A Quick Guide to the New Site

Welcome to the new website, version 4.0. The design and content are the result of several months of work, especially from Ian.

First, a few comments about the overall design and navigation. Ian wanted a clean, fast loading, CNN-like design with larger text (well, the fans are getting older you know!) and a white background for most areas. This is real different from the usual Flash-based, extensively colored band sites. But, unlike most all of those sites, the Tull pages change frequently and include extensive text-based content. Fast downloads are especially critical to fans outside the U.S. where bandwidth connections are significantly slower. So, Ian prefers readable, fast loading content over, well, flash.

Second, we decided to keep the main menu as much as possible like the previous ones to help everyone navigate the new site. Advanced multimedia technologies, like Flash, are relegated to specialty pages (like the various audio/video goodies) partly to make the site easier to update. Each page is extensively interlinked.

Of course, we had to make some browser decisions. The site should be fine in Netscape 6.1+ and IE 5+. Most everything should work in Netscape 4.7+ anyway. Pages are set for 800x600 (no more 640x480) and only pages we expected someone might want to print are set with printable margins.

We've taken a lot of good suggestions from fans as well (e.g., deleting the blue background). There's a new "site update" page that will list every change to the website by date, a search engine (just on homepage for now but it will be extended), a news archive, and the past band member pages return with greater detail, including their album performances. Thanks to the many former players for sending along new content (especially Martin Allcock, Tony Williams, Glenn Cornick, and Dave Mattacks for such quick and extensive replies).

The discography returns too, though only a few albums are up for now. Each album has new narratives, track lists, trivia, musician credits, and much more (and even more to come).

Emailing the band is different. There's a form to email band members instead of just an email address. We did this to help avoid some of the robots swiping email addresses from HTML (the code used to make web pages) to produce junk mail. There will be a similar form to report problems and make suggestions soon.

There's also a new fan section. This will house all the multimedia, photos for fans, a new fan email list, a chat room, and a lot more interactive stuff in the works which we are keeping a bit hush hush. Your ideas for the fan area are most appreciated.

Lastly, one thing has not, and will not change: this site remains in control of the band. Jethrotull.com is one of the rare group sites actually operated by the band. Almost all content comes from, or is at least approved by, Ian and Andy. Only officially licensed Tull HTML here. Accept no imitations!

Whew! Well, that gives you a good overview and yes, there is much more but hey, let some of it be a surprise and I need to get back to adding more material. Thanks so much to all of you for your patience (continuing!) and ideas (and the nice compliments are great too). Please, report problems and offer suggestions to me at webmaster@jethrotull.com. Just do not ask for the blue background back, not going to happen (grin). Lastly, a special thanks to Andy, who remains the official webmaster, and without whose support and encouragement I would never get anything done.


Regards

David Coursey
Tull web administration