inspire4life.org

Another project for the end of September was a redesign/re-engineering of http://inspire4life.org. The old site had grown organically, the way the stuff at the back of the fridge does. It needed a big overhaul in time for their autumn event, the Puck-Putt challenge.

We had some pro-bono help from PARTNERS+simons (hooray), which laid out the basic look, feel, and structure. We were not bound to their designs, but it was great to have a stable platform to build on.

The new look is built, like all our sites, on top of Zen. CCK and Views also play crucial roles. I'm using my version of ecard on the site, and have added userpoints integration, since we're trying that out. Come join and earn some inspiration!

We moved off of Leech in favor of Feed API. This site was also my first attempt at using Panels 2. I'm still a bit mystified by the terminology, but I figured I had to start learning some time. It might have been overkill for what we needed.

The navigation is based around core taxonomy, Menu Trails, Custom Breadcrumbs, and Taxonomy Intro. The last one in particular I had never seen, but was an absolute godsend for what we were trying to do. Menu Trails I had tried before, and either I didn't get it then or they've upgraded, but it worked quite well this time around. String Overrides was another new one, and was handy for hiding "There are no posts in this category" messages.

I like using Related Links and External Links together. Makes sense.