For any of you reading who aren't familiar with the history of this site, it traditionally has been all flash. I consider my self first and foremost a flash developer, however, recently I have had a sort of muse that has led me to what is now the updated RenderGarden Media website. It came while I was teaching a Flash Actionscript class last week. I realized that the best medium for displaying small flash-bits is the web (duhh right?). However I also saw more clearly a great need for restructuring our biggest tool to aid and fulfill clients and friends of RGM.

Everything has changed, there are only a small handful of remnants from the previous version, including three blog posts (to take up space) and the header image is kinda the same. Even the back-end has been gutted. I have switched from a simple blog platform based on Joomla that I formed into our needs, to what I would definitely consider a very robust MODx back-end. MODx won my heart because of it's beautiful parsing system. It compiles the pages you see based on dynamic code structuring that gives us the freedom to develop everything while paying attention to the smaller things. We have built snippets of code that are functional across the site while still maintaining individual form for their parenting pages.

While teaching the AS class I realized that although the web is my platform, and even though I have my own designated space on the web, my web space was not utilized well enough to achieve what it could... and more importantly what I needed it to. Simply enough, I couldn't demonstrate small flash applications. Even though the site was developed in flash, I did not design it initially with the intent to display live working flash apps. And because of it's design there was no way that I was going to hack one into place. Now, with the new site in place, not only is it easier to add flash applications, but it will be on equal grounds with the previous site in terms of the ability to display other content (e.g. files and videos).

The new webspace is not just well suited for readers of the blog and the occasional web-wanderer, but is also extremely versatile in it's on the fly adaptability. We can easily develop new tools to go with the demands of clients and friends. There have already been some improvements noted. The big one at the moment is the footer. It currently is the remains of a sitemap test. And it is ugly. And it is basically the same as the navbar above it, which means it's not of much use to you. My wife will hurt me if I spend anymore time on this puppy, so it wont be done immediately. But keep an eye out for changes, or keep reading as I make note of them in the blog. If you see any changes that need to be made send me a message (via contact) and we will put them on our list.

--Noah H. Smith

p.s. this post is dedicated to the Flash Actionscrip students. I enjoyed the class. Keep on the look out for tutorials. I've got a list of them I'll be working on soon.