So....THE MOVE...

[Amber Williams]

So as was mentioned in the news, DMFA is moving on over to join up with Katbox.  Folks can see the upcoming new site at: http://dmfa.katbox.net/  until the domain moves on over.  Which means a few things are in store and a few changes are set to take place.

Obviously if you guys notice something odd about the site or something isn't working, by all means let it be known.  I'd feel bad doing a domain move only to find out there is a gaping issue in the archive.

There's a few features that I still need to flesh out. I know Tapewolf mentioned that the new archive system will likely be brutal on the wiki...I'm not sure if there is much I can do about that one.  I also have the task of going through and tagging all the comic with character names so that will be an adventure of pain for me in the upcoming weeks.  As a thing of note, the Demonology 101 section will not be making this journey...the comic based side things have been archived into side comics and as for the race descriptions themselves, they will go MIA for a bit while I make plans to do a side comic for them (likely 1 page per race) for the archive.  So if folks want to save what exists currently, this would be the time.

The main thing however worth discussing is forum-related.  Technically the katbox has a forum system setup for the katbox comics, but with DMFA we've already got a bit of an established group.  In the meantime the link on the DMFA page will be linking to this one, but I am genuinely curious about people's thoughts.  Would people prefer a link to both forums? Should there be a conversion? Would people just prefer to keep the forum setup as is.  Forums are pretty much about community and as members in this lil one, it is a lot of your guys' judgement.


In the meantime, I'm going to be working on getting the last of the polish onto the new site.

[Scuravolpe]

I say just keep using these forums, but link to both if you have to. But with such a large, established community, there's no way I would suggest totally switching.

I hope the Demo 101 stuff makes it through with all the important info intact. Hey, I say use it as an opportunity to make any improvements or corrections you see fit.

Personally, I don't like the way the new archive is just every page in one big list. But it should be possible to separate them back into chapters, right? Wait. Cancel that. I was about to say Las Lindas has them in chapter blocks, but it seems that's been changed to one big list as well. Huh.

[Tapewolf]

Personally, I don't like the way the new archive is just every page in one big list. But it should be possible to separate them back into chapters, right? Wait. Cancel that. I was about to say Las Lindas has them in chapter blocks, but it seems that's been changed to one big list as well. Huh.

On the other hand, if the archive is every page in one big list, we could use that as a lookup table for the wiki...

EDIT: As regards to moving forum, I'm not sure the katbox forum would be a good fit.
In ours, we have a main thread for DMFA where page discussion and questions about the comic in general are all mixed.  The Katbox forums seem to have things very strictly segregated, so you may only discuss comic pages in one section, general questions about the world in another, and questions about the characters in yet another section.  That seems a bit arbitrary and not especially user-friendly.

What really gave me a double-take was that they did not segregate the comics, so you have this weird melange of posts, each about completely different comics all bundled together (though they do seem to provide a way for the user to filter them themselves if they feel like it).

On a purely selfish level I'd be a little put out at losing the network effect of DMFA readers on my own comic's discussion area, and I'm sure the other comics would feel the same.  It might be something to consider in the future, since CMF is not as active as once it was, and if it dwindles further maybe it should be considered.  But I don't think now is the time.

[MT Hazard]

Personally I'm not happy with this move, I don't think its a good fit. While I read comics on the katbox all of them have a long way to go before they reach DMFA's standard.

I'm not going to do anything drastic like stop reading the comic* and I'll inevitably get used to the new site in time. Change is always difficult, I got used to the old site layout and it being with xepher gave it a certain something I feel is being lost with the move to katbox.


What where the reasons for moving from Xepher?

* DMFA is the second webcomic I started reading, way back in chapter 17. Its still in my top ten.

[Jasae Bushae]

Umm...Im not quitee sure I understand why Demonology 101 is not making the move. Its because the new website is based on comics? O.o

While I have no problem with the move (The closest thing to a complaint I can make is that seeing all of the link stuff to the right is a tad distracting while reading the comic which is manageable)

I can only imagine how much work it would be to do comics based on every topic in the demonolegy. 17 races, two of which never even had proper information presented...That is not even counting the species/classes which would add eight more pages to cover...
And golly, if you were to also to decide to cover the under construction location list or the undisclosed religion/gods list......

