Right, now that the revamped blog is starting to work I thought I’d have a quick look at some of the new features.
This new Photo-Africa site has a much cleaner and easier feel to it which should make navigation around the site a lot easier. The previous site, even though it worked quite well, felt a bit messy. Here are a few of the features of the new site.
The front page of Photo-Africa is really all you need to know about. From the top down… The navigation menu is on the top right of the screen but more on this in a second. The slideshow at the top of the page, which I quite like, consists of five images. I will be changing and updating these every month to keep things fresh. Just below the slideshow you will see a number of thumbnail images. These are the latest posts that have been added to the site and you can read individual posts by clicking on any of the images. You can look through the various post thumbnails by using the slider but more on that below.
Underneath the post thumbnails you will see it says Blog. Only the latest post that has been added will be shown on the front page of the site. This keeps it form getting messy and as there are now a number of ways in which you can access the various posts and navigate around the site there is no need to have them all on the front page. If you really wanted to view the latest post on a page of it’s own you can always just click on the title! 
For easy navigation through the site you can use the menu bar at the top of the screen. By clicking on the little arrows you will get access to the various categories and pages on the site. A single click on any of these will take you that specific category or page. When you click on a category you will be taken to a screen with all the posts in that category listed underneath each other and with a shot summary from where you can then decide which ones you would like to read. This works the same for pages. You can use the links at the top of the screen to search the site, contact me or subscribe to the RSS feeds so that you never miss a post.
Another way in which you can navigate through the various categories is to use the category links at the bottom of the page.
By clicking on a category, such as General, you will be taken to the page with all the posts in that category all listed by date. Same as the links at the top of the page. The title and image of the newest post per category is shown at the top of each column which you can view by clicking on the image. Older posts per categories can be viewed by using the individual links (in blue). See, a lot of way in which you can navigate around the site.
The post thumbnail slider is one of my favorite features.
Underneath the thumbnails you will see a little grey slider. By clicking on this slider, holding it and dragging it from left to right you can scroll through the ten most recent posts on the site. To choose a post to read simply click on the appropriate image. Easy as that. Oh, and remember that you can return to the home page from anywhere on the site by clicking on Photo-Africa in the top left corner!
That’s pretty much that. Easy yeah? I am much happier with this layout as it keeps the focus on the images rather than too many distracting elements.
If you have any feedback or comments I would love to hear them!
More soon.
Gerry
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