Here it is. It’s a little overdue (the last website was over seven years old) but we finally have our new site.
The basics are the same, but we’ve also moved a lot around, so I wanted to take some time to point out some of the changes you can find around the website.
Latest Comic On The Front Page
I no longer make news posts often enough to warrant them owning the front page of the website. I’m busier now than I’ve ever been, and quite honestly, sometimes there’s nothing I want to talk about. The point of the website is the comic strip, so now you’ll always find the latest one on the front page.
News And Blogs
We’ve now got two places for me to convey additional information. The first is, well, where you are right now. The blog. This is a standalone post where I will post important information that pertains to Ctrl+Alt+Del. New products, Kickstarters, changes, general stuff, etc. It can be accessed via the Blog menu item up top, or the “Meanwhile” graphic on the right which will display the title of the latest blog. If there’s information I want to leave visible for days at a time, this is where I’d put it.
I also have the ability to make posts under the comic strip. The post is attached to that comic page, and will stay with that comic in the archives. This is the space where I’ll make comments about the comic itself, either thoughts about a game or providing context. I may direct you to the blog if there’s something there I want you to see.
Comments
There is now an embedded comments function on the website. This will allow you to carry on discussions about a comic, or the post underneath, and allow me to easily reply directly.
New Archives
We have a new archives system that should be a lot easier for you to navigate. Not only does it display thumbnails of the comic pages, and let you sort by month and year, but you’re also able to sort it by my various different series. So if you want to just read Analog and D-Pad, you can select Analog and D-Pad from the Comics dropdown up top, and it puts you into an AnD only archive. You’ll navigate from from the end of issue 2 straight to the first page of issue 3, skipping everything that happened inbetween.
The same goes for the rest of the series if you catch yourself in the mood to re-read just my Console Wars comics, for instance.
Responsive
This design will resize and reorient itself when viewed on different devices. This should make visiting the website on a mobile device to read comics much more pleasant.
I think that covers the main points! Everything is shiny and new, and we’ll likely need to continue adjusting and tweaking here and there as we settle in. We’ll monitor over the next couple of weeks, and if you see anything broken, shoot me a message! (tim at cad-comic.com).
Looks very nice! 😀
😀 love the new site. one thing that caught me off-guard was the background moving as you scroll. how the heck do you do that, I do some website coding and am trying to get something similar for a site. 😛
Actually I’d like an option to make it static. Driving me nuts.
You could turn off javascript for the site using the likes of NoScript or YesScript (though this will also break the next and previous links). The scrolling background is probably offensive because it’s done using an old javascript method which is inefficient and often very choppy/sluggish.
No Javascript and the comic navigation breaks.
Functionality!
Websites only working with javascript is SO 1995. I thought this time was over.
(…and in turn make smooth scrolling very choppy and unresponsive.)
Plus, the first time you scroll down the background moves way more.
Look up Parallax
This effect is actual parallax (different display layers moving at different speeds, mimicking the apparent relative motion of near vs far objects), but it’s not what all the web designers are calling parallax.
The effect they’re calling parallax is more like scrolling image masks/viewports (different parts of the site reveal different backgrounds, none of which move at all, even when the site is scrolled).
Congrats Tim on the new website! Has it really been 7 years since the last uplift?! Time flies as the saying goes!
Anyhow, congrats again and keep up the good work!
Schnick
I like the darker variant. Funny, I was just looking over the HTML and CSS of the old site to see how it all worked since I’m in a web development class now, and I’ve found it educational to examine more of the inner working of some sites.
