Major Site updates

Major thanks to Kev for hand coding most of these changes.

It's been a long process for him as many of these features are *not* avilible on the blogging service I use, so he's literally had to hack out some amazing code, and I appreciate the time he's put in. I do hope it improves your interactivity with the site, especially those of you who read it at work, or who are more selective about what you come here to read and comment on.

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Taking my geekyness to the next level, I've made some rather sweeping changes to how the blog works in the past 6 weeks. Some are things that people have been screaming about for quite some time, so I'm hoping that these changes should push us through that magic 100 unique views a day / minimum 10 posts per topic barrier.

1. Formatting on your comments.

Comments can now have HTML added to them to make them easier to read.
I realise that this may involve coding for some of you (sorry), and I'm trying deperately hard to come up with a WYSISWG editor, but it looks like I'll have to get kev to hand code it, so it'll take a while.
basically, BOLD and UNDERLINE now work really well to make your points that much clearer.

2. RSS / XML feeds

These are now back working, and should work with Macs and the new versions of Windows Vista / Live software. I have about 25 people who only view the site this way, and while that's not a huge number, they do represent 25 page views for every post. Big thanks to CarolAnn for doing the testing on her Mac.

3. Better Layout Loading

I doubt you'll notice it, but the amount of code generated has roughly halfed, so the whole page should load quicker. I've also cut back on quite a few design features, so that I can integrate more information on the right hand pane. I'm definately up for any suggestion you might have.

4. Flickr

Thats right, I have added some flickr integration to the blog. So anyone that's got a photo of themselves, please please send it to me and we can all see each other. I'd really like a small sense of community here, and I think that would really help. Ok, i'm lying, i'm after naked pics...

5. NOW WORK SAFE!!!!

This, my friends, is the one you've been waiting on.

All non work safe comments are now placed inside a hidden div, and you HAVE to click on them to be able to view them. I'm so so glad of this, and currently it's working in IE6 and Firefox browsers. Safari for the Mac has a small issue with some images being visible until the whole page loads, but I've had to ask Kev to re-look at the code, as it's not a simple cut and paste job.

I'm so very happy with this one, as I know that a number of you can't look at the site at work for fear of seeing something that you shouldn't. Hopefully, thats a thing of the past.

And now...

I need help. Play around with these changes. Tell me via email or comments if any of them are useful. Tell me if there is anything you'd like to see added. I've been asked for Polls, PodCasts, BlogLinks, better search option, better archiving, VideoCasts, spellchecks, filters and more. Some of them are not what I want to do with the site, some really really are. But I'd really appreciate some feedback.

thanks,

Steve

Comments

[dawn]

faces!!!! emotions thingys! i think these are always funny and help bring peoples personalilty across when typing here! you see people who don;t know me don;t know if i'm a stunning blonde or a 40 year old bald guy! yes pics would help that but a 40 year old guy isn't going to add a whole load of love hearts on he's reply unless he's a pedo looking for something that's not on here! well!!!!!! lol

[Dave]

testing bold

testing

[Dave Nath]

looks good kev, cen i use most of the html formating commands?

[Steve Bank]

Dawn,

Thanks for the thoughts. I'd love to have an avatar option, or even smiley faces etc. I'm not quite sure if thats within Kev's capability or not, but we can see :)

Dave,

I've no idea about what commands work or not. Kev was menat to be preparing a line of text to sit above the comment box. Course there is a list of things Kev was meant to do...

[Benny Ford]

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