Before version 2 there was– prepare for a surprise– version 1. What's the difference between them? I can sure think of some! But since this section is called Site History, let us start from the very beginning...

In the very beginning, when the domain helenvader.net was still hosting just one website (that website being Silvermoon), it had a welcome page which featured a black-petaled flower that I drew in CorelDraw despite that fact that I could never use that programme. I only managed to draw something that one time; I think it must have been out of sheer determination. :) I really liked the welcome page, but it become useless once I launched more sites under my domain.

As for colour-scheme, version 2 uses cold hues where version 1 was warm-coloured. I can remember saying that it was black for darkness, red for blood and orange for body; however, that's a symbolism that came to mind long after the site was running. :)

For a while I played with the idea of preserving the colours for the new version: :)

But then I came with the idea of using my favourite Alfons Mucha picture for the design, and it was decided. The picture is even very appropriately called Claire de Lune [Light of Moon], and it features the only one of Mucha's women I feel I can identify with.

Originally, the old site was hosting multi-chaptered fics. As time went by and I was too busy to read long pieces of fiction, which were never my favourite anyway, I changed this to accepting only stories up to three chapters. Version 2 goes even further and introduces a short-fic and poetry only policy. As a result I lost some of my favourite pieces of fiction, but one should stick to one own's policy.

Version 1 had a rather complicated structure, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to make a version 2 in the first place. Each story had attached a couple of files. a) There was the "about" file, which listed, among other things, links to other places where the story/poem was hosted. While this feature was unique, it became annoying after time as links tend to become invalid. b) There was the story itself. c) There was the "about author" file which included the author's age, e-mail and homepage (if any). You can well guess that these are data that outdate at least once a year, and to keep track of it you need more than just one Helen. d) There was the print version. All in all, an update required too much files to be edited manually in html, and the result was a decreasing number of updates.

Three years ago I launched another fanfic site, in a second, and decided to structure it more simply so that I could avoid the labour I got into when updating Silvermoon. All unnecessary information was cut except for e-mails that I still keep that because of the feedback for the author. In the case of e-mails the change is that all addressed are now in the form name [at] second-level-domain [dot] first-level-domain in order to avoid spam.

Naturally, I wanted to introduce this kind of changes to Silvermoon as well. in a second used simple PHP includes, and slowly I began to cherish the idea of going even further and re-build both Silvermoon and in a second into MySQL-run database sites. This, in addition of facilitating the updates even more, would enable things like the "search" function and filtering of stories according of any criteria I could come up with. I'm no programmer, so someone promised to help me with it. However, the promise wasn't kept and the only thing that was done, as back as in June 2003, was the new design.

At Christmas 2005 I decided to do something about it and re-make the site at least to match a in a second, and you're looking at the result right now. I still haven't given up the database idea, but it's better to have something than nothing, so for the time being, this will do.