Small Changes to the site

Written by George Wednesday, 07 October 2009 08:56

In the ever changing world of technology it is not possible to stay still and not fall behind. With that in mind I have been working on trying to update our website to make it more user friendly and also make it more easier to manage from the back-end. Jodie really liked the overall design of the site (banner, menu and all) so a complete overhaul to the design of the site was out of question. I just tweaked a little bit here and there, expanded the main content width so that more information can be displayed on the screen.

In the previous iteration we used a CMS called SilverStripe and I loved it. It was simple and straight forward. If things did not work the way I want it to, then I could just go ahead and make changes to the modules/templates etc. Then more and more I used it, I came to realize all the limitations that it had - I was making changes to make it work. Being a new and upcoming CMS the modules and extensions available was limited. So with that in mind I moved the site to Joomla!. This one has a lot more learning curve to it but the advantage being I do not have to make a lot of changes. If there is something I do not like, then I just have to find the extension/module/plug in that does the trick and use it. Along with the change in CMS powering the site, we also took the opportunity to move the site to a totally new server. Everything seems to be going pretty good for now. Lets just cross our fingers and hope it stays that way.

In addition to the back end changes, we have also added some new features to the site and we will be adding more soon. One thing we added was our location and ability to get driving directions - you can check out the Google Map embedded page here. We also added a small store to the website where you can get your favorite Snuggle Swing which we make right here in our Aviary - you can check out the items for sale here. While making changes we also updated the availability page more pretty. Check it out and let us know what you think. We are not done yet - we will keep updating and enhancing this site for all - so stay tuned.