Monday, 26 April 2010

Hacking my template

Firstly I want to thank you for your feedback and help when I asked for it. In many ways, your comments gave me a clearer view of how to improve Ikeahacker as well as chart a direction for it. Thank you, thank you! I feel re-inspired.

In response to that (I wouldn't want you to think that I wasn't listening!) I have made a few tweaks to the current site. Mind you, this is not the big redesign I was talking about (which I am now seriously considering Wordpress. Any thoughts?). I don't want to do too much on this template since I won't be using it in the redesign. But I do want to make sure that your experience on this site, while I work on the new design for the next coupla months, is a lot more useful and friendly. So here goes:

Many of you asked for:
1. Better navigation
- I've added the "older" and "newer" posts links at the bottom of the page. Hope that takes away the frustration of browsing the archives.
- Related posts complete with thumbnails are now under each post.  

2. Better search
- Under the existing categories section, I've added a drop down menu of all available Labels.
- I've also begun adding the Ikea names of the items hacked into the Labels. I do still forget some times. So do bear with me while I get the hang of it.

3. Less clutter
- I've increased the size of the left content area, as some of you mentioned, to give it space to breathe. This lets me include bigger photos too.
- Removed the Recent Comments (which many didn't find useful), moved the Friends Link List to a dedicated page. Tidied up things in general.
- Used images for the Top Hacks instead of text. I kinda like this alot myself! :)

Little tweaks. But it's an improvement, don't you think?

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