Site History

What was originally a brief overview is now a rather comprehensive timeline of Aelon’s visual development. The basis of it’s content never really changed until version 7 (as a WordPress blog) came to be.

- Cyrris

EOn v3:

“EOn” was a random name given to a small site run by myself. It had some gaming-related content on it, but was really just a testbed for playing around with HTML and graphics programs. The shot below is of the 3rd version of EOn, which I made in mid 2001. The previous 2 versions are long lost in the voids of cyberspace, but to be honest, they’d be too embarrassing to show here anyway. By the time EOn v3 was up, I had been learning HTML on and off for 5 or 6 months.

EOn v4:

As I had (and still have) a tendency for being ill-contented with my own work, I soon decided to change EOn’s look. Version 4’s code was not even a smidgen different from version 3. I simply spent one afternoon after school sitting down and making new images for the site, after deciding I wanted a lighter look. I actually kept this design for a long time, as I thought it was pretty decent when I made it. From in September 2001, it lasted through until the end of the year, before I decided to stop updating it, and take a break.

Aelon v1:

The design below was made in January 2002, and was originally going to be another facelift for EOn, this time with some actual code enhancements. You can see the layout is really just the same. In February I was talking around with some friends of mine, and we thought it’d be cool if we took EOn off the dodgey .cjb.net redirect and got it a proper top-level domain, using this design. Essentially, EOn was to stop being a testbed for my web skills, and become a proper website on gaming and stuff. EOn.net was (of course) taken, so we brainstormed for a while, making up random names. I came up with “Aelon”, and it was agreed upon (for it sounded cool). Aelon.com was taken, so we decided to aim for the .net domain. I changed the design to match our newfound name, and thus the development of Project Aelon was underway in earnest. Our target launch date: March 1, 2002.

Aelon v2:

With the March 1 deadline behind us, and Aelon still not up because of all sorts of wierd and wonderful problems, I decided to redesign the site. After seeing GameSpy’s Planet- sites, I decided I’d see if I could do a full-screen resizeable design, rather than my usual fixed-width template. Version 2 featured that, as well as a PHP poll, and it was more graphically intense, using all sorts of colourful screenshots from games and things. The design would have been completed some time around late April or early May 2002. I can’t quite remember.

Aelon v3:

More problems, more delays, and thus, more boredom. So naturally, I decided to redesign the site, abandoning the dynamic width, and aiming for a far less cluttered layout. Aelon v3 was one of the sites biggest steps, and I was pretty happy with my design for it. The designs main graphical feature was it’s transparent effects, something I’d never tried before. As well as looking a lot sleeker overall, it was also more interactive, with handy little mouseover descriptors in the top left, under the nav buttons. I also got a random quote generator chucked in up the top. I made heavy use of gradients, which was also something I’d never really tried before. This was all completed by mid July ‘02.

Aelon v4:

Talk about frustrating. Aelon still wasn’t up. Not to worry, as I had some ideas for a redesign to occupy myself. Still using the transparent idea from Version 3 (but mixing it with hard grey), I created Version 4 using PHP includes - my first real venture into PHP. Before thatI had used iframes for navigation, sidebars, and the like. The only iframe I kept was for the poll, so when you voted, it wouldn’t open a dumb pop-up to show the results, or have to reload the whole page. Rather nifty, I thought. The colouring was all drastically different, and it was more compact. Unlike v3, it could fit snuggly into an 800×600 res screen. Version 3 was fixed width, and was a bit too big.

The grey used in v4 ended up being it’s downfall. I could have put up with it longer if the “grey” didn’t come off looking brown-ish. But it just became too irritating. Version 4 was the first to see liberal use of PHP includes, and the layout was very different in terms of how the content was to be displayed. The small gap under the header there was for link descriptor, kept from v3.

Aelon v5:

It was December of 2002, and still the site was not online. A few weeks previously, I’d experimented in making a new Aelon logo, as the old one was boring me. The new one was more curved and generally looked a lot better. Eventually I got around to making a site to match it. As the logo had curves, the site had to have them too, and I’d never done real curves in a design before. I also got rid of that damn “grey” colour, and replaced it with a grey-blue. Technically speaking, this design was not really any different from Version 4 at first. When the prospects for Aelon finally looked better in January, though, I got around to finishing off the front page layout, news boxes, and got a proper PHP news system indestalled. I never got to that stage in Version 4. Six months later, this design finally went to air at http://www.aelon.net. After years of all sorts of hurdles, Aelon was finally online - June 25, 2003.

