I know, some of you are missing the old look of this blog right about now. Some of you are shocked by me saying that as you hated the old one! But, I do know that I was very anxious when I first saw the early prototype, and yet I found over time that it definitely grew on me. Now I love it, though a bit like my wife with our own physical home, I see a few flaws, and have some plans for improvements!
So, think of the new theme like moving house. No matter how much you like the new house, there are always things you miss initially about the old one! So, I thought that I would take a post to show you around a bit.
If you read the blog via the feed, then all this change won’t make any difference to you, apart from the fact that each post will now have a “related posts” list automatically generated for you. Click on one of those posts and you will see what all the fuss is about! Incidentally, that same related posts feature sits in the sidebar of the blog on the main site whenever you are on an individual post page.
The design is intended to be a lot clearer, but let me explain a few things to look out for. When you visit the main page you will currently see the first two posts in full. I am interested among other things in knowing how that seems to you as it is an option I could tweak. I think its a good number, but I am open to change it in the future. You can read those two posts as normal.
As you scroll down you will see a number of excerpts from other posts. Some people say these look a bit like a newspaper. These teasers are designed to help you catch up if you haven’t been on the blog for a few days or longer. You can scan the headlines and the first paragraph of all the posts you have missed and click on the title of any you want to read in full.
If you get to the bottom of the page, you can click “previous posts” to see older posts. Think of it a bit like turning a page.
In the sidebars you will see a number of different things. First up, there is a bit of advertising. Do feel free to follow the links and hence support the site, or to read more about placing an advert of your own and/or speak to beaconads.com who resell some of the advertising space here. At the moment there is no danger of me making my fortune by advertising, but it does help to offset some of the costs of running a site like this. Blog adverts are a cheap and easy way of reaching Christians compared to paper magazines. Like many young Christians I do not regularly read a single Christian newspaper or magazine, and when I do, I usually find them intensely annoying!
Also in the sidebar is advertising for my book’s website, and as that site develops you will see future headlines from it appearing here. Underneath this is links to my Facebook and Twitter pages. You will also see a useful search box that a number of people do use to try and find material I may have written or linked to on any specific subject. If that doesn’t help you find what you are looking for, on the links page, you will find a specialized google search engine which searches this site and every other site I have ever linked to.
It is also possible to find posts from the sidebar by date or category (=subject). Underneath everything I have mentioned so far you will also find “Related posts” which are auto-generated only on specific post pages, “Recent Posts” which shows, well, recent posts, “Popular Posts”, which shows which posts are getting the most visitors at the moment, and in case you are still reading, one of my favorite features “Random Posts” which can be from any time since April 2003 when I started writing the blog.
On the far sidebar you will see the most recent posts from the Warnie Winners, who are listed (and the concept of a Warnie is explained) on the links page.
Feel free to explore, follow a few links, and as always, let me know by Twitter, Facebook or e-mail what you think!
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