Main website redesign... no more frames !

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The Dieselduck
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Main website redesign... no more frames !

Post by The Dieselduck »

Its been along time coming, and its finally here. I spent a couple of years of working around a defective web authoring program that I used for many years, which caused me many headaches. Then of course the frames style of the website, in use for many years, became a major problem in website structure vis a vis navigation and search. Then the new defacto standard of CMS - Content Management System, such as Wordpress, with many new website adopting it, was a worrying factor for me. What to do??? I already have a ton of popular and relevant content. So I approached a web guru friend of mine for some guidance, he suggested a CMS as well.

Last year, I started experimenting with various CMS, Joomla, Wordpress, etc, B2Evo and such, which meant learning a new programs and their functions. All in all, a neat and fun experience, but a very time consuming endeavor. I saw the benefits of using CMS like the majority of the other website - mainly, a major commercialization step, but having so much content already online, and not interested in making money in itself, I saw that CMS was going to be a major laborious project, to import all my current content into that framework.

So after much discussion with my web guru friend, we went back and started looking at good old' HTML, but getting rid of frames using PHP and CSS. This gives us a uniform look and feel, and be more user, and search engine friendly. So I finally decided to maintain the current structure, a simple structure that has served us so well for many years. However, it cost me quite a bit to get a proper coding done, as do not have this expertise. So I waited many months, until I had enough money from the meager advertising earnings to go ahead with the project.

The result, I think, is exactly what I was after. Not reinventing the wheel, or alienating my visitors, yet making major strides towards being a more accessible resource website. Being an eternal optimistic, I should have known it was going to be far more laborious than anticipated, but in the end, the main areas of the website, the content laden pages were all gone through, text verified for accuracy and flow. New information put in. All links cleaned up. Basically a major refit!

Not going to CMS has allowed me to not be overwhelmed by the entire project - which was a very serious threat, by not being forced to convert all my content right away to the new format. This is why you will sometimes see some webpages in a "simple" format, however not in frames. Over time I will convert the popular pages to the new format. I hope to also carry out some other structural changes once funding allows it, these however should not affect your visit in general.

Thanks for you patience, continued loyalty, and participation in the project. - Martin
Martin Leduc
Certified Marine Engineer and Webmaster
Martin's Marine Engineering Page
http://www.dieselduck.net
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JK
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Re: Main website redesign... no more frames !

Post by JK »

looks very good Martin, Very clean design.
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