I just think it might be easier for you to do some sorta text dump somehow ^^; or even keep it in the forum to save the hassle


Oh~ I just noticed that the new website lacks the about page and the links page, will the new website not be having those?

[Mischa]

Umm...Im not quitee sure I understand why Demonology 101 is not making the move. Its because the new website is based on comics? O.o

I'm not familiar with the Katbox myself, but from what people have been saying here it sounds like it's somewhat strictly dedicated to comics, and thus there isn't really any space for non-comic sections... or something.

[Mihari]

Hi folks, Mihari here, resident cheetah sorceress of the Katbox. I'll do my best to answer any questions you might have. Without further adieu lets get to what we have already:

As a thing of note, the Demonology 101 section will not be making this journey...the comic based side things have been archived into side comics and as for the race descriptions themselves, they will go MIA for a bit while I make plans to do a side comic for them (likely 1 page per race) for the archive.  So if folks want to save what exists currently, this would be the time.

Wait, they aren't? I was under the impression all of your pages and data were being transferred over and made into new shiny pages? Now I'm confused...

Personally, I don't like the way the new archive is just every page in one big list. But it should be possible to separate them back into chapters, right? Wait. Cancel that. I was about to say Las Lindas has them in chapter blocks, but it seems that's been changed to one big list as well. Huh.

The archive is only in a baby basic state, it can be tailored to a many number of ways. The only reason the comic archives are how they are, is the artists in question for each comic never asked for anything more. The one thing we do try above all else is to give artists / writers / etc exactly what they want/need for their comic(s).

On the other hand, if the archive is every page in one big list, we could use that as a lookup table for the wiki...

I'm not personally familar with said wiki, but it shouldn't be very hard to parse the archive and output it to the wiki however needed.

EDIT: As regards to moving forum, I'm not sure the katbox forum would be a good fit.
In ours, we have a main thread for DMFA where page discussion and questions about the comic in general are all mixed.  The Katbox forums seem to have things very strictly segregated, so you may only discuss comic pages in one section, general questions about the world in another, and questions about the characters in yet another section.  That seems a bit arbitrary and not especially user-friendly.

The main thing to keep in mind is this, we push to have everything together because we want our community to see everything at single glance. Having all the comics in one place allows for the community to have the option to easily peak at what the other comics have to offer and discuss. We keep segments separated and categorized because again, we do have several comics to deal with. The segments are intended to make things easier to find, not have to wade through things to find something. On a completely separate note, we do always take suggestions / complaints and try to weigh in everything. If someone has a great idea on how to organize things better, we'd gladly listen and see if it would work.

What really gave me a double-take was that they did not segregate the comics, so you have this weird melange of posts, each about completely different comics all bundled together (though they do seem to provide a way for the user to filter them themselves if they feel like it).

Well, hmm, I always thought the opposite. The challenge with the Katbox was how to have everything easily accessible to all, but not be a massive and daunting mess. Can you imagine if we had a separate forum set for each comic? Well... we did at one point. T'was not fun! The one click filter list to seems (to me and others) very user friendly, and allows for single comic readers to filter and find exactly what they want.

Umm...Im not quitee sure I understand why Demonology 101 is not making the move. Its because the new website is based on comics? O.o

I'm not sure why it isn't either! This misunderstanding that the site is strictly a comic only zone is news to me. We've always told all our artists they can do whatever they want with their comic on their subdomain. We even bend over backwards to help them achieve what they want done.

While I have no problem with the move (The closest thing to a complaint I can make is that seeing all of the link stuff to the right is a tad distracting while reading the comic which is manageable)

Well we are looking at a v4 (or is it 5... ehh, details...) soon, maybe that's something to look at changing.

I can only imagine how much work it would be to do comics based on every topic in the demonolegy. 17 races, two of which never even had proper information presented...That is not even counting the species/classes which would add eight more pages to cover...
And golly, if you were to also to decide to cover the under construction location list or the undisclosed religion/gods list......

