Boys! Ghouls! Yes, the site has been bewitched.
Now, please bear with me, with what me might refer to as a "soft launch." Rather than an "every single thing is totally ready, let's announce it to the entire world at once" sort of launch.
The goals with this version of the site (and reason for many of the challenges) was to provide a better, more reliable experience across all platforms. This includes:
- A responsive layout that works well on mobile devices. Try it on your phone! Everything should be easy to view and browse. No more pinching to zoom into a site with tiny text.
- New technology for printing patterns. If you ever had a pattern print out too small, too large, all black, cut off, or mysteriously scrambled... I hope we have solved much of that. This change may not be noticeable for many you, unless you're one of the poor Firefox users who recently experienced crashes from attempted printing. Those people are in luck, and so is everyone, because you no longer have to install the Flash plugin to print patterns.
- Another benefit of not using Flash: you should be able to print from your mobile devices now too. So the next time you're sitting at the kitchen table with your family, surrounded by cut open pumpkins, you potentially don't even have to go to the computer room to pick your patterns. You can browse and print patterns right on your phone. Or tablet. Or phablet. Or tablone.
I'm sorry there isn't more "fun" content for pure "entertainment" on the site right now. Galleries and contests and poems and fan art and all that fun stuff WILL be back. Much will have to wait until after Halloween unfortunately. But that's just something we can look forward to during the off-season slump.
In terms of the remainder of October 2015, it was important to make sure the key features of the site were working, so people can pay and positively print pumpkin patterns promptly. Ultimately that's what we want, right?
Please browse around and share your feedback, good or bad. I want to know what you like or would prefer instead. And most urgently, let me know if you spot any strange behavior so I can fix it!