Spam tastic...
So I finally found some time, during my lunch break, to work on another bit of my new admin panel. It revealed something quite horrifying to me, in that I had approximately 900 items of spam spread throughout my blog. I've purged it all and set my comments to require authorisation, at least until I come up with a better anti-spam filter.
Edit: I've tentatively re-enabled comments showing by default once again. I've implemented a few basic measures to hopefully eliminate the spam, at least from the public.
Posted by Wulf on May 20, 2009, 2:08 pm with 2 comments - Permalink
What I've been working on...
This weekend I have been working on a new interface for my Admin Panel. Whilst my current look is quite nice, it's also growing to become rather unweildy. Horizontal Navigation only goes so far before things get a little bit out of control after all:
Whilst it deals with a huge navigation menu a lot better than I had anticipated, it is growing increasingly unwieldy and frustrating to make use of. The idea behind both the current version and the new version is that it should be easy to use and somewhat intuitive in terms of usage. The current version is beginning to show some flaws in that regard, it can't handle the wealth of control being put into it any more... something new is needed.
That something new comes in the form of a new layout with new functionality and a greatly streamlined set of code running it all. It's still little more than a Work in Progress in terms of the majority of functions, but I have it already set up to allow me to add, edit and delete users as well as providing almost complete control over the blog posts displayed on the site. Still a long way to go in terms of functionality, but it currently looks like this:
There are quite a few changes in comparison to the original. There's a new breadcrumb navigation that lets you know where in the site are that will, eventually, allow you to click back through each aspect of the admin panel, even back to the main site itself. There is still a horizontal navigation menu, which I intend to use to display important links which is, as yet, undeveloped. The main body of the navigation is now on the left hand side and bundled into categories so that you only see the links you need to see, plus a selection of important links that will always be visible. The main body of the site is still the same, though the look and feel of it has been enhanced greatly to enhance both the looks and, more importantly, the usability of the sections.
The footer bar will contain some statistics about the site, such as number of viewable posts, number of comments made, as well as details on the currently signed in user. It will probably also contain details about the version of the admin panel. This will be the third incarnation of my admin panel. Boy has it developed a lot from it's XML driven roots.
Posted by Wulf on May 10, 2009, 3:10 pm with 0 comments - Permalink
Additions to Site Functionality
Today sees the completion of an important section of my site, the Portfolio Page. I had a rough idea of what I'd wanted it to look like for a short while now, and started throwing bits of it onto the site a day or two ago. It's now fully up and running.
I also implemented a new piece of functionality to the site. Visitors can now post comments on my various blog sections. It's still under development, so be warned that things may break or not work properly, but I'm confident enough in it's ability to take a hammering and let people loose on it.
Posted by Wulf on May 3, 2009, 12:49 am with 1 comment - Permalink
Improvements to the site
For a while now I have been looking at other sites and noticing a rather impressive syntax highlighting process going on when they display their code. I found one in the form of Alex Gorbatchev's SyntaxHighlighter package.
I've finally managed to find the time to get it implemented in the site, so now my code samples should make a bit more sense and be a bit easier for me to include in the future too, which is definitely a good thing. I've still got a lot of work to put into this site before I'll be fully happy with it, but it's getting there.
Posted by Wulf on April 26, 2009, 5:42 pm with 0 comments - Permalink
(Yet Another) New Site Design
Another, and hopefully final, site design up and running on the site. It's been quite a learning curve to design and produce my own Portfolio Site and has given me plenty of opportunity to learn new things, several of which from my own mistakes.
This new version marks an improvement in usability within my site. Some aspects of the old design were rather set in stone, whilst this new version is much more flexible and scaleable in it's design and function. Which will be nice if ever I decide to add new areas to the site.
Posted by Wulf on April 15, 2009, 10:31 pm with 0 comments - Permalink
