Support The Steampunk Explorer

A New Look for The Steampunk Explorer

Dec 30, 2024

Welcome to version 2.0 of The Steampunk Explorer. This redesign has been years in the making, driven largely by the upcoming demise of our content management system (CMS), Drupal 7. The CMS provides the core features of the website, but Drupal 7 reaches its end-of-life on Jan. 5, 2025, which means an end to bug fixes and security updates.

The new site is built in Backdrop, a CMS that’s based on Drupal 7 but with many improvements (in geekspeak, it’s a “fork” of Drupal 7). Backdrop enabled a smoother transition than the alternatives, but this was still a huge undertaking.

So what’s changed?

New Styling

The first thing you’ll notice is the new look. I’ve dropped the original color scheme and adopted a more conventional design that emphasizes readability. Stories are styled with larger type and narrower columns, and I tested many combinations of fonts before settling on FF More Pro for headlines and the tried-and-true Georgia for body copy. (The site also uses Stymie Black for some page headings and Shackleton Narrow for column headings.)

I’ll admit from the start that the new design is less “steampunk-y” than the old one. The sad truth is that the steampunk aesthetic doesn’t lend itself to publications like this one that aim to be mobile-friendly. I’ll have more to say on the topic in a future commentary, but with the new look, I’ll be relying more on the content to provide a steampunk aesthetic, as opposed to the site itself.

That said, I expect the new design to evolve over time, and if I can find ways to incorporate more steampunk elements, I’ll certainly consider them.

One benefit of the design is that it seems to work quite well on mobile devices. I’ll have to add a “knock on wood” here, because I’ve only tested it on a Google Pixel 8 smartphone and Apple iPad.

New Editorial Sections

Another major change is that the site now has editorial sections organized around eight major interests in steampunk culture: Artists & Makers, Books & Comics, Events, Fashion & Cosplay, Movies & TV, Music & Performance, Places, and Steampunk Community. Each section has editorial content related to the topic as well as other resources.

Virtually all the features on the old site are present here, but often in different places:

The author directory is now in the Books & Comics section.

Directories of musicians and other performers are in the Music & Performance section.

Event listings are in the new Events section, but there’s also a steampunk calendar on the home page.

Listings of steampunk blogs, podcasts, etc., are in the Steampunk Community section.

The Movies & TV section includes our monthly streaming guides along with a new feature: Listings of top steampunk movies and TV series, ranked according to user ratings from IMDb.

The Search function now has its own page, and includes an Advanced Search option.

Fixes for the City Guides

One major feature of the old site was a collection of City Guides that listed cultural attractions in major metro areas. Most of the locations were last checked in 2018, and many have since closed or moved, especially following the pandemic.

I spent much of the summer and fall combing through the database and correcting the listings, so they should be more accurate now. You’ll find them in the new Places section. See “A Guide to the City Guides” for more information about the changes.

Side note: Through sheer necessity (and experience from past employment), I’ve developed software tools that allow me to update databases with extreme efficiency. I use the same tools for the site’s events calendar. Verifying and correcting 5,000-plus listings was no trivial matter, but the tools made it doable.

Transition Glitches

As I mentioned, this was a huge undertaking. The Steampunk Explorer has more than 6,000 pages of content, housed within a complex architecture that has many moving parts.

One challenge was importing the old content—more than 1,100 news and feature stories—while retaining the old URLs so the links wouldn’t break. In addition, the stories had to be re-tagged so they would appear in the correct places on the site. Much of the process was automated, or at least semi-automated, but it’s possible that some stories have fallen through the cracks. This means, for example, that the page for Abney Park may not include every story that mentions the band, but that’s all easily corrected over time.

I’ve noticed formatting issues in a few stories, such as text entirely in italics. These are easily corrected, so if you see a glitchy story, please use the contact form to let me know.

Photo galleries from the old site appear to be working fine on the new one. However, many images embedded in stories and other content did not make the transition. In the coming weeks and months, I expect to be repopulating at least some of the pages that previously contained images.

Still to Come

Looking ahead, one immediate goal is to implement better site navigation. The menus on most pages (the ones immediately below the banner ad) are stopgaps until I can put a proper hamburger menu next to the site logo.

I have a few other new features in mind, but rather than writing about them, I’ll just put them in place and let you see them for yourself.

Longer term, I’d like to offer the option to toggle between the current light theme and a dark one (white on black), but that’s not happening anytime soon.

Sigh of Relief

This project has been consuming me for the past year or so, especially as the deadline crept closer. Ideally, I would have finished much sooner, which would have enabled me to recruit beta testers. It does seem to be working, but I expect to be tweaking things over the next few months as I hear about problems or encounter them on my own.

With the Jan. 5 deadline looming, I’ve had to put other projects on the back burner, including some that allow me to earn a living. If you like what you see here, please consider supporting The Steampunk Explorer on Patreon, or make a one-time contribution to the PayPal tip jar.

Keep up with the latest steampunk news!

Follow us on Bluesky or Mastodon. We’re on numerous social media platforms, but when we post a major story, we will always share it in these places: @steampunk-explorer.com (Bluesky) and @steampunk_explorer (Mastodon).

Sign up for Steampunk Digest, our free weekly newsletter. It’s delivered to your inbox every Thursday, which means you’ll get it a day before it’s posted on the website.