Been a busy stretch behind-the-scenes as I continued to bring the website up to spec. I spent several hours yesterday evening polishing up the front page after adding the remaining post types to the site. I’m about 90% of the way to finally making it so all that’s left to do is content generation, getting decades of weather logs up and running. I have a lot of placeholders up to help me as I tweak site layouts, but soon I will begin to finally get all the archive content polished up and posted! It’s super exciting!
After building out all the new landing pages for the various post types, I decided it was time to get the Front Page more in line with that visual look. I have fallen heavily on cards and pills for layouts, and the Front Page was pretty basic, and didn’t have any of that. After yesterday’s slog, I have changed that. The layout as a whole hasn’t changed much, but the new coat of paint brings it in line with the rest of the site. Cleaner text allowed for better sizing, a cleaner display, and less empty space. I also added the four new post types; winter weather, tropical weather, celestial events, and wildfire coverage. I have some tweaking to do with the Front Page dynamics of those, as well as include the early weather logs, another section I created on a whim to account for pre-chase events, or before I started keeping formal logs of things, mostly winter, lightning, and stuff like that. But it would also home the first chase as well as some Circleville-era events that I have some pictures of.
One neat little addition I added last night was a ‘During this Week in Laubach History’, a section on the main page that displays logs of all types that occurred within a week of today (the loading day), so looking out 7 days and displaying three random logs. I am working on a full page that would include a full listing of all logs, not just three, which will be particularly cool when we get into the busier chasing season starting in about March. This was inspired by a backend widget I created that showed me upcoming anniversaries so I could be alerted to social media post potential, particularly for lesser-profile events. That among a few other additions are being created, and that should pave the way for a content landslide. There are a lot of old chase logs in drafts from previous versions of the site, so it’s a matter of updating the imagery for those, and of course, getting a workout of my new watermarking program (I am so in love with that).
So yes, exciting stuff happening! Also have a potential chase lined up Monday, more on that later as I have some things to take care of on my end. But looking more likely that will get me out the door this weekend!