The site might not look all that different at first glance, but internally things are VERY different. Please take a moment and read a detailed description of the new site so you can make the most of it!
More Details
Welcome to the new Dent!
At first glance, you may not notice anything different. That is because most of the changes are mostly internal. The Dent is now using a wonderful product called pMachine. This product uses PHP and a mySQL database to make maintaining the Dent much more automated, flexible, and efficient. I should be able to update the site much more quickly with hardly no HTML coding at all. This new internal design will also make it easier for me to get others to help with the Dent in the future. Finally, archiving of news items and searching of the Dent is handled automatically now, which is most useful. Instant archiving will allow the main news page to stay fairly small and will help reduce bandwidth. If you look around the web, you will see that all the major news sites use some sort of content management system like this. I figured it was time for the Dent to as well!
Things might be a little confusing for a while and I do apologize for that. I wanted to write this in order to explain the new site to you and make the transition as smooth as possible. I urge you to read all of this if you have time so that you can make the most of the new Dent.
A word of warning first. I have not stress tested this new system yet, and so I have no idea how well my server will handle the extra CPU and memory demands of using PHP and a database. I think all will be fine, but there is always a chance that things will not work out. If that is the case I have saved the old version of the Dent as a backup. You may notice at times that the site takes a while to load. I do not expect this to be a major issue, but without testing I can not be sure. You may also find old links and pages that do not quite link properly. So be patient if things get a little slow with the site. I will be trying to fine tune it in the days ahead. Despite saying this, I am quite optimistic this will work out fine.
I also have so much older content that it is nearly impossible for me to enter it all into the new database. Therefore I decided the database will include news items from 2003 and forward. I explain below how you can still locate the older material on the site.
First of all you will notice that many (though not all) of the pages on the Dent end in .php instead of .html. For example the ToriNews page is now located at:
http://thedent.com/torimain.php
Any web page that uses PHP and/or info from the Dent database will end in that prefix. Also, many of the detailed news pages will have a URL that looks like this:
http://thedent.com/more.php?id=25_0_1_0_C
This is perfectly normal and you can still bookmark URL?s like this in order to save links to any Dent news items you want.
The ToriNews page is still the main page of the site showing you the latest news in the right-hand column. The most recent item is at the top and as you go down the page, you go back in time. There are always 30-40 news stories on the page, and then the site will direct you to another page for older news items. (Each page after that will also include only 30-40 items, so paging through older news is very practical now!) News items will fall off the page automatically as newer ones are added. You will be able to go back as many pages as you like to read older entries. This will keep the number of postings on page one of ToriNews to a managable level and keep bandwidth down. The best way to use the site is to remember the last day and time you visited the Dent and read the news items down the page until you get to the day and time you last visited. That way you will never miss anything! Please remember that when you reach the bottom of the Tori News page that you can go to the next page to see even older news stories.
The purple headers/banners in the right column with the date now simply separate days, and not individual updates. Each news entry has its own posted time and date, as well as a category. This may take some getting used to, since people often think of one update as being between purple headers/banners. Make sure you look at each news item?s posted time/date to see if you have read something before or not!
Many news stories will have a [Click For More Details...] link that you can click to get the full story/article.
The Dent has an Archive Page as well for browsing older news items. On the left hand side of the ToriNews page you will find a box labeled ToriNews Archives. It will list all the months that are in the archives. You can click on any month to see ALL the news items for that month. (It will only list the title and the posted date and a link to the details.) This is another good way to find older news items you missed. You can also just go to:
http://thedent.com/archives.php
and click a month to view the news for that month.
At the very top of the right column on the Tori News page, you will find a category pull-down menu. By default, the Dent shows you news from ALL categories. But you can choose one of the 10 categories from that pull-down menu and then the ToriNews page will redisplay and only show you news from that one category. For instance if you only want to see news about the Tour, you choose TOUR from the pull-down and that is the only news that will display on ToriNews. Then you can simply go back as far in time as you like reading Tour news only. You can later choose ?View All Categories? from that pull-down menu to show everything once again. This is not a perfect system, since a news item can only have ONE category. (Sometimes it is confusing what category to use. For instance, what category do you use for the news item about RAINN auctioning tickets for Tori?s tour on eBay? I use the TOUR category for that even though I have a RAINN category as well.) But in general, it is a useful system.
The Dent is now searchable in real-time! Many pages on the site (including the left-hand column on ToriNews) have a little search box where you can enter what you are searcing for and then you will see a table with a list of results. It is really cool so try it! However, it only includes news items from the last few weeks right now. As time passes, it will become more useful. You can also access a dedicated Advanced Search Page here:
http://thedent.com/search
I still have my Google search to look up older news items. You can find that here:
http://thedent.com/searchold.html
On the left side of the ToriNews page you will also still find the Tori Calendar, showing you important upcoming events, TV shows, radio programs and so on involving Tori. I no longer maintain a TV Watch Page, so this calendar is where you go to see if there is something coming up with Tori you need to know about on TV, Radio, the web, or elsewhere!
The Dent still has subsections like Tour, Toriphiles and Music. They will contain the most recent news items in that category/section as well as special links and extras related to that catgeory. For example, the Tour page shows you links to all the important Tour-related places online such as Ticketmaster and Fanscape, as well as set lists and reviews for the current and past tours. It also has the latest news on whatever Tour is current and special features listed on the left side. The Toriphiles section has links to the Dent Guestbook, information about Tori mailing lists, the Ears With Feet photo album (which will be revived soon), the Toriphile Registry and so on. The Music section has links where you can find out about Tori?s albums, singles, promos and anything else music-related, as well as the latest Music news with Tori?s current album and singles. The Articles and TV/Radio sections have the most recent postings in those catgeories, as well as links to Archived articles and TV/Radio/Web appearances.
If you are looking for older material, remember to use the Google search located here:
http://thedent.com/searchold.html
The old Article Archive on the Dent is located here:
http://thedent.com/articlesold.html
The old TV/Radio Archive on the Dent is located here:
http://thedent.com/tvradioold.html
The old Sightings pages are located here:
http://thedent.com/sitings0502.html
The set lists and reviews for the older tours are still located on the same pages and there are links to them in the Dent?s Tour Section.
I have also answered the call of lynx or text-only browser users with this update. There is a special text-only (for the most part) version of the Tori News page with no left column located at:
http://thedent.com/toritext.php
While not perfect (It only shows the first Tori News page in a text-browser friendly fashion), this should make the Dent much more usable for people using text-only browsers! I also altered the layout of my Scarlet's Walk Tour Schedule Page so that text-only browsers can better read it! Please let me know if you think this is a nice feature.
This was a lengthy description of the new Dent, but I wanted to thoroughly explain it for anyone who was interested. It is my hope that this new method will make updating the Dent as quick and useful as possible.
For those of you who would like me to revise the overall LOOK of the site, all I can say is that such a remdeling of the appearance or "skin" of the Dent will be much easier with this new system in place. So maybe one day... I always stress Content first, but there is always room for looks as well!
If you have any questions, please email me at mikewhy@iglou.com
Finally, I want to apologize for the fact that I have not been answering emails or maintaining some sections of the Dent like the EWF Photo Album. Getting the Dent to this point has taken me many months of study and work, and it asborbed a great deal of my time along with maintaining the Dent with the most urgent news stories. I hope this new way of updating will leave me with more free time to tend to those neglected tasks.