Wow! Really great =D Especially liking the archive functions, re-reading specific series is something I’ll definitely be doing. My memory for what is going on in different series over breaks is shockingly bad >__<
It’s “sleek and modern” (I guess?) But I gotta say that it’s too much black/grey. I wish there was more color. Your posts (blog and comic from what I’ve seen so far) are backed with black and your background is another dark color with a slightly lighter grey logo (which I almost missed seeing at all btw). But maybe you were going for super subtle? I’m no web designer or marketing type or anything I just think I liked the last website better aesthetically more while this one has better functionality. I think even just changing the top banner from… Read more »
No, I appreciate the feedback. You make some good points, and while I wanted the focus of the page to be the comic strip, that doesn’t mean everything necessarily needs to be gray. Perhaps I’ll talk to my guys about trying out your suggestion with the top bar to see how it looks 🙂
I would have to agree with Brittany. A bit more contrast would be good. As it is right now, it looks like there should be something more that wasn’t loaded. Splash some color on the navbar, and maybe make the background grey a bit lighter to give more contrast to the black of the content, and I think it would look great. Also, one annoying thing that might be a bit more work to fix is how everything jumps around on the page while it loads. For some reason the “dropcomic” box is shown when the page first loads, instead… Read more »
I used to work in marketing so perhaps I can add a few more specifics behind brittany’s coments. I also agree, the previous design was better, but that’s not to say that this current direction couldn’t be great, it really just needs some polishing and if I dare say, simplification in places. There are upwards of 5 fonts used on the page (6 if you count your comic font), of many different sizes. That’s way before adding in the fonts used for the ads and your logo. Usual designers recommend a design language with as few fonts and colours as… Read more »
Since you seem to be looking for constructive criticism, here’s my $0.02. While I don’t love the 90% dark scheme in general, I mostly just dislike the fact that all comments/newspost text is white on black. White on black is a bit hard for me to focus on for more than a few words. Also, the navigation buttons above the comic: I would like it if the text were larger (maybe the buttons themselves), and if they weren’t just solid color rectangles. Maybe rounded edges, or some uneven shading, or some interesting font, or all three? They just seem too… Read more »
Hi Tim! You mentioned that in the future you would be able to post a two-page spread more effectively. I didn’t see anything different on the Starcaster archive yet…?
Well, what I mentioned was that the then current website didn’t like the super-wide image at full size. But I guess I mentioned it in a way that suggested it would be different when the website was replaced, but unfortunatelythat’s not really the case. The sites are designed with a specific layout and a specific image size in mind, and if I go throwing something twice as wide in there, it just breaks everything else. So I’ll still have to just deal with it in the future, but it won’t prevent me from doing future two-page spreads. I’ll just have… Read more »
I am not seeing any links to the forum. I can still get there via direct URL, but is it simply not going to be a thing anymore?
There are no links to the forum. We’re not going to shut them down immediately, but we’re no longer going to actively support them either.
Noooo!
May I ask why?
Well, there are a handful of reasons, but at the top of the list is the cost of keeping a forum open (financial, resource-wise and time) vs what it actually contributes back to the site/business. Back when I started, a forum was a necessity; there were no other real options for building a community around your comic strip. These days, with built-in comments and social media, that’s no longer the case. What I want (a place for people to discuss the comic strip) can be more efficiently accomplished in other ways than a forum. And since, over the years, I’ve… Read more »
It would make me immensely sad if our forum was shuttered. =(
We’ll just have to flood the comic discussion threads with random “Missing Links” and gaming discussion instead. How’s life?
I like the new website! The dark theme is a nice change of pace. There are some launch issues though ^-^
– I note that moving to the first post unlocks a bunch of secret test posts dated 14 years ago
– The privacy policy link in the bottom left to /privacy, instead of claiming my undying soul, sends me to /comics/privacy-concerns
– You’ve discovered my secret cache of test posts, likely created by Pierre! Those are of great nostalgic value to me, and I am not willing to share. I’ve squirreled them back into a safety deposit box.
-Uh oh. I need my steady stream of contractually binding legally acquired souls. I’ll have to look into this.
We fear change…
but this is awesome.
Just wondering if you’ve looked into, or could look into adding left and right key control for the comics?
It would be an awesome feature.
+1 We developers don’t always consider stuff like that, but its a great idea and fairly easy to implement as well.
I think this is an excellent idea. Questionable Content added it a couple years (?) back, and it really makes navigating multiple comics in one reading a pleasant experience. I’ve always hoped that other comics would add it in.
I LOVE the dark theme of the new site. Even with my monitors brightness turned way down white based pages are hard on my eyes so this is a wonderful change for me.
But wordpress?! ewwwww.
4/10, feels bland and lacking character, which is something I never thought I’d say about Tim’s stuff. Considering some of the stuff you can do and draw, I was really expecting something exceptional. This site feels as though it’s a phase one, a work in progress still.
Losing major points by having a wordpress site.
Earn a couple by making it easier for us to find the different comics!
Well, for the past seven years I had a website that was built custom from the ground up. And it was great, but custom code doesn’t age very well, especially when you no longer work with the person who wrote it. For the past two years I’ve been operating the website without some very basic functions such as scheduled uploads, and some other problems, because I moved to a new host/developer and the old custom code would no longer cooperate. Letting them build the backend off of a WP base means the admin is robust and most importantly, flexible. I… Read more »
I read a lot of webcomics and don’t check on every comic every day, so the way I read comics is I bookmark the last page I read, then when I want to catch up on a comic I click that bookmark and read forward until I hit the end of the archive. In CAD’s case I had two bookmarks since Sillies had its own separate archives.
