Steven P. Administrators Posted June 10, 2010 Administrators Share Posted June 10, 2010 Neowin VersionsNeowin v6 - Atlas v2.0 (June 2010) Based off initial feedback from the Atlas update completed in January, the header and footer areas underwent major changes to further improve the "Atlas" look. The news promos area was made smaller so that three fit side by side, and our advertising no longer interrupts the flow of the page. Drop down menus were added back in so that news feeds can be viewed from the forums, and after testing the site using a heatmap, we moved the less frequently used links into a "Services" menu. It's also also possible to customize the font site-wide on Neowin, for a full run down of the improvements, please refer to this news announcement. Neowin uses AJAX and Javascript extensively throughout the site to deliver rich content, but in the interests of compatibility and accessibility we also made the site Internet Explorer 6 friendly, which allows the site to render without the modern web standards of today. Neowin v6 - Atlas & Ignition (January 2010 - June 2010) Neowin v6.0 is a total rewrite of all areas of the site, aside from the forums, from the ground up. Ignition is our new CMS, built on top of Synapse, a PHP development framework created by our very own Dave Legg. Synapse and Ignition focus heavily on efficiency, ensuring low resource usage, and high performance, even when the server is experiencing heavy traffic. Caching takes a crucial role, offloading a number of parts of the page rendering from the MySQL servers when a guest views a page. With a >99% cache efficiency, this greatly improves load times of the site. Ignition was coded by Dave Legg and Simon Andrews Atlas is a brand new skin designed to take advantage of all the new features made possible by Ignition. It was designed by Tim Kimberl with input from Rob Wright. The javascript was mainly written by Rob Wright with contributions from Dave Legg and Simon Andrews. Atlas is designed to be pleasing to the eye, and easy to navigate. With 9 colour options, and customisable header images, there is something to suit everyone's tastes. Neowin v5 Finity (October 2008 - January 2010) Finity, the next evolution after Shift. We have worked with staff and the MVC group to achieve this and after 3 major design proposals we believe we have taken Neowin to the next level in design. We hope you enjoy Neowin's new look as much as we do! The Finity design was built on the back of ideas and proposals from our registered members & MVC group, with design proposals (image mock's) by Jason Kelley, XHTML 1.0 Strict HTML coding CSS mark up by Tim Kimberl, javascript by Rob Wright, PHP (back end) code by Marcel Klum, with Steven Parker leading the team. Neowin v4 Shift (April 2006 - October 2008) Shift was launched as a beta theme on the first of April 2006 (canceling "April Fools Day") and was a community effort. Steven Parker & Tim Kimberl were responsible for most of the design, HTML and CSS mark-up using design proposals (image mock's) by Jason Kelley. The forum theme followed shortly after. Shift was the first theme to use the new Neowin logo that went from a badge design to a circle encompassing an "N". The theme also moved from an all-text header to a tabbed design for Main, Software, Gamers & Forum sections. Neowin v3.9 Swift (December 2005 - October 2008) Swift was the final update to v3.0 that launched originally in 2001. Tim Kimberl optimized many of the images that made up the theme, and made the site XHTML Strict. Development was already in progress for a complete overhaul of the design which would become "Shift" and the Swift theme remained a part of the site until Finity went live in 2008, giving the theme an extraordinary long run of just over 7 years. Neowin v3.0 - v3.8 (July 2001, discontinued October 2008 as "Swift") The original "Swift" launched in July 2001 was designed by Steven Parker & Marcel Klum and was the first theme to introduce color options to the site; these were the default blue, green and grey. They were assigned to the main (blue), software (green) and gamer (grey) news. Colors appeared soon after and included: Silver, Violet, Black & Red. Neowin v1.0 - 2.0 (October 2000 - July 2001) The first look of Neowin underwent many changes in this period and was heavily influenced by Windows XP, even going so far as to using the "Designed for Windows XP" branding as the site logo. This would later become the badge design for Neowin.net after we settled on v3.0. Neowin Logos Neowin 1.0 Neowin 2 & 3.0 Neowin 4, 5 & 6.0 Source: About Us We are going to be 10 in October, so I added back in a bit of info from all the previous versions of Neowin. How do you remember it? Have you got screenshots of "old Neowin" you can share with us, or additional interesting facts about certain versions and events that we can add to this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timan Veteran Posted June 10, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 10, 2010 Atlas v3 (soon :whistle:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeston Veteran Posted June 10, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 10, 2010 Atlas v3 (soon :whistle:) :rofl: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e-berlin.org Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Screen shots? