Ben Gamblin Online - Blog: Website Revamp

Website Revamp

06 May '08, 21:00

I've just completed, and launched, the latest revamp of my site. Since it hadn't really changed much since January 2007, I decided it was looking a bit tired and needed a spring clean.

The style retains a lot of similar features from the old one: the same green for the colour scheme, navigation bar at the top, similar options in that navigation bar, and a split page format, although it's not a 50-50 split this time.

Here's a run down of exactly what has changed:

• Pages are now in a fixed width format.
• There is a tidier navigation bar, including "Contact" which used to be in the footer.
• The page split is now 75%-25% with the larger left side used for main content, and the smaller right side used for extra information or navigation options.
• The Blog page has been dropped. The last 10 entries are visible on the home page, with page number jumpers allowing readers to browse through older entries.
• A standardised date/time format has been introduced across pages where this information is required.
• A new 'About Me' page has been added, taking this information away from the home page.
• The Music Library doesn't load a list of all songs, but presents users with an alphabetical index. This allows for quicker page loading times.
• Photo Albums have had a complete overhaul, with thumbnails running along the top of the page, with the selected image visible below preventing the need to go back and forth between thumbnails and images. Current page settings are remembered when changing thumbnails, pages or years.
• Images are now watermarked with my details.
• The map only has two types of icons - places visited, and places where photographs have been taken. The latter icon will show 3 thumbnails of the photograph tagged with those co-ordinates. Albums can be views showing all photographs tagged with those co-ordinates.
• The File Store has been renamed to File Repository. The categories (now called folders) are permanently visible on the right of this page.
• The links page no longer lists all links in one page. The user must select a category from the list of the available categories down the right side of the page. The layout of the links has changed slightly with the address now being visible
• The Contact page has been tidied up. The Captcha image is now larger and should be easier to read. Errors in submission create a nicer error page. The terms and conditions are available next to the form. These changes also apply to the Blog comments submission form.
• An improved search is always available at the top right of any page. Search will check blog entries, photographs, file repository and external links. The operators AND, OR are both available as is the use of double quotes to specify a phrase.
• Page addresses no longer use query strings and now appear much tidier (e.g. blog.php?id=123 is now /blog/123/). This should be more friendly for search engines and more secure.

There are still things that I would like to build on. Links for 'previous entry' and 'next entry' in the blog would be useful. These used to exist but didn't work for a long time so for the time being they have been removed. I also want to develop the search aspect to include the music library and the operator NOT.

In spite of those planned changes, I think that 2 months of coding has paid-off and the site is looking better for it.

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