Posts Tagged website changes
News about any changes in the website
Old Gallery replaced, New Gallery finished
The new Gallery is finally done! A visually superior way to browse artwork in Cat Nine compared to browsing the blog categories/tags!
The artwork inside galleries are now tagged and titled correctly, and clicking them will take you to its associated blog post so you can comment, share, etc. The same goes for the random art widget in the left sidebar, although the “Cat Nine Fan Art” widget will still take you to the Cat Nine Fan Art Gallery since most of them don’t have blog posts. I’ve also added a new random art widget for mobiles too; it’s located in the footer.
The downside is clicking on them won’t bring up the lightbox anymore (except for artwork in the Cat Nine Fan Art Gallery), but I didn’t want that to happen in the first place since people can’t leave comments, and well, it doesn’t increase pageviews.
I also had to split the galleries into 50 images each. There’s something weird going on with the Photo Gallery plugin I’m using if I try to manually reorder images if there are more than 50 images in a gallery.
They’ve fixed it by now. I’ve combined the three Cat Nine Art galleries into one.
Fixing old comments
I’ve been cleaning and fixing the older comments bit-by-bit since I’ve learned to modify the comments through PHP. I’ve finished from page 1 to 90, but it’s a lot of work for not much reward so I might not continue.
Most of those unorganized comments were caused by Livefyre Comments, the comment system Cat Nine was using before March 2017/page 122. What’s worse is it didn’t include images nor image links when it synced with WordPress’ own comment system so those images are lost forever. That’s the reason why some of those old comments look empty or just @ mentions a commenter.
Thankfully, Disqus included image links and formatted the comments for WordPress properly so I likely don’t have to fix any comments after March 2017/page 122 even after disabling Disqus.
Comic archives now readable
I’ve styled the comic archives to be more readable, now it’s a great way to read up to 10 comic pages at once! I’ve added links to the Complete Comic Archive and each Episode’s archive (e.g. Ep.5 Archive) to the Archives page.
Unfortunately, I still have no idea how to automatically add the And yes, if you remove ?order=asc
query string to the Episode links when reading individual comic pages so it’ll still display the default order (descending).?order=asc
from the URL, it will display the posts in the default order, if you need to for some reason.
Thank you BlueDavrial! I got the idea from when he asked how to rearrange blog posts when searching a while ago.
(4/11/2021) I figured it out! Episode links below comic pages should display in ascending order from now on.
Disqus replaced with wpDiscuz
The Disqus plugin hasn’t been automatically syncing with Cat Nine’s WordPress comments so I’ve disabled it for now and used this as an opportunity to try wpDiscuz. So far, I like it better since wpDiscuz actually uses WordPress’ native commenting system while adding some great features.
Pros
- It’s not a third-party website so it should load the comments faster.
- I learned a bit of SQL so I have more control over the comments. Now I can fix or modify multiple comments. Don’t worry, I won’t abuse this power!
- I’m planning to pay for some add-ons for it in the future. The most notable is the Emoticons add-on for the built-in emoji palette… and custom stickers! I’ll definitely add the Discord emojis as stickers later if I get it.
- Guests can now comment without an account, although they’ll still need a name, email, and click on the reCAPTCHA. Logged-in users won’t need nor see the reCAPTCHA. Might change this to the invisible reCAPTCHA if I get that add-on.
- Badges depending on your role, particularly for patrons. I can style them too for additional bling, though I’ll reserve that for higher tiers.
- I’ve finished setting stuff up so you can log-in with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Patreon, WordPress, and Disqus (only available in the comment form). Or you can just register if you don’t want to use any of these or want to set your own username.
Be warned, using any of the log-ins mentioned might use that account’s profile pic.Just installed a plugin that allows you to upload a profile pic. Hope it works!- You can also sync your FB, Twitter, and Google account to your account in your profile page.
- Users and guests can add a link to their website when commenting.
- Possibly more features if I get the add-on bundle. I’ll likely use these two:
- Points/reputation system for frequent and/or highly upvoted commenters, which award badges.
- Embed stuff from Twitter, Youtube, and etc.
Cons
- Your profile pic might be missing if you didn’t have an account here in Cat Nine, or if you didn’t have an email associated with Gravatar when you commented. I might be able to fix them upon request or if you log-in here.
- I’ve disabled uploading media since my webhost has limited space. The only way you can post images is by posting the image’s URL.
- Have to agree/check the Terms and Privacy policy checkbox before commenting, but you’ll never see it again afterward.
- Lacks some features compared to Disqus until I get the add-on for it.
