elegant simplicity

Spending as much time in coffee shops as I do, I have managed to build a completely new and fresh website for a little side project / experiment.

The side project will be a special website devoted solely and exclusively to the new CD Too Many Goodbyes.

The site looks fresh, modern, stylish and is very, very focused around doing one job only - promoting the new CD. I have spent much time optimising the code for speedy run time and there is not a bit of wasted copy.

All the content is new, there are downloads and a full press pack.

I am committed to getting the new CD out to as many people as possible and I feel the new 'devotional' website is the way forward.

Anyway, it is built using asp.net technology (what else!) using the open source BlogEngine.NET as the ...

As of, well, right now, I have relocated all the sections of the Elegant Simplicity Hitstory archive to their own pages, available via the Flotsam menu.

I did this to make it easier for me to keep it updated (it will be updated soon, by the way!) and to make it easier for visitors to simply go directly to the content they want.

Following a period of intense head scratching and testing, I am pleased to report that the half hearted reviews archive that has been here for a few months now has been replaced by a big, mean fighting machine!

Yes, the new Reviews Archive contains the original store of 144 Elegant Simplicity CD reviews from around the world, presented in an easy to use CD selection format. Using the new system, I am able to add reviews when they come in so and I will begin the task of adding the latest reviews later this week. This should bring the total in the archive to over 200.

The output of the module is very sexy, using my own custom template. Hope you like it!

Eagle eyed and regular visitors will have noticed that the Latest News ticker thing that was in the top right column of the home page has now been removed and placed in the main content block. This was to stop me from needlessly duplicating a lot of material. For example, when I announce something in the blog that I feel needs promoting to the front page, I also add it as an announcement. Therefore, two lots of the same work! Anyway, that is now a thing of the past and the front page will always display brief links to all the latest content, wherever it is published on the site.

In addition, I have created a little button thing, also on the front page, designed to immediately draw the visitor's attention to the free MP3s we now have available for download

Here's a thing: I forgot to update our wonderful Gallery page with the FREE artPhoto you get with the Too Many Goodbyes CD! Doh! Anyway, I am pleased to report that the situation has been rectified . . . . !

As you will have noticed, the website has a new theme! It is a very bright, modern thing with one foot in the past and one foot in the future. It is semi-compliant in the sense that all of it is valid CSS/XHTML except the main data displaying tables; which is still the best way to display tabular data.

Actually, a week or so ago, I managed to get a fully compliant site working on DNN . . . it looked great but I could not get the two columns to behave consistently enough to warrant using it on a live site. Still, I will keep plugging away at it!

In other web-buildery type news, I have just launced a new site at toeinwater.co.uk, dedicated to my after hours creations. Please stop by and take a look - I bult it on a heavily customised BlogEngine.net package.