You may have noticed a slight change recently on the main site (ffextensionguru.com) with the ‘recent news’ section. This use to be a static list of recent blog post that I would have to go in an update manually. I have since replaced this with a JavaScript application which automatically post from the feed. The application is from Feed2JS and it is free (you can also get and run your own instance of Feed2JS if you have your own server/hosting). I am hoping to be able to do the same thing for the ‘recent updates’ section. This ties into the ‘changes’ that will be coming.
Over the next few weeks (or months) I am going to start converting the main site into a WordPress (WordPress.org) site…make that two…or possibly three WordPress sites actually. The first/main site is going to a redesigned and expanded extension section. I am not sure yet about the Tweaks section if that is going to be part of the extension section or if it will be its own site as well. The last site is simply going to be an ‘updates’ blog (which is still going to be part of WordPress.com) that will allow me to convert the ‘recent updates’ section into an automated feed as well.
Now many of you are probably wondering why I want to do this as it is going to be a lot of work. There are many reasons such as integrated search function (don’t have this now on the main site), easier content management and organization. Plus in the long run it will be a lot easier to keep the site(s) up-to-date. Oddly enough, it takes less time to complete a quick update post on the blog then it does to manually add the info to the main page and re-publish the site. Plus if this works out I will also be converting our sister site The Email Mafia into the same type of site.
Don’t really have a time line yet but I expect the ‘update’ blog will be live in the next day or so. There really isn’t much I need to do with that as its only purpose will be to provide a ‘change log’ and feed for the main site.
Update: I am not going to use WordPress after all to redo the main site. I took a look at WordPress once installed and it was just no going to work the way I thought it would. My original idea was to setup a Wiki for the extensions and tweaks section so I am going to give MediaWiki (the same application Wikipedia is built on) a try. I think MediaWiki is going to suit my needs better too.
Good luck. It will be interesting to see how it comes out.