With the new segregated archives, am I going to have to keep six bookmarks now, one for each series? Or is there still an unsegregated archive somewhere?
As I understand it, the site will keep you within whatever archive you enter through. So for instance, if you bookmark a page while you’re in the “All” archive (the default archive you’re in from the front page), you’ll stay within that archive upon returning.
Where as if you enter the Starcaster Archive, and bookmark a page, you’ll come back to the Starcaster Archive.
So you should still be able to maintain two bookmarks (All, and Sillies).
I like the look of it! Just a couple of points in feedback 1. The current text size for the news items (this page) feels kind of small. I think it’s 13px right now, maybe bump it up a point or two? 2. Any chance you’ll add keyboard shortcut support for the comics page? Being able to browse with the left/right arrows would be great! Whenever you post arcs, I tend to wait till it’s complete so I can just browse through all of it in one go. 3. Site looks great on mobile as well. Being able to pan… Read more »
I agree it’s a smidge small. I’ll look into trying it a bit larger.
I’ve asked about arrow nav 😀
We did investigate swiping left and right, but it required adding a whole process to the page for one feature, so we’ve tabled it for the moment.
Is the RSS link now going to be only blog posts, or will it still contain a link to the latest comic? That’s basically my reminders to actually come and look at the comics…but I don’t see them in the current RSS feed.
I will talk to my guys today about the RSS feed.
Comics should now be showing in the RSS.
I noticed with my RSS, that it has popped up with a ton of stuff that I already read… I am slowly going through and clearing it, but it is the last few days or weeks from what I have seen so far. Just wanted to let you know!
Also, the new look is super slick and I like the dark scheme 🙂
Comics are showing up now, thanks.
For a moment I thought I was back at a 2003 website, I was using a bookmark for the last comic but I was redirected to this ugly black, 90s look, mobile version of the site. After several tries, even using google to get the full version, I’m stuck in the mobile version hell, and I cannot see any comic. I’ve tried using both a IPhone 7 Plus and a IPad Pro, sadly it that since that you decide to remove support of Safari we will have to skip visiting your page
This is how the site looks in a iPhone, did you test the site? http://imgur.com/a/soJhq
It just looks like you’re viewing a newspost?
Yep, that’s what happens when I type cad-comic.com It seems I get routed always to http://cad-comic.com/look-new-website/ instead of getting the front page. The same behaviour doesn’t happens on the Chrome app for iPhone.
Let me ask why it might be shoving you there instead of the front page.
The archive has an entry of “All” for the comic series. Is it possible/feasible to allow the same entry in the month dropdown, to allow you to see all comics of a series, instead of just the comics of the series for the one selected month?
I can ask, but that would load thumbnails for nearly 3000 comics…
The fix for that would be to enable pagination whenever All is selected. Show the first, say, 30 thumbnails; and let users page through the results.
I kind of agree with both of you here. At first it seems hard to navigate, but i love the fact that I can now start on e.g. page 1 of console wars and read all the pages in order without interuption 🙂
Don’t load them all at once, load them as the user scrolls down, or present them a fixed number at a time, something like “load next X comics” button.
Of course, it’s just an idea, if it isn’t feasible, it’s perfectly understandable. 🙂
Also, maybe a sort option for oldest first? 🙂
I have to close my right eye to actually read text – the white twitter panel and latest silly is like burning torch on black background…
Also, for some reason, comments does not work in Chrome (so i fire up Internet Explorer – and whole page looks different, IE doesnt have the problem with twitter panel and last silly becouse there is not any twitter panel or last silly 😀 )
I’m on Chrome, and have had no problems with the comments.
“WHAT IS THIS? THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SITE! I DON’T LIKE CHANGE!”
On that note, good job. Dark colors will take some time to adjust, but other than that nice work.
Can there be an option where I play the Sun Song on my Occarina and then go to day mode…
Very nice, but you just might want to remove all the debugging code in the javascript files.
And I’m also really not a fan of the ad on the top of the page. Especially since it loads just a tad later compared to the rest of the page and bumps everything down.
I apologize if you have already addressed this, but I was looking through the arcgives and I noticed some months are missing, and I am unable to find any of the comics related to Ethan and the end of the original timeline of strips. Are these left out on purpose?
I don’t see anything missing. Can you be more specific, or send a screenshot to tim (at) cad-comic.com?
Nothing is missing today, maybe just a glitch.. The new site looks great! Thank you for putting a little enjoyment each day into our lives.
I think this is a bug, whenever I enter the page it sends me to the first post in 2003, instead of either the latest comic or this post.
