Case Study: Zelda Informer
Site URL: http://www.zeldainformer.com
Date Built: July 2007
Publishing Platforms: Movable Type, Invision Power Board
Zelda Informer is an ever-evolving project run by Zangaroa Networks, the internal sites division run by the community surrounding Zangaroa Enterprises. Launched in July 2007, it has since undergone a handful of changes and has become one of the most popular sites within the Legend of Zelda fan web ring.
The objective of the site was threefold:
- Provide an extensive array of player and story guides for the Legend of Zelda video game series.
- Function as a one-stop source for all news related to the Zelda series, as well as going-ons within the Zelda fan community.
- Provide a central hub for fans to converge and converse with each other.
How It Was Done
The original incarnation of the site was built upon a series of custom PHP scripts and wrappers. This went on until July 2008, whereaupon the site's content was migrated to an installation of Movable Type Open Source.
Since then, Zelda Informer has undergone several overhauls, and is continuously being modified as the "guinea pig" for many of Zangaroa's programming developments.
Currently, Movable Type provides both the infrastructure not only for the vast library of guides, but also the entire news system for posting of news, editorials, site updates and anything else that calls for attention. It is extensively modified, using purpose-built template modules, jQuery and MT's very own Custom Fields module to build additional functions and SQL columns for managing the vast library of content the site hosts.
As for the community aspect, this is handled twofold: On the frontside, all news articles have comment forms so they can make comments on posts as well as form conversations. A custom contact form integrated into Movable Type allows viewers and press contacts to submit news to the editorial team, and there is also a community message board, powered by Invision Power Board.