During September and October 2026, the Webmaster made considerable revisions and changes to the website. Fundamentally the intention was to bring it in line with the philosophy of the WordPress platform, principally making it much more blog based, where authors, instead of just the Webmaster, could add content to the site.
New Site Map
Below is a basic site map that explains visually how the structure now works for the new Home page, with posts from several different Catgories making up the structure of the page. This principle is similar to how ‘news’ sites such as the BBC or the Guardian work.
Key Changes
- Home page: Completely revised to comprise of a digest of key posts from various Categories:
- Feature article: A single Feature post (most recent post shown) – no Category page listing them.
- What’s On: A short list of the key upcoming Events – selected by Keyword from the new Events Calendar page
- Community Projects: The two most recent posts from the new Projects page
- Latest News: Single, most recent post from the News page
- Get Involved and How to Find Us information: Static, but shortly to be drawn from a revised About page
- Partner logos: Linked to the Partners page. Unchanged from original site but relocated to the foot of the Home page.
- Events Calendar page: New page currently a sub page of the About section, listing upcoming events that The Shed is involved in. New events are entered as individual posts and the list can be reordered manually into chronological order using a drag and drop method. Posts can also be set to ‘expire’ from the list, once events have taken place. The process has involved some deliberation and testing of events calendar plugins etc. but eventually the Webmaster settled on building a manual system, using a plugin and then adding php code to allow the additional sorting methods. It seemed the simplest method which was also appropriate for the relatively limited number of events that The Shed would have during any given period. Instructions on how to add events and order them are here.
- Projects: A new posts category and new posts page, listing all the Community Projects that The Shed has undertaken so far.
- News: Unchanged category and Category page (listing all News events) but the Featured image uploded to a new post does not now have to be manually cropped into a circle shape. The template has been changed so that Authors can use just a standard rectangular image file – preferably cropped to square format.
- The Shed page: This has been reworked completely with new content provided by Andrew, detailing our journey so far. A new category has been created, so that Andrew can update the page by updating each post with new information as and when he wishes.
- Members Area: Two sections of this have been revised, with updated content as well. The Documents section holds all the key administrative documents (Constitution etc.) and the Rules and Procedures section holds Health and Safety guides for processes and using tools and machinery etc. At present all documents are available in PDF format but eventually they will also be presented as a list of posts, so that they can be read directly off the website. There is an example on each of those pages at present.
- How to Articles: A series of How to pages to advise Authors on how to add and layout new posts and manage them. This will eventually be expanded and incorporated into the Member Area.
- Posts generally: as per the Events Calendar, the additions of the php function means that all posts can actually be manually reordered if desired (rather than adhering to the limited built in WordPress options of ‘Ascending’ (newest post first) or ‘Descending’ (oldest post first) schemes. This should however be used with caution and reviewed on the final saved page.
- SVG images: The addition of a new plugin means that SVG images can now be used in posts. This is particularly useful for any diagramatic content (plans etc.) – as the Site Map above shows.
To be completed as at October 2026
- About page: This is going to be completely revised to use blog post content and will be similar to the Home page in presentation. This is so that Authors can add or amend content themselves.
- Contact page: This will be combined into the About page. The current contact form will be removed as we have had very few enquiries to date via this means.
- Members Area: as mentioned, the Documents and Rules and Procedures sections will be updated on a olling basis.
- Members Projects: It is proposed that individual members may have their own page if they wish, featuring their own projects. Each project should be an individual post and can contain pictures and plans etc. It will be part of the passworded Members Area section of the site.
- Image management: This is an area where Authors (i.e. individual member contributors) may struggle to ensure that what they upload meets certain ‘constraints’. Going forward, a plugin will be added to automatically convert and optimise uploaded images so that contributors don’t have to concern themselves too much with processing them prior to using them in their posts.
Want to help with either building or maintaining the website?
The Webmaster is keen to train up people to either as as Authors to add content to the site (i.e. be responsible for one of the Categories) or even learn how to use WordPress and become a backup Administrator for the site.
If you are interested in web design or learning how to maintain or build your own websites, this could be an opportunity. Use the Webmaster email link to contact us.