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TACWeb Redesign Part 4 - tid-bits

Date Stamp:

5 July 2005

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Posts about the TACWeb Redesign have slowed. So have my efforts in redeveloping the site – I think I’m beginning to comprehend the amount of work required. Anyway, to make it look like I’m still doing something, this post contains some non-specific tid-bits.

One thing I failed to mention in my last post about the front page for the new site, was the advertising of occassional events. Check out the front-page of the current site – yuck – what is with those three ugly boxes in the centre column? (For readers not aware, they’re are my doing… I’m not criticising anyone but me). Sometimes we have events that require some prominance, and so need to find a flexible space on the front page for such items.

The new site will be using a very nice application called Expression Engine – a highly flexible content management system. In fact, it’s all installed, and recently I upgrade to Version 1.3. There’s nothing available to show… yet.

Expression Engine are currently offering a reduced price on the integrated discussion forum. Now, I’m not a fan of discussion forums generally. They tend to only work well when focussed on a specific topic that draws a community. For our church web-site, I would much prefer the format of a blog where the content/topic is driven from a small group of contributors. “Community” will still develop through the comments. Maybe I’m applying personal taste, if you’re a TAC regular, would you like a discussion forum? If so, why? (If you’re not from TAC, still feel free to comment).

The re-design/development is going slowly, and is likely to take some time. What are your thoughts about a live re-design? That is, starting with a very basic layout and minimal content, the site will gradually take shape. So, for some months the site would be effectively “under construction” (without the animated icons of course).

One final tid-bit. We now have a few members of our congregation with personal blogs. There’s Ben, Lorien, Jane, Pete, Neil, Danny and me. Should the new site aggregate posts from these blogs (with the owners permission) onto a “members’ blogs page”?

See… a fairly disjointed, non-specific post.