- January 31, 2006: Site was opened
- February 9, 2006: 100 hits
- March 12, 2006: 500 hits
- March 25, 2006: 1,000 hits
- May 18, 2006: 2,000 hits
- August 8, 2006: 4,000 hits
- October 20, 2006: 6,000 hits
- November 18, 2006: Grand re-opening
- December 27, 2006: 8,000 hits
- January 22, 2007: 9,000 hits
- February 14, 2007: 10,000 hits
- May 31, 2007: 15,000 hits
- September 1, 2007: 20,000 hits
- December 28, 2007: 25,000 hits
- March 27, 2008: 30,000 hits
Years ago when I was younger, the main Pokémon sites I visited were sites filled with PokéGod codes, fake cheats, glitches, and such. They weren't very good sites, with poor content and layouts, though I didn't realize it at the time. Then, one day, I found a site that completely changed my view of the Pokémon internet. It was The Cave of Dragonflies.
Ever since then, my interest in the PokéGods and the rest of those outlandish cheats began to fade. I was a regular visitor to Butterfree's site ever since then, and I began visiting other fansites. Another of my favorites was Mew's Shrine, an excellent site which is sadly no longer around. (No, not Mew's Hangout, Mew's Shrine.) Soon enough I realized, "I'd like to own a site." So guess what I did? I opened up Microsoft Paint, drew purple and blue layouts, added my own images of Pokémon, and even added text to the menu. I also sketched layouts in notebooks, and I clearly remember making lists of what I was to have the day it opened, including full sections on many games, TCG, movies, and more. Too bad there was no content.
So, I had my layout, I had my categories. Now what? Stumped, I turned to the person I could trust most for an answer, Butterfree. My thought was that I could take my MS Paint doodles and upload them to the internet, then make all the links work. Butterfree's response formed another important step in my journey to a website. She informed me of HTML, the script I'd have to use.
Naturally, I had no idea what HTML was. I did a few Google searches, and after a while I found an HTML guide that I liked. Later, it turns out, that guide was for slightly more experienced people, as I remember the first thing I typed was <title>Furret's Burrow</title>. I later found a guide on a Pokémon site, Butterfree's guide, I believe. The next chapter of my site's life began here...
My very first site was called Furret's Burrow. That was the one that I had drawn pages for, and I have oodles of (horrible) link buttons I made for it. The site's mascots were Sentret and Furret. FB really never saw the light of HTML.
The next site I made was The Valley of Shining Dew, in 2004. The first layout for this site used faded Latias and Latios sprites in the background image, and they were featured in a 'Home' button. I did not understand tables at the time, so every page had a link to Home. The cursor had sprites trailing after it, which was fun for a while.
VSD was redone later on. Instead of changing the layout, I started over, this time with a dark blue and black layout. The content was pretty much the same, not that I had much to begin with.
I soon tired of VSD. In November of 2004, I created Tyranitar's Cave. This one featured a table layout that was silver and a weird, dark green. It ended up only having one unfinished page about Hey You Pikachu. As you can probably guess, I let that fall.
My next site idea was Lugia's Dragon Den. At this point in time, my ideas came and went so fast that I rarely had more than a front page. Such was the case with this site. The one after that was like that as well, Volcano Headquarters, also known as Charizard's Volcano Hideout. The layout for this site was pretty cool, although it's nothing compared to what I can make now.
Finally, the days of my short, unfinished sites were over. In late 2005, I began to work on Deoxys Headquarters, what would have been the greatest of my sites that had never touched the 'net. I didn't use tables in DHQ, but I didn't find a problem with that, as every page had both a link back to home and the parent section. The banner was very neat, with a gradient background and Deoxys sprites. I also edited a Mew sprite so the outline had shown up faintly against the gray gradients.
The rest of the layout wasn't anything special; the background color and links were left unchanged from the default. Clearly I never worked on that stylesheet. I used Deoxys icons on either side of every link, and overall I liked this layout, for being a non-table-ified one.
This site actually had quite a bit of content on it; I had pages on the starters of FRLG and RS, but I've never uploaded them due to the fact I was too lazy to change the sprite URLs. Quite a shame, actually. I also had a diary of my Missingno. adventures, as well as a ridiculously many-clued secret link game (unfinished) and several games using marquees.
Then... in 2006, everything changed. Absol's Moonlit Cave was born.
AMC started pretty much like the rest of my practice sites. I used Notepad and saved the files in a new folder on my computer. Its original name was actually Fire and Water Cave, but this name didn't make it to more than a banner. I'm overjoyed to find that I still have a copy of our very first layout, as I had thought it was gone. The first layout was a gray table layout, and the banner had six Pokémon sprites, followed by magnified sprites that I took every other pixel out of, so they'd look transparent. There were images at the bottom of the tables with Pokémon icons on them, and the background was gray and white sparklies.
Then, before I knew it, I opened an account on Freewebs. I uploaded my small site, and life as a true webby began.
AMC was small, and I knew I had a lot of work to do. I modified the menu headers, using images with different Pokémon sprites on them. The banner changed a few times, in celebration of the site getting 100 and then 500 hits. I got rid of that layout, as I felt there were too many random colors in the menu headers. The following one was not much different, still gray, and it was overall neater, although the headers were way too big.
Eventually, on an oekaki, I discovered a cool little technique I liked quite a lot. I used that to draw the flames in the Flames of Glory layout. This layout, if you haven't seen it, is still up at the old site. It featured a Charizard I drew myself in the banner, as well as hover-over buttons. Soon, I grew tired of this, as well.
Soon after this, I felt as though the site wasn't very organized, and it didn't feel very consistent. I decided to find a new host, create a new layout, and basically re-do the site. I found nothing of great interest as far as hosts, so I just opened a new Freewebs account and began a new layout.
The first layout I had in mind was a forest one. I planned to use two scratch leaf sprites in borders and headers, and I had it wonderfully planned, a stretching table layout. Mainly due to lack of a good art program, and also lack of the perfect colors, I gave up on this one, and worked on a Treecko evolutions layout instead, which you can see here. I liked this layout, but it just wasn't what I wanted. I decided to leave it as of now and work on the content.
About halfway into revising this page you're reading right now, Eevee's Headquarters changed hosts, and could host sites. Thanks to Eevee-chan, I left Freewebs, and I'm now hosted by Eevee's HQ. ^^ Eevee-chan, if you're reading this, thanks!
Although it took me about three months of laziness to re-open the site, AMC came back with an awesome table layout that supported a styleswitcher.
Around April and May of 2007, I began to tire of the styleswitching table layout that I had. Floop of Randomosity suggested that I try making a DIV layout, so I got to work. I originally tried to make it a copy of my previous layouts, but it proved too hard and I pushed it aside.
Several weeks later, I decided to try again, and this time just create a new layout, not based off of an old one. After a while, with some help from members of TCoD forums, my hard work paid off, resulting in the Firefly's Rainbow layout. I love it, the DIV-ness makes it much more flexible, and down the road it'll provide many options for styleswitchers.
To be continued, because, uh, I'm up to the present. O.o
