I have a lot of memories in working with the sites of the Chrono Trigger Novel Project, but the main idea and goal has always been the same: to promote the novel. The site, often termed "CTSite" by the Committee members and myself (probably based from one of my email addresses, ctsite@hotmail.com), has been around for a while, but in various forms. It has always existed to explain what the Chrono Trigger novel is, what I'm doing, who I am, and how the novel is moving along. Things are a little more complicated now with more than a dozen Committee members and thousands of supporters (past and present), so many adjustments have been made on my part. In light of all that CTSite has been through, I thought that it would be quite fitting to include a page about it and the changes that it has gone through over the years.
First Launch: GeoCities, Ended 5/2/99
The very first site launched on the GeoCities servers sometime toward the end of 1998. It's difficult for me to remember all that I was doing, but I know that I was probably still developing it well into 1999. It was the first site that I ever worked on, so I was learning everything about HTML as I went along. If you have ever seen the Chrono Trigger site from Luckyboy, then you'll probably remember him. He helped me out a lot while I was learning HTML and trying to get my GeoCities site up to par. This first attempt was little more than a simple site with colorful backgrounds and content similar to its redesign (the second launch). I decided to upload this first site for you on the new servers just for kicks (click the link above).
Second Launch: GeoCities, Ended 10/7/01
The second launch introduced my first frames page to the web. After going through a frames tutorial at AskJeeves, I decided that the concept would work well for my own site. This change was made after the first launch ended mid-1999, and I kept it active until its last update on October 7, 2001, when I left it to pursue the site's first launch at ChronoTrigger.info. Amazingly enough, however, the old first site is still up on the web and is still visited from time to time, even though the second release (first at ChronoTrigger.info) is not up on the web anymore.
Third Launch: FeaturePrice/HostDime, Ended 8/2/03
Immediately following the end of the second launch, I introduced a brand new site to the table for all of the supporters of the Chrono Trigger novel. Eric Poggel (here's his site, d512.com), a great friend of mine from church, helped me to design this site with his talents in graphic design. It was first created November 3, 2001 and soon launched for the first time at ChronoTrigger.info. This new and exciting page introduced a sand-based graphics scheme, CSS (style-sheets), inline frames, and lots of new content, all on a more ambitious premise than ever before. Now it wasn't just about the Chrono Trigger novel, but CTNP, the Chrono Trigger Novel Project. This site, itself, saw a few changes, mostly in the content pages and side-menu links. Eventually, however, the amount of graphics became daunting and too impractical to expect people to load on slower connections. The static table settings prevented the site content from filling the screen of any computer using a resolution higher than 800 x 600, which often created lots of extra scroll bars that could be quite difficult to navigate. I, myself, began to feel a bit bored with the rather bleak layout of the site, so it was time for a redesign...
You can view most of the main pages from this site by clicking the link above. Many of the pages may not load, however, so use it only for viewing purposes.
Fourth Launch: HostDime, Current Design
As you are now well aware, this is the current launch of the site at ChronoTrigger.info, which sports a brand new color scheme. After many updates using the old, bleak, sandy scheme, this new, vivid design is certainly a pleasure to the eyes. Eric Poggel also created the images for this site using my ideas for the design. This site uses a more dynamic table and inline frame setup that sizes itself according to the screen size of the computer viewing it. This means that, finally, the content pages will not "shrink," but will expand to fill the entire screen. The navigation has also been tweaked so that there are multiple ways to reach many different pages. At this point, I do not plan on releasing another site design, but I recall saying that after the third launch, so I guess you never know what could happen.
| Easter | Fall | Christmas | US Independence Day |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |