Site Info

/// X-Bomber the Game Global Content Delivery System v9.8 ///

SFXB Forum Move and Conversion

In Jan 2015, the SFXB forum had a software problem. So we moved the data to this host and migrated from Ikonboard to phpBB 3.
Thanks to Andy Thomas for his help on the project, which was completed on 22nd Feb 2015.
More info can be found on the forum.

Move back to Krystal Hosting

In 2014, Dreamhost deleted our host; Peter's data and hiked the cost of his renewal.

So, I uploaded xbomber.co.uk and Big Dai-X's file structures and the database to my UK hosts.

Peter hosted us on Gibbering.net since 2007. That made managing the project much easier. This was particularly useful in 2007 and 2008 when the project encountered technical then legal problems. I was also able to make much more content available online.

Stewart Dalzell at Krystal Hosting was very helpful and installed a custom php.ini to get the SLIR image resizer working.

Media System

The Media system (and the entire site) makes extensive use of SLIR to create thumbnails and resize images.
It also uses Lightbox 2 to zoom the images and JW Player to play video.
Thanks to Lord Ri for his help with creating the system. It took that and a lot of visits to Stack Exchange to get the thing working.

The Media system was made to merge together:
	- the website's image folders
	- the Coppermine-driven X-Archive collaborative gallery
	- ImageVue X2-driven X-Bomber the Game portfolio gallery
The Images system was renamed when the Videos section of the X-Bomber website was also merged into it in December 2012.

Previous Locations

Originally, the X-Bomber Game Project had a single page on my site at piersbell.tripod.com, (back in 2002, when people had homepages).

Once the project expanded and the game was released, within the space of about 18 months, the game's website was hosted in the following locations as I was trying to get as much bandwidth and flexibility as possible for free and with a minimum number of adverts:

xbomber.tripod.com
members.lycos.co.uk/xbomber
www16.brinkster.com/~xbomber
btinternet.com/~xbomber (2003.10.31)

On 16th December 2003, xbomber.co.uk went up, featuring version 4 of the site. This featured a left navigation bar, used frames and was hosted by Krystal hosting.

About this Site

Driven on PHP 5 and MySQL
HTML 4.01 Transitional, CSS 2.1, embedded fonts
Uses JavaScript and Adobe Flash

Internet Explorer 11

Edge

Firefox

Site History

2004.05.07 - v5 - Complex frameset, Left menu, Menalto Gallery

2005.01.27 - Shoutbox and CMS
2006.01.10 - v6.5 - Frameset, Top menu, + Greymatter CMS
2006.04.08 - v7 - iFrame, Left menu, re-built and simplified
2006.09.14 - v8 - PHP, Top menu, Download details iFrame, New forum provided by SFXB

2007.11.16 - Move to Dreamhost, menu moved to left

2009.04.08 - Previous Versions and Source Code (PVSC) upload completed
2009.06.06 - v8.6 - Top menu, ImageVue X2 gallery deployed, Increased security, PVSC
2010.01.08 - X-Archive Coppermine Gallery
2010.05.26 - CuteNews CMS
2010.12.03 - Finished uploading Star Fleet and X-Bomber screenshot packs
2010.12.31 - Improved layout and CuteNews UTF-8 9 CMS with Captcha and improved presentation

2011.07.06 - Version control database w/ source code
2011.09.06 - Own CMS; based on MySQL and PHP
2012.10.12 - v9.0 - Images merges Imagevue and X-Archive
2012.12.31 - Media merges Images and Videos, IE9 fixes

2013.04.21 - Error handling improved
2013.06.29 - Replaced Screenshot Packs (total 3GB) with Star Fleet Galleries
- Creating detailed version history
2014.04.01 - Move to Krystal Hosting, Media indexes sub-folders
2014.06.20 - Layout and readability improved, Media now includes content from BigDaiX.co.uk
2014.10.19 - Media gets bigger thumbnails, clearer navigation/layout, separation of media files and downloads
- Star Fleet section incorporates Shane Perry's content from BigDaiX.co.uk after domain expires
2014.12.04 - High score uploads unblocked, Site menu reconfigured

About Menu

High Scores
News
Version History

About
Rain Song
To Do List
Project History
Site Info
Contact and Links

Help Topics

Getting Started
Gameplay
X-Project Player Ships
Extra Player Ships
Special Weapons
Allies
Enemies