I just think it might be easier for you to do some sorta text dump somehow ^^; or even keep it in the forum to save the hassle

As far as I'm concerned it wouldn't be too much trouble to parse the existing pages into raw data and make pages out of them, heck the html could literally be just copy and pasted into pages. I'm not seeing how this would be hard at all.

Oh~ I just noticed that the new website lacks the about page and the links page, will the new website not be having those?

I should know the answer to that, cause we probed Amber constantly about what she wanted... but alas, I forget, she can chime in on those. Our basic stance is this: If she wants it, she just has to tell what she wants it look like.

I'm not familiar with the Katbox myself, but from what people have been saying here it sounds like it's somewhat strictly dedicated to comics, and thus there isn't really any space for non-comic sections... or something.

The Katbox is NOT strictly dedicated to comics.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Hi folks, Mihari here, resident cheetah sorceress of the Katbox. I'll do my best to answer any questions you might have. Without further adieu lets get to what we have already:

Well, howdy and welcome! Your efforts are appreciated.

Oh~ I just noticed that the new website lacks the about page and the links page, will the new website not be having those?

I should know the answer to that, cause we probed Amber constantly about what she wanted... but alas, I forget, she can chime in on those. Our basic stance is this: If she wants it, she just has to tell what she wants it look like.

I think the issue is Ambaargh isn't sure what she wants, which makes it hard for you guys to provide it (having been on your side of this sort of thing before); you've said you're happy to bend over backwards, but if Ambaargh doesn't know what you can do, she won't know to ask for it. There will easily be things Ambaargh knows she doesn't want; selecting from the plethora of options left over is the tricky part.

As Ashley Brilliant put it, "I don't have an solution, but I certainly admire your problem!" :-/

I suspect it's more a matter (for the demonology pages) of figuring out how to attach them into the structure, in an easily managed way (particularly with the pages that don't exist; how do you save a place for it, and yet let it be added to once she gets around to writing it up? Might be obvious to you, but less so to her...) and yet not stop her from doing something else later? Given a little time, I'm sure you and your team could come up with a solution; it's just a matter of figuring out what to provide.


And, of course, it may be that Ambaargh is unsatisfied with how the pages look now, but isn't sure how she wants to address it. In which case, putting them to one side while she thinks is a valid response - even if her fans don't like the loss.




As for the forums, I suspect it's partially a matter of taste, and partially a thought back to where the forum started, on the Nice forums, and having DMFA all mixed in with everyone else. Ish. So re-mixing might not go over so well.

But that's all off the top of my head. Who knows, I could well be wrong on any of those points.

[Tapewolf]

On the other hand, if the archive is every page in one big list, we could use that as a lookup table for the wiki...

I'm not personally familar with said wiki, but it shouldn't be very hard to parse the archive and output it to the wiki however needed.

Thanks for chipping in.  The basic problem is that the wiki is referring to comic pages by number.  In the katbox site they are addressed like this:  http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429-best-to-let-nightmares-run-their-sleep-cycle/
...while the wiki uses a macro to do some simple page translation (which saved us much hassle the last time there was a major update), guessing the description at the end is going to require a lookup table.  It occurred to me that if the archive is a flat list, we could make some kind of redirection script to do the page lookup by scraping the archive page.  Obviously it will become harder if it's split up by chapters, but that's our problem...

What really gave me a double-take was that they did not segregate the comics, so you have this weird melange of posts, each about completely different comics all bundled together (though they do seem to provide a way for the user to filter them themselves if they feel like it).

Well, hmm, I always thought the opposite. The challenge with the Katbox was how to have everything easily accessible to all, but not be a massive and daunting mess. Can you imagine if we had a separate forum set for each comic? Well... we did at one point. T'was not fun! The one click filter list to seems (to me and others) very user friendly, and allows for single comic readers to filter and find exactly what they want.

What we've done here is create a hierarchy, so we have:

+Lusty Siren  (CVRPG comic)

+Lost Lake (DMFA)

+Jayhawk HQ (Project Future)

+London Underground (Codename: Hunter)

+Half-moon Theatre (Everything else)
  +Cut Loose (Cut Loose)
  +Last Dance (Last Resort)
  +Thulda Market (Foxfire Chronicles)

...which looks neater to me than jumbling everything together, but that may just be my programmer side showing through.

