Monday 21 September 2020

"The Future's Bright..."

"...The future's Wix."

After a weekend tinkering with Wix I'm pleased to say that Fantorical has definitely found itself a new home and over the coming weeks I'll be busy shifting across the majority of this blog's thousand plus postings over to that platform instead.

Why Wix?

Wix has a series of easy-to-use templates with which to create a website from scratch. In addition it also has a Blog page, which acts like a normal blogging platform with posts and tags etc. This makes posting really simple with the platform automatically positioning my pictures, text and captions. The platform also offers a lot more options once you start using the Wix editor to make your own templates. I haven't spent too much time on that yet, but it contains gadgets such as Popular Posts and Labels just like Blogger has.

Wix also seems to allow me to post bigger and better quality pics, so I'm hoping that'll encourage me to produce more Battle Reports. On Blogger these were always a very time-consuming type of post. But having now successfully transferred a few of this year's BatReps over to Wix it seems clear that the platform makes them extremely easy to configure and upload.


How Different Will Fantorical Look On Wix?

As I'm currently using a quite generic template on Wix, Fantorical will look a little less colourful to begin with. I rather like the snapshots personally but the background is too white and somewhat sterile-looking. However, the posts can now be broken down into Categories, so at the top of the page I plan to offer the option of subjects such as Finished Figures, Battle Reports, Wargaming Shows, and Monthly Musings.


What Is Being Transferred Over To Wix?

The vast majority of my postings on Blogger will be moving across to Wix over the coming months. This week's goal is to get all of 2020's articles across and then start posting new content regularly once again. I also aim to bring across my posts from 2010 onwards, as well as some articles from my earlier blogs/painting diaries. Obviously, these will come up on my main feed too, but will clearly be labelled under the category 'From The Vaults' or some such. Personally, I'm always fascinated by my ambitious projects from the past and seeing just how much I accomplished once a new 'shiny' arrived to distract me.

Disappointingly, the comments won't be coming across. I'm a bit gutted by this as I think this is the most important part of Fantorical - where we can discuss thoughts, opinions, suggestions, help, recommendations and advice. I did consider maybe taking a snap shot of the comments and adding them to the relevant post. But that seems a lot of work when the discussions will remain for all to see here on Blogger if anyone is that interested in a five-year old conversation.


What Will Happen To Fantorical On Blogger?

I've no intention of taking Fantorical down on Blogger, and indeed, for the foreseeable still intend to post updates (such as this) on the site. I'll also be signposting visitors to my new posts on Wix when they start.

I do plan on maintaining my comic review site "The Brown Bag" on Blogger until the end of 2020, before shifting that across to Wix. The postings on that are reasonably straightforward, so I'm hoping I'll be able to struggle through until Fantorical is fully ensconced on Wix. The thought of moving two sites over to Wix simultaneously was too much for me to contemplate...


https://blaxkleric.wixsite.com/website

12 comments:

  1. Oh Simon I`m delighted for you. It looks like you have embraced this project and turned what might have been a big negative into something so very positive. I`m right behind you in support of this, and wish you ALL the very best with it.

    I will check out Wix for sure.... does it allow videos? That was a big part of my website fun and has a good 40+ hours of live D&D sessions up on mine at one stage.

    Best of wishes on your new venture. Sounds like a fantastically exciting move.... or a fantorical move even :-)

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    1. Thanks very much Steve. Wix certainly seems very good, to me at least. I've even tempted to get one of the paid versions tbh as it has more options.

      Wix allows your blog posts to contains pics, gallerys, videos, gifs and files. There also seems to be a feature where if we're both on the site at the same time we can message one another etc. Plus I can set up a Fantorical forum where we can swap ideas, discuss projects etc. All seems rather clever.

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  2. Hope the move goes well Simon, did look at Wix when I was moving my blog but didn't work for me.
    First thing I've noticed is I've got to sign in to read any comments, this could be a pain !

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    1. Cheers Dave. I don't see signing into Wix as being any different than signing into Blogger or Wordpress tbh. When I've done it once my device remembers me so I don't need to do it again. Of course I'm speaking from the blogger's position rather than a visitor, so I don't know how different that experience is from your side of the fence. Spotted you'd joined the site though so thanks very much :-)

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    2. Set it on my computer to always remember, so I didn't have to worry, although still couldn't read the comments it was saying was there ! Sure it will be fine in the end

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    3. Hmmm... That's odd. I received a couple of messages from Wix about people messaging me. But I'm not aware of anyone leaving any comments on the site, yet Dave. How odd..?

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  3. Interesting, keep us posted on how you find wix!

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    1. Thanks Myincubliss. I'll be doing a series of regular updates on Blogger to keep people in the loop.

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  4. The pictures are better quality. Only 10 notifications from the page so far..!!!!

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    1. LOL Phil!! Its so easy to post across the old blogger posts that its actually becoming a bit addictive. Now I've found you can post date them too, I'm even keener to get 2020's stuff out the way and go digging for the really old posts from a decade ago, and take a trip down memory lane.

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  5. According to their support, Blogger posts can't be imported to Wix. Are you just going to do it by hand? I'm not absolutely in love with Blogger, for sure, but my blog has a lot of history in it and I don't want to lose that if I don't have to.

    I feel like Google would happily dispense with Blogger, if it wasn't for the surprising number of people who actually USE it. It does seem like a holdover from a different Internet era.

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    1. Hi Allison. I'm just cut and pasting them across using the Wix blog post template and its a piece of cake, imho. The only issues I'm having is Blogger being difficult to navigate and turning my Bitmaps into Jpegs - so I'm having to use my original pics. But seriously its super quick, with even my BatReps only taking a few minutes to put across. Obviously, it's still going to take a while to get all my stuff across, but I just plan of doing an hour here etc until its done.

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