We just today rolled out a new website design using a WordPress template. This is a “responsive” design that will automatically reformat the website?for smartphones, iPads and other devices. It also makes it easy for me to edit the website myself and not have to ask our wonderful website designer, Amy Austin, to do the simple things. WordPress also has a blog as an integral part of the website itself, so we will now be using this for blog posts.
Our original blog at TypePad has been down for a week because of a “denial of service” attack directed at TypePad. As part of overcoming that attack, TypePad had to change IP addresses for certain blogs, including ours, and they are still trying to help us bring it back up. Our website redesign was already in the works when this happened, so it’s just a coincidence that the blog went down as we were readying the new website design.
I will resume posting on TypePad as soon as we can get that blog up and running again, but only for a few weeks until?we can transition all of our readers over to the new blog on the new site. In effect, I will be posting on both platforms for a while.
Now, as with any website redesign, we are sure there are broken links and other issues we have not found ourselves, so please send me an email or post a comment letting me know if you see something that isn’t working. If you see a page that links back to a blog post, that will not be working until the original blog is online again. We are also testing type sizes and other features, so you may see some differences on individual pages for a bit. Finally, I have other content to update on the site, but we plan to do that after the new site has been?up and running smoothly.
Also, our online donation page has been redesigned by Network for Good to match the “look and feel” of this new website, and that will be rolled out on Monday morning. I did not want them to do it on a Friday in case something wasn’t working and it couldn’t be fixed over the weekend. Until Monday, then, the online donations page will continue to look like the old website.
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It is nice to see your blog up and running again. Very nice.
Are you still part of the shelter challenge
Great looking website…and show casing some of my faves. Glad to see you back online.
Wow, snazzy new design, Great stuff. And as one who struggles with these things, nice to have a site that you don’t constantly need the services of a webmaster to adjust things.
So, being of the senior crowd, this grey print on white background is rather hard to read. Any chance you can get a little more contrast going for us senior folks? I can make it larger by adjusting the screen on my end, but still the lack of deep contrast makes it more work to read.
Thanks,.
Diane, good question about the font. One of the earlier WordPress themes we tried we had to abandon because it wouldn’t allow us to change the font at all. These themes come with a default font family as part of the stylesheet and is supposed to be an element of the overall design. I am not wild about the gray color myself — I am always making type sizes larger on websites, too, to make them easier to read … it seems like a lot of these website designers have much younger eyes than we do! — and it is one of the things we will be looking into. I can change the individual font for each page, but the “global” font for the site is embedded in that theme stylesheet. And no matter what font I select, it is gray rather than black. Our designer Amy will have to look under the hood for that. In the meantime, I will be using a larger type size and a different font for the blog posts to make them easier for all of us to read.
Diane, just a few minutes after replying to you, I did figure out how we can change the font color for the copy on individual pages. This page should look very different now!
Wow, nice new look!!
Hi Ev – Rolling Dog is still taking part in the shelter challenge and a new one just started on 4/21, so please be sure to vote for them. Thanks!
Steve, thank you so much. Once it took me two hours to figure out how to change the template to simply add two locations to a business card design I liked with a pre-set format. These things are hidden in the guts of the logic somewhere, hard to find, at best.
So thanks for the effort, and I will continue to enjoy the blog!! It makes my day when I see a new post on all those adorable beings you have in your care. And living on country property myself, I really enjoy your various posts on property maintenance as well as farming and ranching with the horses, goats etc.
Very, very impressive!!!