Umm...Im not quitee sure I understand why Demonology 101 is not making the move. Its because the new website is based on comics? O.o

AFAIK, Amber just doesn't like it because it's old and she wants to redo it from scratch.

[Mihari]

Well, howdy and welcome! Your efforts are appreciated.

Thanks!

I think the issue is Ambaargh isn't sure what she wants

A'yup!

I suspect it's more a matter (for the demonology pages) of figuring out how to attach them into the structure, in an easily managed way (particularly with the pages that don't exist; how do you save a place for it, and yet let it be added to once she gets around to writing it up? Might be obvious to you, but less so to her...) and yet not stop her from doing something else later? Given a little time, I'm sure you and your team could come up with a solution; it's just a matter of figuring out what to provide.


And, of course, it may be that Ambaargh is unsatisfied with how the pages look now, but isn't sure how she wants to address it. In which case, putting them to one side while she thinks is a valid response - even if her fans don't like the loss.

*shrugs* Could be!

As for the forums, I suspect it's partially a matter of taste, and partially a thought back to where the forum started, on the Nice forums, and having DMFA all mixed in with everyone else. Ish. So re-mixing might not go over so well.

But that's all off the top of my head. Who knows, I could well be wrong on any of those points.

To be honest, not really touching the forum thing, it was pretty much acknowledge at the beginning we had no idea how this would boil over. X3

Thanks for chipping in.

My pleasure!

The basic problem is that the wiki is referring to comic pages by number.  In the katbox site they are addressed like this:  http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429-best-to-let-nightmares-run-their-sleep-cycle/
...while the wiki uses a macro to do some simple page translation (which saved us much hassle the last time there was a major update), guessing the description at the end is going to require a lookup table.  It occurred to me that if the archive is a flat list, we could make some kind of redirection script to do the page lookup by scraping the archive page.  Obviously it will become harder if it's split up by chapters, but that's our problem...

Umm does it help that http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429 also work just fine for pointing to a page?

AFAIK, Amber just doesn't like it because it's old and she wants to redo it from scratch.

Well that sounds like an awefully good reason, but I'm sure there is some kind of middle ground to be found.

[Amber Williams]

The reason for the Demo 101 section not transferring over completely at this time is not really due to lack of ability on the Katbox part but more my own desire to upgrade the information and the incredibly awful outdated art.  The information is old, the art is atrocious, and as some folks have mentioned there are parts that even after all these years were never even filled in.  I have no doubt that if I was really hard bent on preserving each text document and gif file a way could be set up to transfer them over to the new site in perfect mimicry of the original.  The thing for that is I don't want to because I find the art ugly and the info in need of an update...but if I just transfer them over I will likely never get into gear about updating them.  If there is one advantage of doing a small side comic for the races over the current setup, it's that there is more a completionist drive for me to finish them.  And I think it would just look overall better.

Breaking the archives into it's various chapters I imagine is a do-able thing. As I said in the ranty box, there is a lot of tweaking going on.   I find the about page is something I will be able to replicate in a small blurb and really doesn't warrent it's own page at this point.   I'm still debating about the links page and it's future.  It's just something that doesn't have a priority in my mind right now.

I can understand some folks will likely not be 100% "yay" about the move. Change is a terrifying scary monster and I am a big proponent of sitting in one place when it's comfy and it works.  Xepher has been a fabulous host and moving to a setup I have never tried before is quite an undertaking so I'd understand if folks are a little uneasy about the change because part of me is uneasy as well. Not because I think it's a bad idea or that Katbox isn't gonna be awesome as well...but because I fear changes to my routine in general.  But I'm fairly confident once things have settled, it will all work out well.   The programs will allow me to upload the comics in advance which means that the update schedule should become more on the ball regular.

[Tapewolf]

Umm does it help that http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429 also work just fine for pointing to a page?

Absolutely.  That solves a lot of problems in a single stroke.

