CreativeApplications.Net

2143 New Look CAN [News]

As you may have noticed already, CAN has just got a visual revamp. A brand new Wordpress theme has been designed by our dear friend Matt Joyce (aka themeekshall). It has been hard work and there are still few things to include but we are confident that you will like it.

You may ask, why the change? In the last few months we realised that there is a number of problematic issues with the old theme:

1. Front Page. Although we enjoyed the box post look, it was the latest post that was getting much attention and not any other. As a result, the bounce rate on the site was very high, ie people not checking out other posts but moving on too quickly. I should point out that the bounce rate has dropped by 15% since the install of new theme. This is great news.

2. Chronology. The old theme did not allow browsing of items chronologically. Of course, this could have been fixed but a single post emphasis was too much. We have many great posts and wanted to give them equal importance. Whilst some may be more popular than others, there are a lot of posts we are sure you will enjoy but don’t explore.

3. Aging look. Yes, we were getting tired of the old look and wanted a more rich, fun and friendly feel. You may also notice that post listing is a lot more easy to browse and engage with. Why the yellow you may ask, it’s fun, punchy and a rich colour. It’s winter time, spring soon and we need some ‘bright and shiny’.

4. Comments. We wanted to further engage our audience in discussions. We found that even though the old theme offered comments on each post, the black comment box was slightly intimidating. We think what we have now feels a lot more fun and casual.

5. Twitter Integration. Those of you who follow us on Twitter know that we are pretty active. We post links, news and much more related to Art, Design and Technology. We wanted to include that on the site in a styled, prominent way. This is also only the first step and we are currently looking for tweetback wordpress plugins, so your twitter replies will be also listed as comments.

6. We post many images in Twitter related to apps. Until now we have been using LittleSnapper service but feel that all these wonderful images should be featured on the site. We have now created a dedicated Flickr account and latest images are displayed in the site’s sidebar. If you use Flickr, be friend us!

What’s left to do:

1. iPhone/iPod Touch version of the site needs an update to match visual style of the regular site. In case you didn’t know, CAN has a specially designed version of the site just for the iPhone and iPod Touch. All you have to do is visit the site from your device.

2. Google AdSense. It’s not much of an earning but it is an earning. We need all the support we can get and the adsense is coming. We are just not yet sure how to integrate it without being too obtrusive.

3. Related Posts, Most Popular Posts and Latest Comments. We need to include these somewhere as they all allow alternative way to navigate the site. The more ways the better.

4. Theme Switcher. We are thinking of having a black and white Arial theme as well but not sure yet.

We also know that you would love to know what Wordpress plugins we are using, so here is a list of a few specific to the theme:

Wordpress Plugins on the New Site:

AdIcon Server For WP
Displays 16×16 favicon ads on your blog and lets users upload new favicons. By Menguzar.

Author Highlight
Author Highlight is a plugin that prints out a user-specified class attribute if the comment is made by the specified author. It is useful if you would like to apply a different style to comments made by yourself. By Jonathan Leighton.

cforms
cformsII offers unparalleled flexibility in deploying contact forms across your blog. Features include: comprehensive SPAM protection, Ajax support, Backup & Restore, Multi-Recipients, Role Manager support, Database tracking and many more. By Oliver Seidel.

FV Community News
Let visiters of your site post their articles on your site.

Lightbox 2
Used to overlay images on the current page. Lightbox JS v2.2 by Lokesh Dhakar. Mad props to Tanin for his crucial regular expression code! You rock!! By Rupert Morris.

Nice Tooltips
Nice Tooltips for Links. By Frank Bueltge.

PictureGrid
Picturegrid – Add flickr to your blog, no mess, no fuss. To make use of the lightbox functionality, you will need a lightbox plugin (like this one – no relation). By Kieran Delaney.

Twitter for Wordpress
Displays your public Twitter messages for all to read. Based on Pownce for Wordpress by Cavemonkey50. By Ricardo González.

WassUp
Wordpress plugin to analyze your visitors traffic with real time stats, chart and a lot of chronological informations. It has sidebar Widget support to show current online visitors and other statistics. By Michele Marcucci, Helene D..

WPtouch iPhone Theme
A plugin which reformats your site with a mobile theme when viewing with an iPhone / iPod touch. Set styling, page, menu, icon and more options for the theme by visiting the WPtouch Options admin panel.   By Dale Mugford & Duane Storey.

Xavin’s Review Ratings
Adds a shortcode tag [xrr rating=4/5] to display a rating. By Jonathan ‘Xavin’ Spence.

Feedback

We hope you enjoyed this update. It’s out with the old and in with the new!

We would also love to hear your comments on how you like the new site and what else do you think we should do to make it even better!

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• Author: Filip

  Architect, Lecturer, New Media Technologist. Based in London and Berlin. MacBook Pro 15" + iPhone.

  
  URL: http://www.fvda.co.uk
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