Project Owner: Chattacon - Science Fiction Convnetion - Chattanooga, TN & CSFF, Inc

Project Manager: Mike King

Scope: Migrate users and content to Joomla 1.0 to 1.5, update and redesign site, determine navigation, sections and categories to promote growth.  Set up interface for admins and department heads to publish information directly to the site.  Create online community and tie to registration system for online registration for con.

Notes: The template by Actiview.de is a great design, the graphics are stunning, but with the Chattacon website - it needed a little touch of branding.  The old site featured a steam locomotive (presumably the Chattanooga Choo Choo) so we immediately began adding the Chattacon brand to the website - A Space Choo Choo.  Using Photoshop the train was designed to move the eye from the top left directly down to the content.  Our basic concept was...

to update the site to a futuristic look, while preserving the sites history.  Chattacon has been kind enough to let me serve on the Board of Directors, and help run thier Computer Gaming room.  I wanted to make sure that their site was exceptional.

After setting up a development folder, and installing the new Joomla engine, I then began editing the template and artwork to match the existing site.  Once the basic work was done, I began purging the Joomla data that was created at installation (I needed the data to show the board how the site would look with content).

Once the new engine was purring, I installed JCE as my content editor and re-created the articles that were on the site.  I used the modal windows plugins to allow windows external to the site (guests, authors, etc) in a shadowbox window.  Just a cool effect all around.

Next I migrated the user data from one database to the other.  Once again utilizing phpMyAdmin I was able to migrate the contents from jos_users and several other tables successfully into the new database and log in. (Want help migrating joomla users?).  Once the migration was complete, I installed Community Builder 1.2 from Joomlapolis.  I enabled the connections system, and installed UddeIm.  This would allow the development of several key items in the users database, and allow for tables to be read for registration purposes.  I will be working with Kowalski (Dee) to insure that the database has the items he needs.

Chattacon has a flickr account with multiple albums - so I wanted to make sure that the galleries of items were available directly from the website.  To accomplish this, I installed the Flickr Album Plugin and greated a "Gallery" article, uncategorized that I linked to from the main menu.  A quick edit added the plugins code and the albums began appearing like magic.

Next up - What does a SciFi Con Profile Look Like??