If you are in need of new photopolymer plates or other supplies within the next few days, we strongly recommend getting your order in by the end of the day tomorrow – Tuesday, August 30. Things ought to settle down by Thursday, September 1.

Printing customers: The server change will not affect you beyond the delays in correspondence mentioned above. We’re always available via phone.

Platemaking customers: During this time, we’ll be wiping all credit card information, so don’t be alarmed when you make a new purchase & your information is gone. The platemaking ordering process has been re-written from the bottom up, but you should not experience major changes otherwise. Let us know if you have any problems submitting orders!

Supply customers: We will not be able to process credit cards initially, but we will still take your order through our shopping cart. We will touch base offline to work out payment details. You can call us at 315.473.0930 & provide payment information over the phone.

We apologize in advance for the disruption, but rest assured that our IT team is working to make this transition as painless as possible. So don’t forget to grab a bag of popcorn and check the @letterpress on Twitter for real-time updates for the exciting transition!

Since the body was hidden while other scripts were running, though, other elements of the page broke (specifically a jQuery plugin and a YUI component). This wasn’t ideal either because the browser screen had to go blank between every page for every visitor. This code affects all visitors to the site when I’m really only worried about the 30% who use Firefox. So I came up with this solution which only affects Firefox users and which doesn’t hide the body elements (so that nothing breaks):

$(document).ready(function(){
$("body").css("-moz-opacity","0"); //this css is only used by Mozilla browsers like Firefox
$(window).load(function(){
$("body").css("-moz-opacity","1");
});
});

It doesn’t seem to be working when I use this “-moz-opacity” style in a “loading” CSS class (and then use $("body").addClass("loading") and $("body").removeClass("loading") to change the styling). Perhaps this is because Mozilla has deprecated this style. I also don’t like reading that Gecko 1.9.1/ Firefox 3.5 and later do not support -moz-opacity. By now, you should be using simply opacity. However, it seems to be working when jQuery applies this style with css. Just to make sure this trick works in the future, I’ll instead use the css opacity style after doing a jQuery browser detect:

In the stylesheet:
.loading{opacity:0;}

In the javascript:
if($.browser.mozilla){
$("body").addClass("loading");
$(window).load(function() {
$("body").removeClass("loading",500);//I'm using the jQuery UI animation here to fade content in, omit the ",500" if you aren't loading jqueryui.1.7.2.js.
});
};

Ah. This appears to be working and only will affect the Firefox users with the screen going blank. But once the fonts are formatted, the body will gracefully fade in. Your thoughts or suggestions are appreciated!

I know that we had some issues with our upload page not working, but these appear to be resolved now. Thanks for your patience while we resolved this. It ended up not being our code to blame, but a configuration file on our new server (long story, full of swashbuckling IT adventure). In the meantime, Cathy and Carrie (despite her laryngitis) were able to field everyone’s orders over the phone and keep things running. Great work guys!

Over the weekend some other people experienced problems accessing our site from the URL www.boxcarpress.com. These were normal effects from changing our server and should be working right at this point. Let us know if you still receive “server not found” or invalid security certificate issues. We’ve been monitoring our error logs to make sure things are running smoothly. That said, we would love to know if you discover any bugs on our site.

The one last we haven’t resolved is accepting credit cards for our supply orders. Our credit card merchant denied our transactions after we changed our server. It makes sense (to prevent fraud), but we didn’t realize this until after the launch, and are working now to restore online credit card processing. In the meantime, you can place your order online and phone in your credit card number. This should be up and running by the end of the day Tuesday March 18.

That’s it! Thanks for your patience while we sorted things out. And thanks so much for your great feedback–it sure makes all the work seem worthwhile!

Harold

Flurry: a Journal Among the Printers launches with articles about the eco-green letterpress scene; a profile of fine press genius Walter Hamady; and Hamady’s never before published essay that will inspire and rekindle your passion for printing.

The Boxcar Institute Training Series features a heart-thumping letterpress music video that’ll make you want to get down and dance to the beat of your platens. You’ll also find original instructional videos on printing topics like adjusting roller height; setting gauge pins and registering your plate; and makeready.

What press do you love most: the Vandercook, Heidelberg, C&P, or the baby Sigwalt? Take a stand with our choose-your-press t-shirts.

Check out our expanded pressroom and platemaking supplies, including a full line of letterpress inks; letterpress starter kits; and functional-but-fashionable printing aprons. And through a partnership with American Forests, you can purchase a tree during checkout to help global warming (and for every tree you plant, we’ll plant a tree too!).

Become an expert in photopolymer by browsing through our almost 100 FAQ’s, many of them new to our site.

See Harold jumping over a press in a Central New York soy bean field.

Enjoy a really cool, streamlined way to submit platemaking orders (you’ll need to create an account first, but it’s worth it!). And place a platemaking order over $100, and we’ll plant a tree for you through a donation to American Forests.

And this blog, which we promise to keep updated with shop photos, cool things we print, and other essentials.

Boxcar friends – do send us photos of your shop, your printing aprons, yourselves. Though we find ourselves somewhat fascinating from time to time, we want this blog to be about you as well as us.

Happy wanderings.

Just because we’ve been working on our new web site for most of our lives, please don’t feel obliged to go lovingly through every single section and then call us at 315.473.0930 to read us your favorite parts. You are under no obligation to send us flowers, dark chocolate with a 70% minimum cocoa content, or long e-mails to explain how pretty the new site is. Under no means should you allow us to bribe you into memorizing the jsp code, tattooing the urls of your favorite pages across your elbows, writing poetry about the new site, or mailing us hundreds of gold stars.

What we do hope is that you’ll spend some time, alone, with the site. Do you usually spend the Ides of March with your significant other or your family? Spend that time with our web site instead. Light some candles, put on some mood music (suggestions: Brian Eno’s Music for Airports), and rediscover us all over again. How long will this take? The new site is pretty darn large. Should you hurry through it in 30 minutes (which, to be honest, sounds uncomfortably rushed)? Or should you lock yourself in your room for two days, refusing to sleep or even eat so you can take your time? This second option sounds more relaxing and fun to us. And that’s what we’ll be doing this weekend. But it’s your call. Enjoy and happy printing.

P.S. Have you heard about the prizes? Five Boxcar medallions are hidden throughout our site. Find them. Send the urls to us at info@boxcarpress.com. If you’re one of the first 10 people to do this, you’ll win fame and a very cool choose-your-press t-shirt.

P.P.S. Also, the first 50 platemaking customers to set up their new accounts and place a platemaking order will receive a custom-made Boxcar printing apron.