Comunn Gàidhlig Inbhir Nis

Dreadfully overdue, the new GSI site is now online. You will notice some changes, not the least of which is the new look. This is temporary — GSI Online will return to a move recognisable design once the move has been completed. For now, the focus is on getting a working site free of any kinks or bugs.

From a usability standpoint, the site is now much improved, both for its writers and its readers; there is now a functioning RSS feed, which is available here.

This allows you to subscribe to the GSI’s feed with a news aggregator to automatically check for new posts, rather than manually visiting the site every time. Most modern browsers — such as Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, and Safari 3 — have a an aggregator built in. There are also various standalone applications that do the same.

For more information on the subject, I direct you to the Wikipedia entry on RSS feed aggregators.

The site and its contents are now searchable, using the search field on the left of every page, and there is also a calendar function to go to posts made on specific days. For those interested, a technical overview of the changes made to the site takes place below the cut.

To those with no interest in the technical details, I’d like to welcome you to the new Gaelic Society of Inverness site!

Since its inception, the site has been a hand-coded HTML and — after 2002 — CSS. Whilst this was standard in the late ’90s, it rapidly fell by the wayside as more efficient techniques became available. As such, the mechanics of the site were very much outdated by the time this redesign took place. Worse than being technologically outdated, the site was becoming cumbersome to maintain and update.

It also became apparent that the emphasis of the site had shifted somewhat — most repeat visitors were skipping the main pages entirely and going straight to the news page. We realised that any redesign should be tooled toward this, whilst simultaneously maintaining the site’s strong identity.

In light of this, it was felt that a fresh start was required, which is what you now see.

The new site is powered by the blogging software/CMS Wordpress. This allows for a very easy editing and addition of new material. It also allows for better searching, and organisation of content. Overall, it seemed the best solution: it is designed with modern internet use in mind, is easy to use, and perhaps most importantly of all, it future-proofs the site much more effectively than the old HTML-and-CSS method ever did.