Because of APO (mentioned below), you might have to refresh the page after logging in to see that you’re actually logged-in. To make it more obvious you’re logged-in, I’ve activated the admin bar again for logged-in users. If you can’t see the admin bar, you’re not logged-in or have to refresh the page.
You might need to resubscribe to notifications
I moved from HTTP to HTTPS so I had to reconfigure some stuff in the website, particularly the notifications. You can just subscribe again if the pop-up shows up, but now you can also do it manually yourself through your browser’s Site settings.
Faster speeds with Automatic Platform Optimization by Cloudflare
It apparently makes WordPress sites faster so I’m trying it out for a month. Hopefully, it speeds things for you guys and worth the $5/month. Thanks for helping out by voting on the poll below!
[poll removed, thanks for voting!]
More website stuff. Back to work on the comic after this.
- I know I said I’d change the Aside artwork posts to Image format gradually, but I’ve changed and added the appropriate links to all of them.
- All (three 😆) of the NSFW artwork I’ve done have been uploaded to and have pixiv links now. 😉
- Changed the blog posts displayed on the homepage/recent posts from 20 to 10 to make loading a little faster.
- I can now change the image sizes for Image posts. If it’s thumbnail-sized, it’s likely it will take you to the appropriate link instead of opening a larger version of the image.
- I use Font Awesome for the icons, but the icon kit is loaded after everything else on the page are loaded and there’s a 10k pageviews/month limit. So, I changed from using externally loaded kits to .svg so it’s faster. But because of that, I have to credit them and link to their license properly so I made a new Credits page. I’ve only changed the icons in the top navigation menu for now and had to adjust the CSS for them.
- Added pixiv icon to the top navigation menu.
I ask for witty and I get this
With this new Chat post-format, I might use this for announcements or feature interesting/funny screenshots from our Discord “The Scratching Post”.
Don’t expect me to include most images in here to avoid copyright complaints and those sorts of things. Nsfw images too for obvious reasons.
Supporters page updated
A fresh coat of paint and cleaner CSS for the “new” Supporters page (ex-Patrons and Ko-fi enablers page). I renamed it to Supporters so it’ll fit the new navigation menu if you were curious.
It’s definitely not the most useful nor frequently visited page, but hey, I and this whole friggin site wouldn’t be alive without these guys so thank you once again!
If more supporters show up (wink wink) or if I want to update that page automatically, I’ll probably have to learn SQL or some real PHP since I’ve been making do with modifying .php files at most. Welp, I’ll leave that to future me.
Sticky nav menu?
Speaking about that new nav menu, Mod BlueDavrial has suggested the nav menu should stick to the screen while it scrolls down. I figured most webpages that aren’t comic pages will be rarely visited, so I didn’t make it sticky. I was also worried about it being annoying, but most of us are used to sticky nav menus and when I tried myself here in cat-nine.net I didn’t find it too annoying. Kinda dumb having two fixed bars on my side though. What do you guys think? I’m leaning toward keeping it static rather than sticky.
More site updates
Sorry, I was still actually in a web development mood! How many new/changed things can you count?
I’ve been working on that new top navigation all day, I hope it works properly in most devices. The ones with dropdown menus (e.g. Gallery) are hoverable menus, so mobile users might accidentally open that up instead. I haven’t completely figured what to do about that yet, but I have an inkling.
And now, a brand new Status post-format test. I’ll try not to abuse this newfound power, but no promises! Instead of the complete garbage dump that is Twitter, you’ll only get to see one man’s trash, mine. 😉 While working on this thing, I totally didn’t panic when I crashed the whole Cat Nine site when I uploaded a file in the wrong folder, whoops. I’m just glad this thing’s working now.
As for using this Status format, I’ll try to keep it at 1 or 2 posts a day at most. I’ll likely use this for random thoughts/rants, actual status updates (like if I’m streaming), and maybe sketches. I’ll only share or use the notifications for important status updates and drawings to not annoy you all!
New Comicad Banner
Finally made this banner for my Comicad profile. You know, I’m thinking about writing a review about Comicad since it’s been a year since I’ve used it. Spoiler alert: it’s pretty good as it is but it’s not quite as big and functional as the old Project Wonderful. It’s slowly getting there though and I appreciate that the developer has listened to most of my suggestions.
Because that’s what I’ve been doing the past couple of days. It’s kinda like you’re suddenly in the mood to clean your room and just clean everything. If there’s anything weird or not working, please inform me. Well, back to drawing after this!
Stuff I’ve done:
- Added navigation menu for mobile. Removed the bottom comic nav menu for all mobile users. Landscape mode users keep the top comic nav menu. Portrait mode users get a bigger and simpler top comic nav menu which includes an Episode dropdown menu. Much easier to navigate now for portrait mode users! No button to directly take you to the first page though, but you can use the Episode dropdown menu for that. No idea how to fix that tiny arrow yet!
