So, here we are. It's been a few weeks in the making, and if you've been visiting during that time, you're probably familiar with all of this anyway, as the new version was actually live for testing purposes. But if you're visiting for the first time, or haven't been here in a while, allow me to walk you through a few new things...
Cleaner, Responsive Design
It's a lot more bright and airy around these parts, that's for sure! The main focus of the redesign wasn't really to add new features, but to just simply make it look better. Everything's a lot brighter, everything's a lot cleaner. The fonts are more readable, and the content is richer, with larger images.
There's now a snazzy banner above the posts that highlights certain posts (not necessarily the most recent ones, just what we think you should really have a look at).
The new persistent nav-bar makes it much easier to get to different sections, features or genres easily (I'm aware that some links, like the 'Music' one, don't yet work as they should - I hope to have this fixed over the next few days), as well as making search much easier (it no longer boots you out to Google).
And most importantly, the site is totally responsive, so it should hopefully look great whatever the size of your browser window or device. The mobile UI still needs some work - that's a priority at the moment.
We wanted to, above all, make things simple. Too many music blogs (not going to name names) look slick, but have crazy amounts of different things happening all over the place, are unfocussed and difficult to navigate around. So we've kept things simple: posts on the left, and a few extra do-dahs in the sidebar on the right. Speaking of which...
The Sidebar
We totally gutted the sidebar, and reintroduced only the most important stuff, as well as a few new goodies. At the top, you can choose between the most viewed posts for the last seven days, our video pick for the month, or frequently used artist tags.
We've kept the article archive below that, as we know people like to use that, and introduced a way to get to us on Facebook far easier (please - we need likes!).
Sharing/Commenting
Both of these are easier than ever, with new big share buttons at the bottom of every article.
There's also now a choice of commenting systems - you can either sign in with your Google account to leave a comment, or if you'd rather, you can now also sign in with Facebook, and leave a comment there instead.
...and that's about it, really! I told you we'd kept it simple! No doubt you'll find other changes as you peruse the site. We really hope you like what you see - this has been a massive undertaking for me, I've basically learnt how to code as I went along!
I'd just like to say a massive thank you to Rina Chaudhary at ThemeXpose for providing the initial template for the blog, and providing support throughout the site's development. Thanks also to anyone who's helped me out by testing the site over the last week or two.
Finally: you're bound to find bugs, and things that are wrong or don't work how you think they should. Hey, nobody's perfect. It would be really helpful if you could hit us up on Twitter or drop us an email if you find anything untoward.
Thanks for visiting - now, go forth and explore!
Writer, musician, and all-round top guy. I set up Excited Octopus. Currently, I'm on a one man team. It gets lonely sometimes. But I don't mind, because I love you all.
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