You should change your bookmark to simply cad-comic.com
Not really a bug but I would have liked it if you could use the arrow keys to navigate the site. ie left goes back and right goes forward
I agree! I’ve asked about it.
Oh neat! If you are able to implement this feature I;d be majorly happy.
btw love your stuff, been following since 2009.
There’s currently two problems, one minor and one somewhat major :
1) The CAD icon on the top-left is only half clickable (Only top half clickable).
2) I tried to register using this username + email, but never received a confirmation mail. Nothing in spam, either. It’s been 12+ hours.
Worth mentioning that i run Firefox latest version, on a 1366×768 resolution.
I’m aware of the icon, I’ve added it to the list.
We fixed our email delivery thing, so try asking for a password retrieval?
Yep email delivery is working. 🙂
Nice stuff, I especially like the search feature and filtering comic series. Is it possible to see more than just one month of results at a time? Or am I missing something?
So, one thing I’ve kind of wanted since you left the Ethan/Lucas storyline way back when was a way to track comics by storyline, rather than by release date. Like, if I just want to read the Console Wars stories in their own order, without skipping around through one-shots looking for them. Or if I just want to read the Analog and D-pad storylines. That kind of thing. Maybe you already have that functionality and I haven’t seen it anywhere, but some work on organizing your Archive might better fit your current format. Just a thought. New site does look… Read more »
Dan, that is literally the new archive functionality described in the post above.
Request: can we get subcategories for your story-arc comics? I’ve been wanting a Console Wars front-to-back reading for some time yes, even though they aren’t a single long arc).
Wow, I’m a dope, I just saw the guy right above me ask this and you were like IT’S IN THE POST and I’m a dork who doesn’t read.
😀
2 things. One was already commented by Matt about the RSS feed. I get the news and the posts mostly from the RSS feed and at the moment the new website went on, the started showing posts from way back. And it looks like it is still posting old stuff as new at the feed. Not sure if it is a bug from my RSS feed reader or the website. The other thing I noticed when I tried to comment here, I had to scroll all down here just to find the comment box. In a busy post, it can… Read more »
Regarding the RSS, I wonder if it’s doing that because it’s a new feed and it was only doing the blogs yesterday and today we made it do the comics too?
And for the comment box… that’s certainly an idea. I’ll wait to decide once I see how busy an AVERAGE comment section is… this is new and people are chiming in. But moving the box to the top is something I will definitely keep in mind as a quality of life change.
WHoaaa, I love it!
Looks very clean and elegant. And, what I rarely see in modern site makeovers, very functional and easy to navigate 🙂
Awesome to have series as categories in archives! That’s easier than search filtering comics names 🙂
I also really appreciate “new silly” thumbnail on right.
For now I’m just missing a tooltip (title?) on hover on comic 🙂
Really great work, Tim!
All the best!
(oh, one thing, you might want to change this serif font on “Post comment” button ;))
Also loving the fact, that I don’t have to use any Disqus/Facebook/Google+ to comment. I’m not sure how you’ll handle spambots, but I love it 😀
I have to say, I like it. It’s not overly complicated which happens a lot when people try to make something “better”.
The additional sort features and fingernails for the archives was a fantastic idea! Kudos to whoever thought of that one.
Hey Tim, love the new look!
I have one small remark though. When going through your comics, clicking on the comic redirects you to the same comic as opposed to the next one. I know this feature wasn’t in the old design but since you’re changing things up with the website, might I suggest you look into implementing that feature?
Thank you and stay fantastic!
Maybe even click on the left half for the previous comic, and right half to go forward.
New site looks real pretty.
My mousewheel scroll is not working tho. Also text is kinda small
I’m excited for the possible changes that come from a new website! One suggestion: After reading through the newspost, I wanted to get back to the Comic, by clicking on something on the webpage (not re-loading the URL). I discovered that I couldn’t? I tried to click on the comic dropdown in the top-right but that only took me to the CAD archives, rather than the latest comic. It took a while but I finally realized that the CAD logo would send me back to the main-page URL (i.e. the comic). This didn’t feel all that intuitive, especially when the… Read more »
Is the log-in messed up? I tried my old account and nothing works. I tried making a new account and that isn’t working either. I never got an email to verify anything, or even to reset my password.
Not that I’ve heard of from anyone else. Did you try asking the system to retrieve your password?
Yeah, I never got an email.