- Added social media + support menu for mobile. Just in case you guys want to follow me, support me, or join our Discord. Used Font Awesome for the icons; annoyingly, pixiv’s logo isn’t there and I’m not in the mood to do something about that yet.
- Cosmetic changes for mobile
- Images in blog posts should center properly now.
- Remove rounded borders for the menu and banner.
- Remove the top margin from the banner so it’s at the very top of the screen instead.
- Webtoon format comic pages for mobile mysteriously disappeared. Yeah I didn’t do that, must’ve been a WordPress update or something that messed with it. Oh well, I was planning to remove them and it’s a hassle to upload in different comic formats anyway.
- Removed links and buttons to Tapas and Magicat Girl. I don’t care about using Tapas anymore, so I’m going to delete my Tapas account when February ends.
- Updated the New Reader Guide. It also counts as an About page. Removed some outdated stuff and added a little info about me.
- Updated FAQ Page. Mainly with info about apps and tools I use for drawing.
- Updated the Characters Page.
- Changed their horribly outdated pics to the current Episode. I left Rallidae and Robin alone since they didn’t make any recent appearances yet and I want to use images from the comic pages.
- Added pics for Haliya, Haliyans, and Bakunawa.
- Added and modified their descriptions.
- Removed the professors, which I’ve added in the past for some reason.
- Made the page look a little nicer too.
- Removed the “tutorial” text in comic pages except for the first two pages. Removed them because I think they’re an annoyance now. Do you think I should’ve kept them?
- Added complete time info. Finally got WordPress custom fields to work. Currently using it to post the total time an artwork took to make since I’m regularly tracking my time to make myself more productive. Might be able to do something else with what I learned later.
- Removed the special formatting for posts like for Halloween and Magicat Girl. I really shouldn’t have used category or tags to format them, or rather, at least not put them in the single CSS file I’m using since it just makes things messy.
- Reformatted the older artwork blog posts to the current one so they’ll display better. And by that I mean artwork>title>patreon links>content. I probably should learn how to make custom post types for this, but I’ll leave that to future me. Also, it didn’t occur to me till now that I’ve made 230+ blog posts by this point, and that doesn’t include the 230+ comic pages!
cat-nine.net
- Installed Photo Gallery plugin for:
- the (probably) complete art gallery for all the stuff I’ve posted here.
- It’s quite disorganized, and the titles, tags, and descriptions aren’t fixed yet (if ever), but it’s great for randomly viewing my stuff if you used the dropdown list.
- I’ll keep posting my art here as blog posts and in deviantArt.
- the commission and fan art pages. Default WordPress galleries kinda suck!
- I’m a little more lenient now with some of the fan art that I’ve considered NSFW, so they’re now included there! Those new additions are nude or slightly fetishistic at most, so anything spicier than that should still be submitted to the #nsfw channel. Hopefully I won’t get in trouble with posting them, so if I do get in trouble, then sorry but I’ll remove them if I have to.
- Unlike the gallery for my stuff, the fan art gallery is tagged correctly.
- These tags and descriptions won’t work with the search bar on the top right.
- a nifty random art widget that you’ll see on the left sidebar. Clicking on them will bring up a nice lightbox for your viewing pleasure while clicking on “more from me” or “fan art” will take you to their associated gallery pages. I think it’s great to get my and your stuff seen, and maybe it’ll incentivize some of you to submit some fanart for exposure コ穏セ.
- the (probably) complete art gallery for all the stuff I’ve posted here.
- Modified the Miscellaneous page and the nav menu a bit.
- Finally fixed that WordPress logo that points to my blog.
Social media
- Changed Cat Nine Facebook page and username.
- I’ve changed some of my usernames to “thelazylonewolf” since “lazylonewolf” is already taken in some of those sites. It’s also to make watermarking my artwork with their logos easier in the future.
- No changes for my Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch since those were already using thelazylonewolf, or the_lazylonewolf in Twitch’s case.
- Changed my Patreon changed lazylonewolf to patreon.com/thelazylonewolf. There should be no problems with links to my Patreon-exclusive posts since their URLs don’t contain the username.
- Changed my deviantArt from radstylix to deviantart.com/thelazylonewolf. I had to pay to be a Core member for this, but I’ve wanted to change my username since forever. I don’t particularly care for most of the features, but might as well use some of them I guess! There should also be no problem with the links since dA should automatically redirect them to the new username.
- I’m going to keep “lazylonewolf” for my Picarto.