I write today’s update shortly after finishing some maintenance on a section of my website. Its a section that I started building last year, and although its only been online since February, it is in fact the oldest section of the site.
That all changed today, when I re-designed the Itzehoe 2008 section of the site. The old site was made up of HTML files which were organised in frames which meant it was incompatible with some browsers which don’t support frames. Compared to some of the newer sections of the site, the previous layout was starting to look a bit dated.
The new version of the site contains exactly the same text, but it has been designed using a piece of open source (free to distribute and edit) software – Joomla.
It took about 4 hours this afternoon to get the whole thing up and running properly; I based the logo on Joomla’s logo and looked through the photos from the trip to design some banners. I also had to set up all the menus properly (it wasn’t just a case of using a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” editor to arrange the text) and typed the content for the actual pages.
Those who know Joomla well will know that the Itzehoe site doesn’t make full use of Joomla’s features – such as the ability for users to have user accounts to log in to the site with and access special pages. I have chosen not to use this facility, and haven’t set up any special ‘private’ pages, and removed the login box from the site layout. My main reason for choosing Joomla is that all the pages are consistant in a layout which I believe looks very professional and easy to navigate.
As you may have read earlier in the week, I am planning to return to Itzehoe (with college) in February 2010, and will be designing another website similar to the 2008 version, when I return. Unlike the last time, I will be able to keep you updated as well through posts to this blog. My aim is to get this working before February.
So… what are your thoughts on the new design? Comments form below.
