Tag Archives: Design
Sexy New Blog Design
Posted on 15. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
This weekend, I didn’t go curling, I didn’t go clubbing, nor did I hunt the great white shark. I sat in my chair and made the eduFire blog look pretty. During that time, I watched all three Star Wars movies (the most recent three don’t count as movies), some Doctor Who, and listened to part of a Seth Godin audiobook. This, here (unless you’re viewing this via RSS), is the finished product, so hopefully you enjoy it!
But that’s the boring part! I learned so much about this blog, and about eduFire, while redesigning it, and have made it easy for you to do the same! Here’s what’s new:
Better Categories
Before, the categories were just kind of all over the place. Now, they’re very nicely organized, so it should be easier to find what you’re looking for! One of the really cool categories, which somehow I had no idea existed, is the “building eduFire” category. The reason I didn’t notice it before, was because it used to be called “building eduRev.” Why is this? Well, you could head over there and find out. To check out other categories, just mouse over them, and a drop-down should appear! You can even subscribe to certain categories, so you only get news in your feed about certain things!
Searching
Wow, I can’t believe we were missing this before! Now you can go and search for past (not future, sorry) articles. Just pop in a keyword and see what happens! It’s in the right sidebar, up at the top.
New Plugins
One of the great things about Wordpress, is the plethora of plugins that are available. Besides a bunch of back end plugins that make your experience so much more enjoyable (without you even knowing!), we’ve added a few that you might notice while stumbling about the blog. My favorite one is a “Related Posts” plugin, that tries to come up with related posts, and tells you them at the bottom of an article you’re reading. Usually it’s spot on, but sometimes it is wayyyy off.
More Features
You’ll notice that the sidebar is full of all sorts of things, including an Archive Page, a little blurb telling you who comments the most (minus blog admins), links to our shenanigans on social sites like Twitter, Popular posts, Tags, and more! Overall, this blog is easier to navigate, and it’s easier to find stuff. No more getting lost, hopefully.
That’s about it – it’s still a work in progress, but if you have anything else you’d like to see, I’d love to hear it! What sorts of plugins / features do you use on your blogs, to make them better? What have you seen around the blogosphere that no blog can live without?
