Okay, it’s not actually singing and dancing just yet. In fact, if anything it’s probably a little more basic just now. But if you’re reading this, that means I’ve finally flipped the switch and moved my blog to the new web host.
If you’ve never worked in IT (that’s Information Technology … the computer guy) then you probably don’t realize how incredibly tedious something like this can be. Let’s just say it’s 1:00 in the morning as I write this, and I don’t think I’ve seen my bed before midnight for at least three weeks.
So what’s in it for me?
Gosh thanks for your concern. :-/
Okay, so what this means is I’ll finally be able to make some improvements I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.
- A visual browser of all the recipes. This would look great, be really useful, and I think I can create it fairly easily.
- Printable recipe cards. I’ve probably had more requests for this one than anything else, but it’s going to be a ton of work — not just creating it, but then back-filling it with all the recipes that are already entered. I really want this done, but I’m not looking forward to actually doing it.
- Better category support, so you’ll be able to view recipes by meal (breakfast/lunch/dinner, etc.), by cuisine (Italian, Mexican, Greek, etc.) or … well I’m not sure yet what other major categories. Suggestions?
- Better integration with the forum. Didn’t know there was a forum? Yeah, that’s why it needs better integration, so it’s more visible without me having to mention it.
- A section for gear recommendations.
- Other …
Once those are both done …
If there’s something else you’d like to see, let me know in the comments. Or if you just want to vote for which item above you’d like to see first, that’s good too.
What should I work on first?
- Visual recipe browser (69%, 84 Votes)
- Printable recipe cards (31%, 38 Votes)
Total Voters: 122
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13 Comments
Yay! A tip of the glass to salute your move, Drew! I know there is a huge amount of work involved — makes me pant, just thinking about it. Which is why I hesitate to tell you, everything below this comment box seems to be without a left margin. It isn’t a huge cut-off but it does cut into the text just a bit. Have another one of those delicious brownies and it won’t seem so frustrating.
Dee, yeah I know there’s a problem, and it’s driving me insane. But at 4:30 a.m. I decided that was less of a problem than keeping comments locked for another day while I try to fix it.
So thanks for the first post on the new site. Whee!
maybe it’s just me, but i think that categories are WAY more important than your two priorities, which are kinda gimmicky. categories are basic and essential; i rarely use recipes from this site because there’s no way to quickly find what i’m looking for. i mean, i came here today looking to find a recipe for dinner, but there’s no way i’m gonna find it!
other than that, i really like this site and HUGELY appreciate what you’re doing here — i haven’t seen another recipe site that is so much about REAL FOOD, without all of the pretentious “health conscious” crap you see everywhere nowadays… and i love the e-mail cooking lessons, too!
If you add margin-left: 720px; to #throne you should be able to fix your display problems. You may have to adjust the actual value but it seemed to be the correct one when I tried it in firebug.
You…are AWESOME! I’ll be looking forward to all of those changes, especially the food types organization. Thanks for all your hard work, and I hope organizing the new site doesn’t give you too many problems. I know it would drive me insane. Best of luck.
Alicia, good fix, thanks. (And it’s 708px after doing the math.) Since you’ve got Firebug and you know how to use it … do you know why the “crown” div is overlapping the “container” div? Or why the contents of the “throne” div lie outside the left border of their box? I’ve set the margin on the throne dive for now, but I’d like to know why things are behaving that way.
Oops, wait, I add the margin and now that div appears below the comments. Okay, still looking for a fix.
I have enjoyed quite a few of your recipes over the past months, and I agree with Starr about the categories; it tends to take too long to re-find a recipe I’m looking for.
A suggestion regarding site redesign that can be taken with a grain of salt; coding, designing and maintaining a website is incredibly frustrating and time-consuming, when you’d rather be spending that time creating content. What worked for me is that some of my readers were willing to fix and maintain my website for me so I didn’t have to worry about that and got to focus my energy on the part I’m good at: the content.
You seem to have a lot of readers, so maybe if you put out a call for help some coding guru will step in and give you a hand.
Then again, maybe you like coding! Anyway, great site, I’ve never commented, but the gyro recipe drew me in and has become a Friday night tradition around here.
Since you’re no longer setup with blogger/blogspot, our comments are of course no longer tied into our accounts thereat. However, how is it some people still have images associated with their comments, while some do not?
Thor, that’s based on your email address. Anyone who’s signed up at WordPress.com automatically gets one, or you can register at http://en.gravatar.com/ Once you sign up there, you can upload your avatar image, and any comments you leave on Gravatar-enabled blogs will automatically pick it up. (Based on the email address you sign the comment with.)
I tried to pick up the images when I copied the comments over, but Blogger doesn’t include the login/registration info when they export comments, so I’d have to do it all manually. With nearly 6,000 comments, that ain’t happening.
When you left Blogger I quit getting updates on my ’subscribed blogs’ list, and I thought you were just taking Christmas off
Duh on my part! Now I have some catching up to do!
Oh wow, I totally forgot about Blogger’s other method of subscribing. I wonder if there’s any way to reach out to those people. Hmm …
Hey Drew, Love the site, love the recipes, and love what you’re doing here. One suggestion that pops to mind: how about a search function to help us quickly find what we’re after? I share the frustration of a couple of other readers in finding recipes and wonder if this would be possible.
Keep up the good work!
Blaine, take a look when you point to the “Blog” menu item at the top. The drop-down menu has a link for the “Recipe browser”.
I’m also working on a search function that keys on ingredients, but I have to finish back-filling the ingredients data on all the recipes first. That’s taking a while, but I’ll have an announcement when it’s ready.