You may have noticed I've not been visiting as much this past year. Well, last week I finally finished working on something people here may be interested in checking out.

I became the webmaster for UNIMA Australia and set about redesigning the site. We relaunched it last Tues, and I'm happy to say everything seems to be working well and the members like it. If you need a puppeteer from Australia, the site's the place to check out! We've got an online calendar and gallery (the gallery may especially be of interest), as well as membership info and so forth.

This is a kind of unofficial notice, we're planning on doing a full-scale media release to the relevant places/people, but I thought you guys might be interested in seeing what I've been up to.

www.unima.org.au

Na

The website looks great.............................. I know how hectic working on a website can be, however not to the degree that You and Shawn do. It can be quite rewarding once you are done and see how well it benefits everyone. Congratulations job well done.


Billy D.

Thanks Billy!

Actually, this website is tougher than all of the ones I've worked on, mainly due to the code platform I'm using. It's been like pulling teeth

As for reward, I'm happy so long as it works and the committee/members are happy with it. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback so far, which is good.

PS. If anyone's curious to see what the old site looked like, and just how much work has gone into the new one, head to the news page. I did a screen shot comparison and it's quite an eye-opener to see the two designs next to each other.

VERY Nice and easy to navigate around on.  THanks for sharing...added it to my favorites.

Dennis

VERY Nice and easy to navigate around on.  THanks for sharing...added it to my favorites.

Dennis

That's going into my favourite feedback pile. Easy to navigate was one of my main goals, and I'm glad I've accomplished it!

Thanks Dennis!

Great work Na! Very fresh and inviting.  I started to ask what CMS you where using but then figured it out.  Good choice.   I love the tabs... very fun.

Now if you can just get all your users to update their profiles.

I agree with everyone....it is very clean and welcoming easy to navigate around.....great job......you should be proud of yourself.

Daryl H

I like it NA clean and easy to use! There are a lot of talented folks there in Australia. Tell me I hear the Power of the Dark Crystal is suppose to film there have you guys heard anything or been contacted about it?

Doc

Great work Na! Very fresh and inviting.  I started to ask what CMS you where using but then figured it out.  Good choice.   I love the tabs... very fun.

Now if you can just get all your users to update their profiles.

Haha! I'm the same, you can always tell which site is Joomla-based.   (Good choice? No, really, no. It's quite possibly the most infurariating CMS in the world. I'm loving my own site and its blog platform even more now)

As for the profiles: yes, I know. We had a two week 'soft launch' period specifically aimed at getting the members onto the site and updating their profiles. Unfortunately it's hard graft convincing them to do it (most are probably busy, but I suspect a great deal of apprehension getting online at all from what I've heard from the previous webmaster). Hopefully as time goes by more and more members will get used to the new system and be more confident in using it.

@everyone else. "Clean and easy to use" seems to be the majority consensus here, for which I'm very happy to hear. My initial layout was considerably 'busier' and I'm glad that what we ended up with has been exactly what I was aiming for. After a year of staring at the site, it can be very difficult to judge just how easy it is to use, since I already know where everything is!

I like it NA clean and easy to use! There are a lot of talented folks there in Australia. Tell me I hear the Power of the Dark Crystal is suppose to film there have you guys heard anything or been contacted about it?

Doc

Yes, Power of Crystal's been big news hereabouts, but outside of official press about it, I've not heard much else. But then, I'm not exactly in the loop with most of the big-name Aussie puppeteers. As I recall, an Aussie playwright will even be working on it, which is excellent news since most Aussie playwrights never see their work get staged at all, let alone on a big movie such as this. The movie itself will most likely be made in Sydney, so I likely won't be able to get near it myself.

(This is speaking unofficially from my role as webmaster. Our membership is about 100 people country-wide, so hearing about the movie likely won't come from UNIMA Aus. anyway)

If it is going to have an Aussie playwright, how well we understand the dialogue... well there be subtitles.   Just kidding... I happen to love independent foreign films and Australia has some good ones.  Actually have have a harder time understanding some of the dialects and accents from the UK. 

In regards to CMS's, what ever you do never go for Drupal.  I had not used it for some time so decided to try it out on one of my new sites.  Updating is a real hassle. Concrete 5 is a new one I just found and I really like it quite a bit and the interface for editing is very intuitive.  I am also working with CakePHP but it is just a framework you use to build you own system.