The Wardman Wire

I have made a number of changes and enhancements to the Wardman Wire to make the site easier to use and more accessible. This post briefly introduces these new features. There’s still some more work to do, but it is a start.

Magazine Page Theme Switcher

You can now switch between three “looks” on the Wardman Wire Magazine home page, using the drop-down list in the top-right corner. Read the rest of this article before you do it, as it is not totally finished yet and you may get stuck.

At present there are three Wordpress themes available:

“Options”, which is the theme I use for the “magazine” front end of the blog.

“Wordpress Default”, which is the theme blogs go back to when something breaks - hence I’m including it “just in case”.

“Beast Blog”. This is a blog theme specifically designed to be “accessible”, which is why I am using it to provide a simplified alternative format for the Magazine. I have also added a link to each post to play the article as a podcast. I’m using the talkr.com service (which unfortunately has a North American accent).

At the moment the look of this theme is very “green and leafy”, which reminds me of Robin Hood from our locality. For the record the counterclaims to be the home of Robin Hood from Wakefield or Barnsley or Doncaster or wherever it was, are what the Book of Common Prayer would call “Fond Imaginings” (so there!).

The designer of this theme is Mike Cherim, from Nottingham, New Hampshire, in New England. I wonder if Sherwood Forest inspired the leaves? I’ll give them a trim due course, since the Wardman Wire is basically blue, not green.

There will be at least one more theme added - an alternative version of Options without the slideshow of featured articles.

Caveat - Very Important

The theme switcher list currently only appears in the “Options” theme. To get back there you will need to delete the cookie set on your computer by the theme-switcher function.

Podcast Feed of Post Excerpts

One of the benefits of using the talkr.com service is that I can now supply a podcast feed of excerpts from articles appearing on the Wardman Wire.

The podcast feed of post excerpts, as they appear in the Magazine version of the blog, is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/wardman-wire-post-summary

Wrapping Up

This work is still continuing, so there will be more developments over next few days.

Tags: wardman wire, accessibility, podcast feed of posts, excerpt podcast, mike cherim