Of course, it works now. I tried it again and now the email got sent to me. -_-
Can you set up a redirect for http://cad-comic.com/cad (the old “latest comic” url) to the homepage or the archive or something that makes sense for people who used that address? I’m redirected to a….very….old post that confused the heck out of me, because I tried viewing the site on multiple mobile devices and that happened. Then when I *did* go to the homepage, I got redirected to this “look a new website!” post. What with all my browsers having http://cad-comic.com/cad auto-filled as soon as I start typing “ca”, I’m not even sure how to prevent it from auto-filling to the… Read more »
Sorry, was late when I posted….Meant to say BoW causes a lot of eye strain, not vice versa 😛
The text size on mobile is fine by the way. It only looks small on the desktop site.
This for sure. More annoying to me is that the comic urls are now their titles, I have a list of bookmarks to favorite strips which are now 100% useless as I couldn’t possibly tell you what strip they were to. And it appears that the search function didn’t learn how to search the text of the comics. It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t a professional dev shop that made this. It’s pretty disappointing to see a brand new site in this day and age that doesn’t maintain bookmark compatibility. BTW, to remove autocomplete suggestions in most desktop browsers you… Read more »
Ok, apparently not 100% useless bookmarks, as they contain the date so I can still find the comic, but still annoying all the same. And any links that have been shared over the years are now soft 404 links (translation, they’re dead links which don’t act dead).
Hmm, I’m a bit confused – I thought http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php was the link to “latest” comic – I’ve been using this one for a few years now and it still works – every time I get redirected to the latest comic. Try this one 🙂
That link actually comes from one version older. The most recent version of the comic was http://www.cad-comic.com/cad. There is an old redirect from that old one which is a different domain and everything just dropping you back at the home page. However one version older didn’t get a redirect.
i Love the New look tim, been a reader from chapter 1, i’d love to see more view options like a feed scroll so i can read collections of stories on 1 page instead of multiple pages
You forgot to mention the most important new feature: your slightly older looking avatar, now with glasses and moustache!
It looks pretty good, apart from the aforementioned excessive amount of black/grey. One suggestion, though: please move the ‘new comment box’ to the top of the comments section so we don’t have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to use it.
Love the new site, been a CAD fan since the earliest of days. Love your work and it’s awesome to see how far it’s all come. Stay frosty ya legend!
don’t fix what isn’t broken
I remember being there for the last website change. I’ve always wondered why you couldn’t comment on comics and had to go to the forums. It looks pretty cool, keep it up, man!
Is there any way I can get back the white background please? Trying to look at the comics with the black background really isn’t doing my eyes any favours (I have problems with my eyesight and sensitivity to light/contrast, so use my screen on it’s lowest brightness setting and wear tinted glasses, and I’m finding the new site design a real strain and painful to look at.) Sorry.
If not, I understand. But thought it didn’t hurt to ask.
All the Best,
Mattgomery Scott
Oh and thanks for clearing up the double post. Sorry about that.
All the Best,
Mattgomery Scott
Looks good and removing clicks to get to content is great but it loads like a seizure ridden sloth trying to climb stairs. Also that same analogy applies to scrolling once the site loads.
I’m embracing the change with open arms! I’ve been with you since the beginning and always get excited when I see major progression. Keeps things fresh and engaging. Love the dark theme, it actually matches my current windows theme perfectly. I use white on black for apps/windows etc.
Hi Tim, UI/UX developer here… my first suggestion was going to be removing the top comic navigation bar (first, previous, archive, etc)… I was confused by it being on top of the comic… what is this bar related to? Since a page is read from top to bottom, from an end user perspective, the concept was a bit difficult to understand. But then I realized that’s not what was bugging me. There is too much space between the comic nav bars and the comic itself. I would strongly consider putting the navigation bars directly against the comic. Here’s what that… Read more »
I’m sure I’ll get used to it and learn to love it with time but I’ve been reading your comics for over six years and for today my inner monologue is having a minor freakout…
‘ERRRRMAAAGAAAAAHHHD! So much change! I no like change!’
lol.
As always, thanks for all the amazing comics!
For many years I have read this comic, since 2005 really, and it has been a source of stability in my musings. I will admit I don’t like the new design on the principal that it’s an extreme change from a familiar face for over a decade. However on more constructive notes, the bubbly style of times past could be redone, the hard lines and squareness are starkly different and kind of blunt, more meloncholy, and there is a bit too much dark.
This is a minor thing, and I’m sure it won’t impact the vast majority, but have you maintained the commentary that accompanied many of the older comics? I’m finally going to buy a Sumo Titan, but wanted to check one last thing from when you reviewed them in April 2011. I went back to that comic, and there is no post with it. Sorry if this is resolved elsewhere..
And never mind, I just found it.
And FTR, your review is why I’ve wanted one of these things for years.