Wetpixel.com Design History

Purpose: A timeline of Wetpixel’s design and platform changes, with Wayback Machine snapshot URLs for visual reference.

Placeholder note: This page identifies known design eras from the archive. Screenshot placeholders ([SCREENSHOT NEEDED]) mark where Wayback Machine captures should be added to document each era’s visual design.

Design Eras

Era 0: Breitigam’s single-page news service (pre-2001)

The original Wetpixel was a static single-page news service for underwater digital photography, created by David Breitigam as an offshoot of Steve’s Digicams, a popular early digital camera news site that Breitigam operated. No forum, no CMS — just a hand-maintained web page.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — earliest available Wayback capture of wetpixel.com, likely 2001]

Era 1: PostNuke + XMB Forums (2001–2003)

After Eric Cheng took over, Wetpixel was rebuilt on PostNuke (a PHP CMS) with XMB forum software. Articles lived at modules.php?op=modload paths. Forum URLs used the PNphpBB2 pattern (PostNuke’s phpBB integration module).

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com circa 2002, PostNuke/XMB era]

Era 2: Version 3.0 — Ground-up redesign (January 2004)

On January 23, 2004, Cheng, James Wiseman, and Craig Jones launched a “ground-up redesign and rewrite.” The forum was migrated to Invision Power Board (IPB). This introduced unified login across the site and a proper links/FAQ section. Forum URLs shifted to index.php?name=PNphpBB2 then to IPB-style forums/index.php?showtopic= patterns.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com v3.0, February 2004]

Era 3: Multi-blog engine redesign (February 2005)

On February 26, 2005, Cheng launched another major redesign. The front end moved to an “advanced, multi-blog engine” — Exhibition Engine, integrated with Invision Power Board 2.0 via custom single-sign-on built by Alex King. The site moved to a dedicated dual-processor server.

New features: RSS/Atom feeds, member blogs, community photo galleries, anti-spam email encoding, printable article archives. The classified ads section moved back into the forums.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com post-Feb 2005 redesign]

Era 4: Server migration + DDoS recovery (January 2008)

On January 29, 2008, Wetpixel migrated to a new server. Cor Bosman managed the technical migration, with Cheng handling the announcement. This was partly driven by a DDoS attack earlier that month that “took down server and switch.”

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com early 2008, post-migration]

Era 5: Software upgrade (July 2008)

On July 26, 2008, Cheng and Cor Bosman upgraded all server software to current versions. The visual design was refreshed — new forum skin, “Lite skin” option for Team Wetpixel members, new emoticons, Google Maps member map integration (built by Bosman).

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com July 2008 post-upgrade, showing new skin]

Era 6: Major redesign with “Full Frame” feature (February 2013)

In February 2013, under Adam Hanlon’s editorship, Wetpixel underwent its most significant visual redesign since 2005. New features included:

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com March 2013, new "Full Frame" design]

Era 7: Tapatalk removal + server migration (2019)

In January 2019, Tapatalk hooks were disabled. In July 2019, a server migration occurred (managed by Tom St. George) with lingering bugs.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com mid-2019, post-migration]

Era 8: Final state (2023–present)

The site’s last article was published in April 2023. The visual design was unchanged from the 2013 era, though increasingly showing signs of neglect — broken images, unprocessed membership requests, intermittent outages from hosting migrations with DNS records not updated.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — wetpixel.com final state, April 2023]

Platform Stack Summary

EraDatesCMSForum SoftwareKey People
0Pre-2001Static HTMLNoneBreitigam
12001–2003PostNukeXMB → phpBB2Cheng
2Jan 2004PostNuke (?)IPBCheng, Wiseman, Jones
3Feb 2005Exhibition EngineIPB 2.0Cheng, Alex King, Nolf
4-52008Exhibition EngineIPB (upgraded)Cheng, Cor Bosman
6Feb 2013New CMS (?)IPB (upgraded)Hanlon
72019SameSame (Tapatalk removed)Hanlon, Tom St. George
82023+Same (dormant)Same (dormant)—

Suggested Wayback Machine Captures

To complete this page with screenshots, check these Wayback Machine URLs:

  1. Earliest: https://web.archive.org/web/2001*/wetpixel.com
  2. PostNuke era: https://web.archive.org/web/20030601/wetpixel.com
  3. v3.0 launch: https://web.archive.org/web/20040201/wetpixel.com
  4. 2005 redesign: https://web.archive.org/web/20050401/wetpixel.com
  5. 2008 upgrade: https://web.archive.org/web/20080901/wetpixel.com
  6. 2013 redesign: https://web.archive.org/web/20130401/wetpixel.com
  7. 2019 post-migration: https://web.archive.org/web/20190901/wetpixel.com
  8. Final state: https://web.archive.org/web/20230401/wetpixel.com

References

Sources

  1. Wetpixel article, Oct 31, 2002: Strobe Use For Digital Cameras For Beginners ↩
  2. Forum thread: Whats Busted On The Message Board ↩
  3. Wetpixel article, Jul 22, 2002: Dema 2002 Report ↩
  4. Wetpixel, v3.0 (article) ↩
  5. Forum thread: Wetpixel Migration Thread Jan 2004 ↩
  6. Wetpixel article, Mar 28, 2004: Wetpixels 2000th Forum Member ↩
  7. New Wetpixel Design! (article) ↩
  8. Forum thread: Wetpixel Feb 2005 Migration Feedback ↩
  9. WETPIXEL MIGRATION UNDERWAY (forum) ↩
  10. Forum thread: Migration To New Server Feedback ↩
  11. Wetpixel server software update (article) ↩
  12. Forum thread: Wetpixel Software Upgraded ↩
  13. Forum thread: Wetpixel Redesign Feedback ↩
  14. Forum thread: Tapatalk Hooks Were Disabled For This Forum ↩
  15. Wetpixel, v3.0 (article) ↩
  16. New Wetpixel Design! (article) ↩
  17. Wetpixel server software update (article) ↩
  18. Migration thread Jan 2004 (forum) ↩
  19. Migration thread Feb 2005 (forum) ↩
  20. Software upgrade thread Jul 2008 (forum) ↩
  21. Redesign feedback Feb 2013 (forum) ↩
  22. XMB bug report (forum) ↩
  23. Tapatalk disabled (forum) ↩