Well, after a bit of a panic last week when the site went down, it was just a matter of sorting out a new theme for the site to make it all work again nicely.

The new theme is called Fairy Dark, and it’s quite similar to the old Akita theme, but that one hadn’t been updated in quite a while and broke when the latest version of PHP was added to the site.

I’ve pondered going with the premium version of the theme, but it seems the only thing missing that I might find useful would be social media icons, so I’m going to hold off for now.

The sidebar has changed as I think whatever code I used was peculiar to Akita, so I’ve left it simple for now and added site links to the menu at the top of the page.

In order to put some pages back into “full width” mode, I’d have to go through and change them individually so have only changed a few of the download pages. I’m actively searching for a decent downloads plugin though, so the format of downloads might change at some point to make it easier to manage (and to search!)

The new theme also uses a larger font, which is great for aging Talisman fans like myself!

As explained over on the site’s Facebook page, I’ve taken the plunge after 24 years of running the site as a hobby and added a tip jar of sorts in the form of a Ko-fi account. It’s something I’ve never considered before, but after being a dad-at-home the last 10 years I figured that if people might like to help a little with the running of the site, then I’m not about to stop them!

I’ve set the default amount to be lower than suggested as I still feel a bit off about it all, but I’ve been very pleasantly surprised and heartened by the generous gestures from people so far, and you can rest assured that anything put into the coffee cup (even though I only drink tea…) will go towards site-related expenses, like hosting, registrations and so on, and NOT into my “Oooh, Shiny!” fund…

There should be a button to the bottom left of the screen where you can donate if you wish, but knowing me I’ll have broken it. It won’t appear everywhere on the site as that might get a bit annoying, so I’ve post it periodically in news posts.

Just to confirm that there’s no obligation to tip at all, and everything on the site will be available free of charge for as long as the site exists!


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