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Singh400 Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Started being a regular reader of Neowin way back in 2003, so been here as a lurker since Swift. Edit* Check it: http://web.archive.org/web/*/neowin.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Frank B. Subscriber² Posted June 10, 2010 Subscriber² Share Posted June 10, 2010 There's a whole lot of Neowin screeenshots from 2005 onwards in the 'Show your browser layout' thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alladaskill17 Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Atlas v3 (soon :whistle:) GASP! That must be sarcasm! Also, nice brief history of each! Wish I had screenshots, but most are from '08 + even though I've been a member since '05. Mainly due to the fact that I've migrated between 4 computers since joining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanctified Veteran Posted June 10, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 10, 2010 To think I've seen it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strotee Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 remember this? Neowin Archive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted June 10, 2010 Author Administrators Share Posted June 10, 2010 OMG I used the Windows ME logo :x And after that we made this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Singh400 Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Started being a regular reader of Neowin way back in 2003, so been here as a lurker since Swift. Edit* Check it: http://web.archive.org/web/*/neowin.net ... remember this? Neowin Archive Beat you to it ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Frank B. Subscriber² Posted June 10, 2010 Subscriber² Share Posted June 10, 2010 remember this? Neowin Archive Yes, I remember it. I've seen all of the site themes. What a ride it's been... with continual improvements over the years. To the team: Keep up the good work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e-berlin.org Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Started being a regular reader of Neowin way back in 2003, so been here as a lurker since Swift. Edit* Check it: http://web.archive.org/web/*/neowin.net Thanks for the history lesson. The very first version I like best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Lyle Global Moderator Posted June 10, 2010 Global Moderator Share Posted June 10, 2010 Yes, I remember it. I've seen all of the site themes. What a ride it's been... with continual improvements over the years. To the team: Keep up the good work. Ha, I remember that logo, and lurked around the same time. I eventually signed up after half a year-year of lurking :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alladaskill17 Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 remember this? Neowin Archive Wow, call me a noob but I had no prior knowledge of this site, very cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 So many memories :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denis W. Veteran Posted June 10, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 10, 2010 I do vaguely remember the Christmas theme of 2004. (screenshot of it is somewhere) I began lurking around the summer of 2004. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccoltmanm Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Definetly moving away from Windows... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrangesOfCourse Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 Haha... I remember the original... been here since... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Srugie Veteran Posted June 11, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 11, 2010 Oh the Finity days... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damian Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 I remember them all. I was following the development of Whistler :ninja: and after almost 2 years of following the frontpage news and forums I signed up. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Anarkii Subscriber² Posted June 11, 2010 Subscriber² Share Posted June 11, 2010 lived through them all :p Version 2 was the best for its time :p that logo was just, epic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Star Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 Personally I believe that the Christmas theme that was made in 2004 was the best! Christmas lights around the theme and stuff...yay. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dapen Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 Sad to see Neowin is loosing it's Windows feel, especially when it's kinda in the name. Though the new design is the best yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee G. Veteran Posted June 11, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 11, 2010 I do vaguely remember the Christmas theme of 2004. (screenshot of it is somewhere) I began lurking around the summer of 2004. I began lurking at the same time. Here's a screenshot of the 2004 Christmas theme: Neowin 2 & 3.0 I miss Neowin 3. Many memories :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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