Now then. The big idea...
I've been wanting a proper main-page for our TFs site for, well... a few years now. And in the last 12 months, with help from Jaydisc and Kurdt the Goat, I managed to find something that best suited our forum and its software.
But that stalled for a while because I couldn't get the darn thing to work.
A couple weeks ago, I finally found out what was wrong, and got the page operational.

I also figured that with the upcoming AUS Toyfair (in March), I could use the website to get Hasbro more willing to throw us info and maybe even more coverage at the Toyfair (most of the TFs will be hidden out the back like in 2007).

But there had to be an incentive, or leverage even...

So I asked myself, 'what is holding back Hasbro from being more keen to promote their products though us?'
Easy - we are just a non-website forum centered on just one of their hundreds of product lines. Sure, we may be their biggest selling (or one of) product lines, but for them to INVEST any resources into our little corner of the web, we have to give them an incentive.

So to get them to promote their Transformers Products through us, as a free public service, we need to also allow for them to promote their other toy products. As a Transformers Community, we just 'skim the cream off the top' (the Transformers info), and let the rest of the toy product info go to who ever else is interested. Even if only 10% of the product info was Transformers related, that is still more than we would be getting from them without this project.

That means having a separate webpage and forum for 'All Toy Lines', in addition to our Transformers Community and Forum. And if the interest grows, any other toyline that has a collector following, forums could be generated for them.

But the focus is (and always will be while I'm the admin) the Transformers side of things, and we can't get Hasbro to *want* to invest more of their resources into our community (and conventions/fanmeets), if we are just a single toyline forum.
And since this would be aiming to cover all toylines, not just Hasbro ones, the additional incentive to Hasbro will be maintaining a competative edge over its rivals. If we get some of the other toy distributors intersted in using this free (for now) promotional tool, Hasbro would be under more pressure to use it as well. And as with the example above, any small portion that is Transformers related, is a bonus to our forum.

So for a little while, there will be an expanded section on our forum for other toylines, as a transitional means to generate interest from the Toy Companies, and collectors, to then be set up as its own stand alone collector forum.
So the more popular it gets, the quicker it will be moved from our TFs forum into its own. And having it part of this Transformers Forum for now can help prove to the Toy Companies that there is collector and public interest in an Australian Toy Collectors Website.

It would also be a substitute for the Toy Companies who don't see any value in setting up their own localised product websites (or keeping their websites up-to-date). That would be another incentive to them, as it would be a cheaper alternative to setting up their own localised product websites.

Okay, so now for the technical problems I've been having in the last 4 days, that prevented the website from being launched on the same day as the re-arrangement of the board.
The software for the website wouldn't allow me to generate completely separate pages for 'Transformers', 'General Toy Collecting', 'Lego', etc, so I had to resort to having a main 'Toy Collector' page, with our Transformers page being a sub-page of it.
This was why I had to change the banner to the small thing we have at the moment, because it had to have the word 'Transformers' removed, and, I am going to try to insert a header underneat that main banner on each sub-page and forum, to make it more obvious what each page is about.

I also had to strip out most of the default modules of the program, as they were mostly redundant, and I need to generate new ones to cover info and topics we need on our front page.

I'm probably forgetting some stuff as well, but as I said in the last post, this is still a work in progress, and by no means makes this a toy forum that has a Transformers section. It will remain a Transformers forum, with a temporary hosting of a general toy section, until such time that it can stand on its own, or, will be scaled back because of lack of traffic.