[Mihari]

Absolutely.  That solves a lot of problems in a single stroke.

Awesome!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I can understand some folks will likely not be 100% "yay" about the move. Change is a terrifying scary monster and I am a big proponent of sitting in one place when it's comfy and it works.  Xepher has been a fabulous host and moving to a setup I have never tried before is quite an undertaking so I'd understand if folks are a little uneasy about the change because part of me is uneasy as well. Not because I think it's a bad idea or that Katbox isn't gonna be awesome as well...but because I fear changes to my routine in general.  But I'm fairly confident once things have settled, it will all work out well.   The programs will allow me to upload the comics in advance which means that the update schedule should become more on the ball regular.

Advance uploads is all good. (not that I'm trying to monopolise the conversation or anything - honest!) And if there were anything we could do to assist, I'm sure you realise we're all champing at the bit to help, as it were. ;-]

It's all good, though. You do what you feel is best; we'll do our best not to jog your elbow. *grin*

[Amber Williams]

I figure.

One of the reasons I put up a thread was because I do value folks feedback.  If people really would prefer the archives separated into chapter blocks, that's something I'd like to know.  Because I also realize I'm fairly easygoing when it comes to certain things, especially when it comes to site layouts and design.   The comic at it's core is something I make to hopefully be enjoyed by folks, so if there are things people think would overall make it more enjoyable or there is a feature folks feel really damper that...feel free to mention them.  It's pretty much the best time for things to get nudged and adjusted. 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Consider this a vote in favour of chapters, then. They break it up, so you can stop partway through.

Mihari, is it trivially possible to have both a full-up archive with everything in one massive list, and a chapterised version? Without making a whole lot of work for both your team and Ambaargh, I mean...

[Tapewolf]

I'd love to see it split into chapters as well.  FWIW switching host for the comic is a little sad in terms of nostalgia and I was a bit worried about the effect on the wiki, but I'm good with it.  Switching forums, that would be a far bigger pill to swallow.  Not least because the current forum hosts my own comic ;-)

[Amber Williams]

I figured most folks would prefer to keep the current forum.  But I wanted to put the option on the table just in case there was a sudden surge of folks wanting to make the change. 

[Mihari]

Consider this a vote in favour of chapters, then. They break it up, so you can stop partway through.

Mihari, is it trivially possible to have both a full-up archive with everything in one massive list, and a chapterised version? Without making a whole lot of work for both your team and Ambaargh, I mean...

Beats me, never tried. Course, not really thinking straight, pulled an all nighter watching server load and all that since the site went live.

Umm, first thoughts would be, sure it's possible to generate two lists, but how to display each of them is the big question.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

It's a forum, Mihari. We can wait a week for a response if you need to sleep. ;-]

[Mihari]

It's not so much just being on this forum and responding, but monitoring the site, as it's a bit more mission critical. There was a rather high possibility that the launch could crashed the server. So I had to watch it and make sure. X3 Artists can be scary when their comics /art is down on an update day. T_T

[Mischa]

The Katbox is NOT strictly dedicated to comics.

Ahhh, my apologies, then!  As I said, I'm not familiar with the Katbox, so I was making a guess.  It's nice to hear that I was wrong, though, and it's not any sort of limitations like that that are the issue.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

It's not so much just being on this forum and responding, but monitoring the site, as it's a bit more mission critical. There was a rather high possibility that the launch could crashed the server. So I had to watch it and make sure. X3 Artists can be scary when their comics /art is down on an update day. T_T

Hey, I run servers. I know how it goes. I meant, getting a response is different to getting an answer; a response is all well and good, but an answer I'm willing to wait for, if you can't answer immediately. Heck, I'm happy with "I'll need to test it sometime, when I'm thinking straight." ;-]

Anyone who expects a straight answer when you're running on 24 hours on the trot is just cruel, and will be disappointed, sooner or later. Once you're happy with the server, get some sleep and then come back and see what gives. If nothing else, the running rate last I looked was about half the population only showing up every two weeks or less.

[Sofox]

Hey Amber, best of luck with the move. And thanks Mihari for coming over to help us with this, really shows you care about us and what's going on.

