For the first couple of years that we had Gaviidae a number of people would ask when we were going to start ‘The Blog’. Usually this was from fellow sailors who wanted wintertime reading material – as long as it had something to do with water, wind, or boat maintenance. The latter so they could reflect/commiserate about their own challenges.
We always knew that we would start a blog and last winter I had the opportunity to take a WordPress class. The result is GaviidaeSails.com. I thought now would be the time to start calling out features that I’ve added – most of these are subtle and sometimes they are technically challenging. This is when the Nerd comes out – I become somewhat obsessed with figuring out how to get something to work. Apologies in advance to those who have no interest in such endeavors – this may be the equivalent of reading a calculus book.
Here are some of my more recent changes:
- Under Maps, major modifications to the 2015 Map to include Infowindows that pop up when you click on the markers – these also include links to relevant postings. Also added a complete list of all locations and whether they were an anchorage, marina, or day-stop (you can filter by any of these at the top of the map) and you can click on any item in the list and the map will zoom into that spot. Thrilled? Okay – so humor me and tell me how brilliant it is. I actually figured out how to do all this without the assistance of technical support.
- Creation of a full staging site so when I do things like I did to the 2015 Map, I can screw it up in the staging site without touching production. I also have implemented a backup schedule to ensure that I can recover the site.
- Implemented my first CSS code with assistance from technical support. I’ll be studying up in this area. More fancy stuff to come in the future.
- Addition of our 2016 Itinerary under Maps which required mashing together two images from our Navionics charting app.
- Use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – still learning and tweaking. This is all behind the scenes but great fun to learn about.
There have also been numerous subtle changes with colors and such as I continue to improve the look and feel of the site. Your suggestions and comments are always welcome, in fact encouraged so that we know at least some of you are occasionally looking at our site.
Fair winds,
The Nerd (Can’t cook, so I gotta do something useful!)