Aelon v6:

Not long afterwards, Aelon had been running for a little while, and I received a school projectthat required a database-driven project of sorts. Coincidentally, I also wanted Aelon to be database-driven (it wasn’t before, except the news and forums), so I merged the two into one big task. I also decided to change Aelon’s focus from just content to a community, so I inserted more in the way of interaction, such as the shoutbox, and the latest forum posts on the front page. Because of all this, I just decided to go with an all-new design, rather than tweak the old one.The new layout was very straight forward, yet didn’t leave screen space wasted because of all the additional features. It was a lot brighter than previous versions, but whether or not it looks better is a matter of opinion. It was the first full-width design I’d done in a long time, whichI can’t say I’m much of a fan of nowadays, as I run in a reasonably high resolution.

Aelon v7:

2004 saw me start a technology degree at university, and the gradually increasing wall of work made it obvious that if Aelon was to continue in any form, it would have to be something that required less maintenance. So, Aelon v7 was created in July as a blog which Holliday and I decided we would team up to do, with less of an imperative to deliver sizable content on a regular basis. The site used a WordPress backend, as it was clearly the best free option at the time, and I had seen it being used with much success on other sites. I went back to using a fixed width design, and also went back to using symbols for the navigation, which I’d not done in quite a while. The forums were retained and their style was made to match, as per usual.

Aelon v8:

One thing I had wanted to achieve with Aelon’s v7 design was a tableless layout. It was soon after I had begun work on it that I realised how much of a challenge it is to pull that off, and without the necessary time, it was impossible - I’d not taught myself enough about CSS positioning. It wasn’t until v8, created in January 2005, that I made an attempt in earnest. Because of some limitations however, one table was retained to keep things in order for all browsers. Not quite perfect semantics but I was getting there. Generally, v8 was made simply as a design refresh, to neaten up some of the code, and to aim for better standards compliance - which it achieved with XHTML and CSS. Nothing really new in the way of features was added.

In November 2005, the site saw advertisements used in one of my designs for the first time. I made the images myself using the necessary resources from the advertiser, so they could be integrated seamlessly in to the sidebar. I’ve never been overly comfortable with ads, though, and can’t see myself doing anything similar in the future. It was nice to try once, of course, just for the experience.

Aelon v9:

Mid-way through 2005, one thing was really starting to bug me about Aelon. That was the logo. Far too many people I had surveyed had seen the likeness of the stylized “A” and Star Trek’s Starfleet symbol. This absolutely would not do. I figured a new logo would have to accompany a new design, and we’d need to do away with the curves. Pretty much any “A” done in a curvy manner (that I could come up with) still looked like a badge Patrick Stewart would wear. It took several weeks of experimentation before I finally settled on a new logo, and it wasn’t until December 2005, when my busiest ever semester at uni was finally over, that I had time to start the new design.

Version 9’s design left no doubt in anyones mind that Aelon was indeed a blog. It was also the first time in 2 years that it was not just a sanitary white and blue. The main differences though were the attention to detail. Unlike in v7, or even too well in v8, I now knew my way around WordPress’ code with ease, and could make lots of minor adjustments. It’s the little things that counted: the nav bar showing what section you’re in, the sidebar changing to be more relevant to the page content, and a fade-in div to show comment HTML tags when posting. Everything was also more logical and usable - the search box near the top of the page, RSS icons, and generally reworded and rearranged static content. The design was launched to see in the new year, on January 1st 2006.

Aelon vX:

By the start of 2007, I had become somewhat bored of v9. It wasn’t bad or anything, but it seemed a bit bland both in terms of colour and shape. Considering the target market has always been gamers and technically inclined people, I figured a more advanced design with some flair was needed. It took a while to think about how I wanted vX to look, and a fair bit of experimentation, but the end design was quite pleasing, and was launched over the Easter long weekend. Little changed in terms of functionality, it was really just an aesthetic overhaul.