Four Island

Four Island has gone through a variety of design revisions since its creation. Here are a list of them. Note: Not all themes have pictures available. Theme versions prior to Four Island 3 (a.k.a. v6) also have an alternate name, which is listed.

v1 - Hatkirby CDI

Published: ?

Hatkirby CDI was the name of Starla Insigna's website before September 22nd, 2007, when she bought the domain "fourisland.com" and renamed her site to Four Island. She redesigned the site on the same day, creating theme v1.1, but before that, v1 looked very similar to v1.1 except without the background and with solid blocks of different colors as the backgrounds of the header, the main content and the sidebar. No official starting date is available for the same reason that the actual creation date of Insigna's website is not available: she created her blog ~1 week before purchasing "fourisland.com", but did not give her blog the ability to log the publishing dates of posts until October 15th, 2007.

v1.1 - Layout 1

Published: September 22nd, 2007

v1.1 was created after Starla Insigna renamed her website "Four Island" and differs mostly from v1 in that it features a new background portraying Four Island and a four character named Fourie.

v1.2 - Layout 2

Published: ?

v1.2 was a minor update to v1.1 that moved the sidebar into a purple CSS float. No starting date is available because, although it has for quite a while been thought of as a major layout update (for some inane reason), its creation was never documented in a blog post.

v2 - Layout 3

Published: December 3rd, 2007

v2 was the first theme version to utilize a navbar under the header instead of a sidebar like v1 had. It was also the first theme version to not use the entire width of the browser window and instead show its contents in a center-aligned width-restricted column.

v3 - Layout 4

Published: May 2nd, 2008 (first run); May 23rd, 2008 (second run)

v3 was Insigna's attempt at a more professional looking website. It uses several concepts from the design of phpbb.com.

v3.1 - Layout 5

Published: May 15th, 2008

v3.1 was a failed attempt at a minor update to v3. It looked almost exactly like v3, except the column was left-aligned and designed to look slightly like a notebook. It was disliked by most Four Island regulars and broke in most browsers/screen resolutions. Four Island reverted to v3 after only eight days.

v3.2 - Layout 4.5

Published: June 12th, 2008

v3.2 came out with Four Island 2, the first complete rewrite of the Four Island codebase. It therefore differs greatly from v3, not in design but more in organization. It also introduced the round-blue-bubble motif that would stick to Four Island for quite a while.

v4 - Layout 6

[gallery include="3584,3585" columns="2" size="medium" link="file"] Published: November 22nd, 2008 (beta); November 30th, 2008 (final)

v4 was created after Insigna started to get bored of v3.2--however, she didn't think things through carefully enough and ended up publishing a not yet completed theme on November 22nd, 2008. She continued to work on it the following week and published the completed theme on November 30th, 2008. However, due to complications, Insigna got the idea that v4 was not being well received and thinking v4 was receiving the same fate as v3.1, reverted to v3.2 on December 6th, 2008, only to bring v4 back later that day when she was told otherwise. It is the first theme version to have a sidebar on the left instead of the right. The v4 beta was the first theme version to not include the island backgrounds which had been present since v1.1; they were, however, added back in v4 final.

v4.1 - Layout 6.1

Published: January 1st, 2009

v4.1 was the first minor update to v4, and, responding to user feedback that the text could be hard to read, it encapsulated the content column with a border and a background, like v3 had.

v4.2 - Layout 6.2

Published: February 4th, 2009

v4.2 was another minor update to v4, this time adding semi-transparent backgrounds to the main content column making it easier to read the main content while still keeping the artistic backgrounds visible.

v5 - Layout 7

Published: August 9th, 2009 (officially August 13th, 2009)

After almost a year of v4, Insigna began to tire of the theme and wanted a newer, more professional, and less ugly theme for Four Island. v5 is the first theme since v1.2 to use the entire width of the browser window instead of a fluid width centered column. It also acknowledges user complaints that the sidebar was too long by moving several sidebar modules into the footer. v5 also brought with it the AJAXification of many processes on the site such as commenting, rating and voting on quotes.

v6

Published: September 22nd, 2011

Four Island 3 was released on September 22nd, 2011, after more than two years of v5 and more than three years of Four Island 2. The Four Island blog was switched to the Wordpress engine with Four Island 3 and underwent a large number of changes. v6 is a largely modified version of the Wordpress theme K2.

v7

Published: December 23rd, 2012

While looking somewhat similar to v6, v7 was in fact written from scratch. It brings the sidebar back into the main column and all links are now red.