I'm currently working on the backend. That's the stuff you don't see - database and server code. I'm writing the code to convert from the old to the new database format (which will be more flexible than it is now, so hopefully some edge cases will be less weird). I still have quite a bit of work to do, as I sometimes have to make some adjustments to the database design when writing the conversion programs. After that I'm going to have to write the program to administer the site (create/update/sometimes delete content like reviews, interviews, etc.). Aaaaand then after that it will be the stuff that people actually see when they visit the site. The visual stuff is the hardest to do.
Some improvements coming:
- Mobile-friendly: The site is usable on a tablet, but kind of a pain on a phone. Most visitors seem to be visiting with some kind of mobile device these days.
- Support for multiple genres: At the moment I have a bunch of genres and combinations (e.g. Black/Death, Death/Black...) Instead there will be fewer genres but the combinations will be endless (within reason), so it would show up as something like "Black Metal, Death Metal" and, when appropriate, things like "Melodic" or "Atmospheric". At the moment, if something is "Atmospheric Black Metal", it shows up only as "Black Metal", for example.
- Better search: I want to present the list of reviews/interviews/features/whatever in a searchable grid format. That's been bugging me for more than 15 years and is really needed with the amount of content we have now.
- Possibly the ability to see bands etc. by country, genre, things like that. e.g., selecting "Canada" would list every Canadian band covered on the site.
- Links between bands and features: Currently, if there's a feature about, say, a Judas Priest album anniversary, there is nothing linking that to JP reviews, so they're in isolation. This will change.
- Show reviews will be back under reviews (the most recent ones are under features because there are some issues displaying photos - if any - in the reviews code and it's such a mess that I think it's safer to play with plutonium. Also, if a review has a corresponding video shot by a member of the staff (like Luxi has been doing a lot), then it will appear at the end of the review.
- If Facebook ever wants to give me my fucking photos back, I'd like to have a photo gallery for the photos of bands "saying hi to our readers." My attempts to download them have failed so far. Fucking Zuckerberg.
If you have any suggestions, post them here (if you have more than one, use the list tag like I did above). I can't guarantee that every suggestion will make it in the final product, or at least not in the first incarnation. There's still months of work just to get to a first version.