My primary concern about the move is simple: Broken comic links. DMFA has been going on for over a decade, there are links to individual DMFA comics scattered all over the internet. Forms both here and in other places, TV Tropes, DMFA reviews, chat logs, I could go on. I've seen this happen with countless webcomics when they move, and even with News websites, but the end result is that you come across a link that's a few years old to a cool comic or news article, and when you click on it you get an error message.

My best suggested solution to this: Just like http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429 redirects to http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429-best-to-let-nightmares-run-their-sleep-cycle/, have http://dmfa.katbox.net/Comics/Vol_1429.php redirect to the same page. Ensure that the same type of redirect all the previous DMFA comics (watch out, there's a change in format at the 1000th comic).

The same could be said to apply to the side comic too (in this case it's http://missmab.com/Comics/Abel_03.php redirecting to http://missmab.com/abels-story/abel-3/ ). I'd say definitely do the same for Able's Story since it's pretty epic, well known, and very important to the DMFA lore (so it's likely to be linked a lot), and do the other stories as you see fit.

Other than that, well it's a change, but I'm kinda optimistic about it. The new layout looks good and the navigation buttons are bigger (sidenote to Mihari, have you considered making clicking on a comic page load the next one? I've seen many other webcomics do it and I think it makes navigation easier) I'm not that worried about forum changes since the forum already moved over from The Nice and I kinda like how the Katbox forums do things. Shaking things up and introducing new fans could be a good thing (thought definitely the current forum has it's pluses, not in the least for Tape's comic).

I wish the best to all involved.

[Famout]

Extra long term lurker here (I always browse forums after a new comic, even read over Tapewolf's fan works and the like) and while I love the idea of this move bringing more attention to DMFA (my favorite webcomic) I would like to second the thought of the clockwork mansion being the primary forum.

The main reason though why I decided to break my vow of silence is that I kinda worry about the linked comics section. The default method the katbox uses while effective, is much less detailed then what Amber currently uses. Is there anyway the current set of links could be copied over as well? It is a minor thing, but all the same I have DMFA to thank for me finding a number of other neat comics, like Las Linda's in fact.

[Mihari]

Hey, I run servers. I know how it goes... get some sleep and then come back and see what gives....

Thanks, I took my cat nap, looking to try this in a few.

Hey Amber, best of luck with the move. And thanks Mihari for coming over to help us with this, really shows you care about us and what's going on.

My pleasure!

My primary concern about the move is simple: Broken comic links. DMFA has been going on for over a decade, there are links to individual DMFA comics scattered all over the internet. Forms both here and in other places, TV Tropes, DMFA reviews, chat logs, I could go on. I've seen this happen with countless webcomics when they move, and even with News websites, but the end result is that you come across a link that's a few years old to a cool comic or news article, and when you click on it you get an error message.

My best suggested solution to this: Just like http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429 redirects to http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1429-best-to-let-nightmares-run-their-sleep-cycle/, have http://dmfa.katbox.net/Comics/Vol_1429.php redirect to the same page. Ensure that the same type of redirect all the previous DMFA comics (watch out, there's a change in format at the 1000th comic).

The same could be said to apply to the side comic too (in this case it's http://missmab.com/Comics/Abel_03.php redirecting to http://missmab.com/abels-story/abel-3/ ). I'd say definitely do the same for Able's Story since it's pretty epic, well known, and very important to the DMFA lore (so it's likely to be linked a lot), and do the other stories as you see fit.

We can attempt to manage some of those redirections, but like with all things, it will be very difficult to get them all. The linking itself is already rather smart, IE just the number gets you the link, partial comic names will try to match, etc.. I'll have to see what I can do about redirecting even older stuff.

Other than that, well it's a change, but I'm kinda optimistic about it. The new layout looks good and the navigation buttons are bigger (sidenote to Mihari, have you considered making clicking on a comic page load the next one? I've seen many other webcomics do it and I think it makes navigation easier) I'm not that worried about forum changes since the forum already moved over from The Nice and I kinda like how the Katbox forums do things. Shaking things up and introducing new fans could be a good thing (thought definitely the current forum has it's pluses, not in the least for Tape's comic).

I wish the best to all involved.

Not only does it already allow for comic clicking advance, you can use the arrow keys for navigation, also there are extra commands such as: shift + -> / <- will take you to the last / last comic, shift + down arrow is a random comic if you're feeling spontaneous, there is also a placeholder / bookmark combo, but in all honesty I can't remember if I installed it on DMFA!

EDIT: Well it seems at some point I borked the code for comic click advancement. Must have been when I added swipe gestures for mobile devices and tablets / touchscreens. I'll try to get that fixed ASAP, so thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Extra long term lurker here (I always browse forums after a new comic, even read over Tapewolf's fan works and the like) and while I love the idea of this move bringing more attention to DMFA (my favorite webcomic) I would like to second the thought of the clockwork mansion being the primary forum.

The main reason though why I decided to break my vow of silence is that I kinda worry about the linked comics section. The default method the katbox uses while effective, is much less detailed then what Amber currently uses. Is there anyway the current set of links could be copied over as well? It is a minor thing, but all the same I have DMFA to thank for me finding a number of other neat comics, like Las Linda's in fact.

I think right now everyone is pretty set on the forum not changing. The Katbox will provide it's default forum services despite this being the primary, IE there will be filter links for DMFA / etc.. As for the links, I believe Amber said that's still up in the air.

[joshofspam]

There is one thing I've noticed about that Katbox comic page, (that isn't necessarily annoying, but it does get me wondering about it) is once and a while it seems to be a lag of loading the full page items on a comic.

What ever it's trying to load, the mouse pointer is at least still responding, but everything else seems to be waiting for what ever the the page is trying to do. Seeing it only happens once and a while, I wonder if it has to do with server traffic and the computer is waiting for the server to give it the rest?

If that's so, I wonder if we might be seeing more of the lag time that appears every once and a while with the additional traffic of DMFA added to the group? It's only a minute delay, but still, at first when the Kat box was receiving an overhaul I thought Katbox got hit by something after they just finished working on it.

Still, it's nice to hear about what ever Amber has planned for her comic, she's getting help still on the tech side to help it get there.

Edit: Of course a more wonderful potential from Amber going over to the Katbox might bring new members to both forums and might revive some of the other comic threads that have seemed to be slightly floundering as of late. That would be cool for all.

[Mihari]

There is one thing I've noticed about that Katbox comic page, (that isn't necessarily annoying, but it does get me wondering about it) is once and a while it seems to be a lag of loading the full page items on a comic.

What ever it's trying to load, the mouse pointer is at least still responding, but everything else seems to be waiting for what ever the the page is trying to do. Seeing it only happens once and a while, I wonder if it has to do with server traffic and the computer is waiting for the server to give it the rest?

If that's so, I wonder if we might be seeing more of the lag time that appears every once and a while with the additional traffic of DMFA added to the group? It's only a minute delay, but still, at first when the Katbox was receiving an overhaul I thought Katbox got hit by something after they just finished working on it.

Still, it's nice to hear about what ever Amber has planned for her comic, she's getting help still on the tech side to help it get there.

Edit: Of course a more wonderful potential from Amber going over to the Katbox might bring new members to both forums and might revive some of the other comic threads that have seemed to be slightly floundering as of late. That would be cool for all.

I don't really want to turn this thread into a troubleshooting thing, and the site is still new, so perhaps it's a matter of caching stuff and what not. We'll wait it out, but a minute long wait for ANYTHING on the Katbox is a bit atrocious. So I'll keep an ear out for more/similar reports. Thanks for bringing it to my attention tho.

[Merlin]

...None of the bonus comics are making it over?

[Kuzma Volkov]

So the new domain will be www.katbox.net ? or is www.missmab.com going to be transfered over?

I see you have decided to give the comic mobile device support. Any chance there can be a option at the bottom that stores a cookie to remember the preference to not use the mobile version? Reason I say this is because not every cellphone or even smart phone can view those mobile tailored sites that well.

As far as forums go I'm pretty much indifferent on that one.