Here is our little archive of previous layouts. I must admit, the early ones were pretty embarassing, but atleast I didn't use any site builders*! Anyways, on to the layouts!
Launched Date: July 29, 2003
Here was the first layout TDR ever had(V 1.0). To tell you the truth, I had no idea what I was doing for the most part(well, I'd had a little previous experience, but only the basics), so my brother made this basic layout, demonstrating what is what to me. Now, for the layout itself, it had about 7 different banners, because I was always looking for some new images and to test my skills at Photoshop(as you can see from the layouts banner, I had much to learn;) ). I worked on content everyday from the start, and even though I had no visitors, I still updated, informing...er...whoever about what I was working on. The Spyro pages were the only content we focused on at this point, so I made the site's main theme Spyro the Dragon. Thus the sites name, Dragon Realms.
Launch Date: January 10th, 2004
The sites second layout(V 2.0) made certain improvements such as a second sidebar, as well as more legible title buttons. The site gained more sections, as well as more affiliates. I was starting to realize that they're were many Zelda fans as well as Spyro fans on the net, so I added two of my favorite and most frequently played zelda games, OoT and MM. In frebruary, our host(http://8k.com) dropped us for no reason, and since I never made a back-up(again, webmaster inexperience), I was seriously depressed. Somehow, my brother managed to find a cache on Google that had almost all of TDR's pages, which for some reason weren't deleted from googles link but were when you typed the link in directly. I became sure a little while later that I'd continue working on the site. As you can see from this layout, it still was not very advanced, and lacked many things for the visitors to do, besides look at the updates and video game guides. I knew this had to change, so I moved on to V 2.5....
Launch Date: July 29, 2004
This layout was an improvement on layout 2.0, launched on our first birthday on the net. V 2.5 had things like puzzles, a poll, quizzes, and other things for the visitors to look at besides guides and updates. Somewhere around late August, the forums were officially launched for visitors as well, though I can't say that they were wildly popular(they still aren't! XD). Also in V 2.5, Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart Double Dash were included in the games section, as well as the zelda game, Majora's Mask. Mario Kart games have always been near the top of my favorite games, so I figured I'd add them. As the site grew, however, we began exceeding our hosts(bravenet.com) bandwithe limits almost every week, and they didn't support php either. Also, the layout looked rediculous unless viewed in Internet Explorer with a 800x600 resolution. These things motivated me to look for a host change, as well as make a new layout. Coincidentally, just as it seemed I needed a new host, PMU stepped in and offered to host us, talk about luck! You can view a working V 2.5 here.
Launch Date: Frebruary 9, 2005
Layout 3.0 was TDR's first layout that used PHP and was hosted on Pyroman University. Besides this, the layout could also be viewed in a 800x600 or 1024x768 finely(aside from the fact that I forgot a center code for the banner, so it was all the way to the left when viewed in 1024x768). Two more games were added to the games section; ALttP, written by YW, and written later by me, the Minish Cap. Various other things were added as well, such as more interviews in the humor section, and the links were smaller and more professional looking. However, seeing as I did not know CSS, gray was the best link color I could find that went with navy blue and dark gray, however, it still was hard on to view for visitors with their monitor's contrast too high or our colorblind visitors...though I don't think there were too many of those. Also, I used a bit of div coding and the new banner stretched across the whole top of the site. This layout was a good advancement for TDR.
Launch Date: July 29th, 2005
Layout 4 was an overall improvement on the previous layouts launched. It still had all the same content, with the addition of a few other new things, such as the portabella election, this page, and comic interviews! It used CSS for a more attractive design, as well as easier to read, more colorful links. V.4 also marked the beginning of Dragon Realm's first Portabella Election, which Speedy and I worked on for almost a year, in between other content. This layout also was contained in a table in the center of the page, making it viewed fine in any regular resolution you chose. Also in this layout were links in the banner, so that you could access key parts of the site quickly. This layout was an important step for the site both aesthetically and content-wise.
*Not that site builder tools aren't bad, I just prefer learning the coding so I'm not dependent on some host's preset layouts.
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