Sortable by letter, I mean. Or even, just the big long list like the old site, with the author and rating next to it.

I've been using JA as a resource for years. Whenever I want a new Adventure game to play, I'd look through your reviews. Always being sure to click any ads I see, to contribute back in any tiny way I could. With the new design, it's nearly impossible to discover new games (new to me). It's been easier for me to just use an internet archive of the old site than try to somehow find my way through this one.

Is the review section going to be overhauled or will it remain as it is? If it remains this way, I kinda feel like I lost an old friend. This place is practically a historical record of adventure games, and as it is now, the record is hidden in the back of a cave with an annoying puzzle you have to solve every time to gain entrance.

I'm all for the new look of the site, it looks fantastic.  If I were a person that diligently followed the latest news in the genre, then yeah, the site is great now for that. But at the moment, since I'm not one of those people (usually), I don't have much use for it. Which saddens me.

I feel your pain 100%, Kyosho.  I also found the site years and years ago, to be a wonderful resource for reviews, and always used to go and look up the JA reviews before buying a game.  Many adventure gamers are retrogamers because Adventure games never really grow 'old' except for the graphics.

I'm not sure what will convince the new management to bring our old reviews back.  They keep saying they have to do it "by hand"  but i'm not sure why they simply cannot use the "copy and paste" function- all HTML editors that i know of, have copy and paste functions.

Do they mean it would be too much work for them to simply copy and paste each review over?   Then why don't they simply make use of volunteers like Randy used to do?

..and yes, HTML has changed quite a lot over the years, but a lot of it is backwards compatible.

I'm working as hard and as fast as I possibly can to get old reviews, walkthroughs etc. posted. I've done about 100 of them so far.

Due to the nature of the current system they must be done one-at-a-time (as has been mentioned). There are literally hundreds of old reviews, walkthroughs, articles, etc. that need to go up.

Posting the old stuff is not all that simple. Further, as far as I know, I'm the only one doing it -- and this isn't the only thing I do.

Pages are no longer done in HTML but rather via a database-driven content management system. No HTML editors are used.

First, I have to strip out old code and redo text so that it will conform to the "article" configuation that's now in use.

Then I'll proofread the text, which at times will require editing, correcting, whatever. Before I became webmaster nothing was proofed before it was posted, so a lot of old reviews need cleaning up.

I must then either resize existing screenshots or find new ones that I can make conform to the set of dimension parameters imposed by the CMS: 800x600 for large screenshots and 160x120 for thumbnails. Otherwise, the system will automatically force them into these sizes. This tends to look terrible.

Before I started working on the old reviews, no images were being resized. So we ended up with disproportionate, unfortunate-looking images.

I believe this might have been done in the interest of speed. But I'm a digital artist and I'm likely more sensitive to such things than the average person tends to be. I also care a great deal about the appearance of the website. I've given JA my best since I started working here in 2003, and I won't post images in a manner that will make them look bad. 
  
Lastly, I'm obliged to create new "article images" that will appear on the front page as well as in the review index and in the reviews themselves. This involves creating images that will survive what the CMS does to them before they reach the front page  -- primarily resizing and cropping them, then obliterating appx 25% at the bottom by placing a strip reflecting the name of the review, etc. over it.

Being careless about this can result in a sloppy-looking image in which the name of the game and/or other important content is chopped off or obscured. Creating an article image in which everything is positioned to ultimately display properly can be a little tricky.

Prior to my becoming involved in posting old reviews they were sent directly into the review index and weren't reflected on the front page. I started including them there so whoever looks at that page will know they've gone up.  

Please know that I'm not complaining about any of this. I just want to let everyone know what's involved and that I'm posting things as quickly as I can.

Wow... reconfiguring the pages must be an enormous job.  Sorry, i didn't know that, Karla, and thanks very much for all your hard work!!!!

Will send you a PM sometime, but in the meantime... respect!   

Thanks, Trav.  At least it keeps me off the streets.

Just want to add my thanks for letting us know what you're doing.  I also rely on Just Adventure for reviews and walkthroughs (can't do without them, can I?)  Appreciate your efforts on this work.

Dave

Thank you Dave. It always feels nice to be acknowledged.