’t made in a way to handle something that big. I finally fixed that. So let me apologize for the downtime the past two months and assure you there’s plenty to come.

I think that covers most of the big stuff.

I’m sad to say the mailing list has been dumped. I’m glad to say it’s been replaced by a Facebook page. So if you want yet a different way to keep up and/or interact with us, be sure to check it out and sign on as a fan of the site. It’s just in the beginning stages, but as people start checking it out, we’ll get some things rolling over there too.

As far as park visits go, we’ll probably be at Kings Island today. We just changed our flight for the trip to Disney that was supposed to be next week. We’ll be going the first week in February now. That’s going to be a lot of fun.

That’s it for now. It’s late. I think I have things working. If you spot some weirdness, let me know. Thanks everyone!