About PageBuild

K - So it's been years, literally, since this page has been updated, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy.

Very busy lately, in fact...

Goodbye PageBuild... c21 Is Coming... -UPDATED: 23rd October 2007

Over the last couple of years -and lately with great intensity, development has been ongoing on what we believe will be the most advanced movies web site engine ever developed. We decided to codename it "c21" and it is destined to replace PageBuild while building on it's success.

c21 consists of several independent 'engines' to manage the different types of new information that will be present on the new site.

While the new system nods to the previous version of the site, everything is completely new and has been written from the ground up to give the best possible movies site. Virtually nothing whatsoever has been retained. And the scope of c21 has been daunting to say the least... As you know, we're not some corporation with teams of software developers -there's just me, the webmaster! Yet C21 requires technology that must face-off sites run by billion dollar companies. -It's the classic David and Goliath story... But it always has been.

Update 23rd October 2007:

Where are we now with all this?

*The core databases, content management and product management engines have now been running for about a year and are stable and mature. The business of actually updating to this new level of information is nearing completion and has proved extremely time consuming. One of our editors, Kara has spent literally the last year doing updates alone.

*The product help system with its funky Retro Assistant has been launched on this version of the site and proved popular and helpful. It doesn't end there. There is much to follow.

*The new MOVi content management engine is being tested on this current version of the site giving updated (and easily updatable) trivia, behind-the-scenes etc.

*The new iRewind site interactions engine has been partially rolled out in on the movie pages of this site, enabling users to contact, submit and update the trivia etc. iRewind integrates with other parts of the site in an unprecedented way (for us) giving registered users more functionality and proper credit for their help, both on the page and in their public profile. This module alone makes the old PageBuild site engine seem like a simple school assignment by comparison. As I struggled with completing it, I really did start to think that this software was going to be the death of me!

*The all-new site design itself is nearing completion. It's a nice clean retro design, without frames and breaking each movie into multiple sections -each with their own page.

*The site building technology is in the latter stages of development.

*Various ancilliary modules enabling users to search etc are in the latter stages of development.

*The new movie locations engine (codenamed LoX - Locations matriX) will be extremely powerful. As with all the new modules, it required much more complex software engineering on its own than the whole existing site and software! The engine itself is pretty well done, but the process of researching the information and updating it will be started by editors later in the year.

I'm sorry it's taking so long, but it is worth waiting for...

The PageBuild Story...

or those who are interested, this page details the ongoing development of PageBuild, the software that made this site possible. For the latest info, see below..

Some of you will remember our old site design (1999 - 2001) that was a "lurid" lime green color.

Because so many of you had visited and given us so much encouragement, we decided that we needed to do a better job on the site design than that lime green effort. We always had the quality of information to give you, it's just that the site was so, well... hard on the eyes! And, more importantly, because the site was hand-built, we couldn't offer the kind of cool features that we wanted to...

So... We had been busy dreaming about this new design that would give you the quality content we've always given whilst offering exciting new features. -Like the chance to track down those rare, out-of-print movies that we now know so many of you are looking for and the chance for fans to submit their own pages about their favourite movies online.

But to make it practical and possible, we had to do two things:-

1] Create a new design that was attractive and flexible (we hope!)

2] Design and write a new site 'engine' that made the pages automatically and gave you these cool new features. [We had to write our own because we didn't have any money for these fancy site engines that the commercial sites do --and you already know that because we don't bombard you with pop up advertisements and stuff]

This 'engine', or "Content Management System" as the big boys like to call 'em, started as literally a design concept and flowchart scribbled on a sheet of paper... It was designed and written from scratch and came to be called "PageBuild".

was the result of seven months solid labor on our part. Conceived and born in an environment that couldn't be further from the corporate world of steel and glass buildings housing teams of software developers...

Like every clichéd home-brew development story you've ever read, the webmaster was holed up in a small, darkened room, surrounded by fast food cartons and 80s inspiration in the form of books, magazines and vinyl albums, his eyes fixed on the flickering PC screen. The final sofware ran to many tens of thousands of lines of original code. The new site look was developed alongside the code, inspired by the 80s album designs for the music that pumped constantly into this unholy "design chamber".

In the beginning of 2001, the software was finally used for the first time for real to make a real page for the site (in the old design) about "The Last Dragon".

Many weeks of testing, improvement and rewrites later, it was rolled out to a select bunch of authors for real user testing. At this point the flow of new pages on to the site picked up again.

In late February 2001, PageBuild had become a stable and effective CMS for the old design of pages and at this point development work started to concentrate on the new design.

