Hey there guys. As most of you noticed last week we started implementing a redesign around here. I didn’t post about the change or mention it out loud because I didn’t want to say anything before it was actually finished. Well… as of yesterday we finished it, so here I am posting about it.
There were a couple of reasons for the change. On the technical end of things, for some reason the layout and theme we were using was putting a HUGE strain on our servers. In other words, the CPU power being used by the site was FAR beyond what it should have been and we were never able to nail down the culprit or the root cause of that system resources hog. This new theme and layout has fixed that completely. Our servers are now MUCH happier and running very smoothly. As a result, you should notice the site is functioning and loading faster and more consistently.
From a practical point of view, with new information appearing on the site changes so rapidly, posts and articles disappear off the front page within a day or two. Our best navigation system for finding older and special content is the sidebar area. I wanted to implement a true “3 column” layout with more space for us to highlight certain content with. ALSO… if you go to an individual post’s page, you’ll notice the first thing in the side bar is now a “More Recent Posts” heading. This means if you read or comment on an individual story, you can click on the next recent story without having the head back to the front page first. We thing this will come in handy for our regular commentors and for first time visitors who land on one of the individual post’s pages.
I know not everyone will like the new layout… every time I’ve changed people talk about how much they hate the new design and loved the old one (which they all said they hated before). I know it will take a little getting used to, but I honestly think this layout and new back end with help make the Movie Blog experience a better one.
Also, a special shout out to Pia, our technical Guru who oversees all our coding and site maintenance, and Dan, who has become our defacto concept artist around here (he also designed the DVD cover for my Prince of Peace – God of War movie). They did a great job pulling this off for no other reason than they wanted to give back and contribute to the Movie Blog community. THANK YOU GUYS!
So there you have it. Feel free to comment or give any feedback you’d like on the design… or request new features… whatever. Thanks guys.
