A place for us to share ideas and what’s happening. If you are logged in you can choose ‘edit’ from the top menu and open the page. Then, add date and short description with your initials so we know who’s done what. If you press Enter at the end of the last post, it will create a new block for you to type in. Make your entry and then click save, top right. This will also serve as a record of updates so that we can decide what works and implement those on the live site.
23/04 Clive creates clone copy of website for us to try out things
23/04 this page created ‘Website Development’ as way of sharing and charting changes and progress GH
23/04 ‘Website Development’ added to menu with sub-menu for trial pages. Existing test pages linked GH
23/04 Colour changed to a different shade of green so the clone site is obvious – this will be until a new theme is adopted GH
23/04 LiteSpeed Cache optimised for Hostinger (server host) GH
23/04 Tried a number of ways to get The Event Calendar to behave properly as a callout, but to no avail. Also discovered that you can’t set up repeating events or callout by category. I’m going to experiment with an alternative calendar plugin – Event Manager – that can do both of these to see if that will streamline entry and broaden display options. GH
24/04 Event Manager used to create recurring events – Coffee mornings and Talking Turning. Success, easy to do and appear on calendar page (which needs enhancing visually). This calendar now visible on Calendar page. Not possible to pull through events from previous calendar, although they are still stored with the website – they can safely be removed once a new system is up and running. GH
24/04 Event Manager, appearance refined somewhat, still a work in progress. ‘Next 3 Events’ callout created, which can be inserted on any page and will update automatically. GH
24/04 Footer menu changed, so that it doesn’t repeat the header menu – fewer items. ‘Scroll up’ arrow added for pc and tablet GH
24/04 Calendar updated with categories and colour codes, practising with recurring events – Coffee Mornings, Talking Turning (simply choosing days of the month) – and repeating events – Club Nights (latter simply by duplicating event and changing only the date and description, a quick process) GH
24/04 played around with tables (TablePress) and created one for the monthly themes, visible in calendar menu. I’ll try for one for challenge results in due course, as this would be easier to update as the year progresses. May not sort quite as thoroughly, but would show ongoing scores. GH
24/04 TablePress works for putting competition results, for example, on the website – I had to add ‘Responsive Horizontal Table Scroll’ plugin to ensure that the whole table was visible on a smaller screen and that does involve scrolling sideways, but it does that smoothly. Now the tables can be updated easily and excel-like functions work fine. I’ve formatted the beginners table and it’s visible through the competition menu GH
24/04 the main menu was getting very cramped, so I’ve tried to streamline it a bit, clustering information together and promoting ‘Activities’ as this is a great advert for the club. Members docs is now on the footer menu. GH
24/04 I’ve updated the calendar entries with details from the full calendar on the live website.GH
24/04 It’s now possible to use ‘event callouts’ on any page – this can be seen on the ‘Events’ page, a choice from ‘Calendar’ menu, where the 3 previous Club Meetings and the next 3 club events are visible as cards. They each link to a more detailed page. The 3 completed events could equally be 3 reports with photos of those events if that’s something the club would like to create – ‘News’ items rather than ‘Event’ items? GH
25/04 Website Development pages put in footer menu – cleans up top menu; footer menu to be reinstalled once development work complete GH
25/04 FooGallery set up, monthly galleries created to match existing website and populated with same photos. Galleries put into year folders. Basic gallery takes about 2 minutes to create, thanks to Clive’s careful labelling and structure on the live site. Works on smartphone, although scrolling necessary. GH
25/04 Colour Key added to calendar. Calendar checked on smartphone. Some odd behaviour, ie the month doesn’t show, nor the ‘today’ button unless in landscape – I’ll check this and adjust if possible. GH
25/04 next task is to document several of these processes. Some will necessitate simple duplication, but others depend on right choices in the first instance. Need to be clear for volunteer helpers GH
25/04 FAQs page completely redone in Kadence accordion style blocks – much better appearance and very easy to amend and update. Some obvious questions are unanswered on the website currently, ranging from: Is there a minimum age for membership? to Do I need my own lathe/tools to join? GH
26/04 started a Website Resources page to store re-usable code and blocks themed to the website GH
26/04 images added to events and callouts – saved as re-usable in resources GH
26/04 Welcome page updated with automatic Events list and News posts. No need to update this page manually, it will always be up to date as events and posts (news category) are added GH
27/04 begun optimisation for WCAG 2.2 compliance – fonts, including sizes and colours, menu and other element sizes, reduced padding to get more space on smartphones whilst increasing visibility. Aiming for WCAG2.2 AA compliance – suitable for craft club website (none of the other local sites comply, but this is now a legal requirement). This will not impact any changes to content and delivery yet to be decided, but is a necessary step that I can practise for us now. Check the clone against the live site on a smartphone to see the subtle (and some not so subtle) differences. GH
28/04 Played around with a different format for inline menus, colour coded to events in the calendar, including mocking up the pages they might lead to GH
28/04 I’ve given up on trying to get excerpts from recurring events working. As TT and Coffee Mornings aren’t planned much in advance, this isn’t going to be an issue. News from those meetings can still be displayed whenever posted. GH
28/04 Completed all 4 tables for the competitions – work nicely and are extremely easy to update. Can be copied forward for future years, names changed, results updated GH
29/04 Guidance Handbook produced and circulated to web team members. Various bits of tidying up done. Extra menu put on Homepage for quick access to Calendar, Events, Competition Status and this page GH
29/04 online application form created – in menu under ‘Join BWA’ . Designed to be completely mobile friendly GH
30/04 checked and competition (or any TablePress spreadsheet) results can be exported as csv file for use in Excel. GH
30/04 template created for POSTs and shared with group GH
30/04 started transferring pages from original format into Kadence – four done this evening GH
01/04 Completed first pass changing pages to Kadence theme & blocks GH
02/05 tinkered with appearance of news and events on home page; set ‘scroll to top’ arrow on mobile to match pc GH
03/05 started review of pages GH
04/05 revised css to simplify upkeep. (Update 06/05 – now going to need to completely redo this for new calendar if we move to MEC!) GH
05/05 Added new calendar plugin (Modern Events Calendar) and got to grips with it. Has great potential and hopefully covers all the basics as well! Added some recurring events and others, Experimented with output of events. GH
06/05 continuing to experiment with the new calendar, pending a decision regarding it’s suitability. Chosen ‘modal popups’ as the best event display method. Cards changed on front page – need formatting in clubs colours GH
07/05 approved theme applied to key pages as an test – successful. Theme applied to new gallery pages – see below GH
07/05 Extensive work on image galleries to overcome shortcomings of FooGallery Albums on mobile. Bespoke layout organised and User Guidance produced so that it is easy for volunteers to add new galleries and update the catalogue going forward. Test pages created for tonight’s Zoom meeting GH
08/05 Completed work on reducing space on the homepage for now – feedback sought. Background colour taken from homepage and applied across the site. Banner images added to many pages. GH
08/05 Swapped image and text mid-homepage to give better flow on mobile GH
08/05 further tweaks to homepage html for better image handling. Labelled sections for ease of finding code GH
08/05 reconfigured competition galleries and template, created this years entries so far and placeholder image GH
08/05 audited plugins now we seem to have settled on the ones that work for the website – removed redundant ones GH
08/05 reviewed pages that we are actually using. Removed redundant versions (already replaced with new pages) and simplified menus GH
09/05 tested export/import of pages between clone and main by putting this page on live website – worked fine with this simple page GH