[The new design had been developed in parallel but couldn't be totally finished until the CMS was done]

Because by this time PageBuild was a "live" application used by real users on the web, the application was split into two versions. A live version and a development version. The development version was adapted in a couple of days [24th/25th Feb 2001] to build the new pages whilst the live version stayed operational until the very last day of the old sites operation.

A couple of bugs that had not shown themselves under the old design were squashed and had to be fixed on both versions at the same time.

After that, it was "simply" a matter of putting the old pages into PageBuild's database and asking it to build a new site ...As well as adding loads of pictures and new info.

This was started in the week starting February 26th 2001. On Saturday 10th March the last pages were added and we prepared for the changeover the next day at 01:00 hrs PST.

The pages took so long to enter because when we were doing it we realised that we needed better info, more pictures and more trivia --all of which had to be researched. Also about 200 more bugs revealed themselves during the process and subsequent testing! [as is usual ]

The final, live version was v.1.17a

But it's worth it in the end! We now can forget web authoring tools. No more page editing, uploading and testing... Ahhh... Bliss!

The Story Continues...

Having been steadily developed during it's first six months of near-flawless operation, PageBuild had quietly moved onward to v1.27c. This evolution had probably involved less than 50 new "Baby steps" versions. Also introduced during this time were a brand new innovative & sophisticated "Contact Module", the "PFR1101" product search device and a brand new, improved user submissions module, as well as a Competitions Management Module.

On 9th August 2001, anyone watching the version numbers on the pages would have seen that it suddenly jumped through a major version change, taking it to version 2.x.

This signalled the the end of a major top to bottom re-write of it's core modules; The purpose? To enable it to handle something that hadn't been envisaged when it was first designed... Multiple sites...

Also, during this time many of the peripheral modules had received further work, with the contact module in particular, ending up more like an online first line of support system. It was renamed to suit as a result.

In December 2001, major work began to introduce the "movie Archaeology" feature, to improve many of the user modules, and to prepare the core modules for many more exciting new features planned for 2002. By January 13th, 2002, all the engine work had been completed and the database entries researched and entered.

The first version of a long awaited search feature had just been introduced and in the following week was rolled out to the site users. To enable this, version 2.7 was operational and the site was poised to implement the new archaeology feature.

This was finally rolled out on Friday 1st Febuary. During the week previous, final coding adjustments were made to the way that the engine presented locations info and a number of other page presentation improvements were made, including moving the soundtrack section, improving the DVD and "cool stuff" links as well as introducing a "splash" screen to encourage users to be patient when loading the pages.

Due to these continual improvements, we believed that PageBuild, by the first anniversary of it's live implementation (on March 11th 2002), was not only the cheapest, but also among the smartest movie site engines out there.


Legacy PageBuild FAQ

Who wrote it? Nick Alaway wrote every buggy.. err... brilliant line of code. He is also the senior webmaster and editor of the site. Prior to starting the project in early 2000, he had no real knowledge of development of this kind.

What database does it use? It uses its own, proprietory database system. Everything about PageBuild is designed to be optimised for the purpose of making movie webpages. Right down to the last bit of code. This gives it the speed and "purity of purpose" that we were looking for.

How fast is it? Because it's highly optimised, it's very, very fast. In pre-launch tests it could build pages faster than was easily measurable. Suffice it to say that it can easily build tens of thousands of pages per second. In normal use, it actually seems to be only limited by network bandwidth.

In runtime, because it uses a unique, cached system, it achieves a speed limited only by the host system's cache.

Where do the pages come from? The pages are written by our team of authors and visitors. They do most of the research and write the page. The editor approves their work and adds some other stuff before the page is "released" and becomes live. Once the author submits his/her work, the process takes a few moments to complete. It used to take an hour or more by hand.

I don't understand --the page addresses are normal HTML? Well... as Han Solo would say; "that's the real trick isn't it?" It's a well known fact that search engines (the lifeblood of the web) do not favor dynamically generated pages. If they see a .cgi, .asp, .php or whatever page they virtually ignore it... why? I quote from Altavista:

Would You licence or sell it to other sites? No, sorry. -Because it is optimised for one purpose only... Running the core 70's & 80's Movie sites here at The Rewind.

It would have to be rewritten completely to do other things, and we haven't got the time.

We did it for us... and for you, our visitors. Not to make money.

Will You Release The Source Code? Sadly not. It would be far too easy for someone to modify it a bit and start selling it to make a fast buck...

I have another question! Great, drop Nick a line and he'll be happy to answer it for you.