Our New Look.
This article is for the technical minded. If you are interested in the way this page was developed then read on.
WordPress
WordPress is a free and open-source Content Management System (CMS). It provides the foundation on which I have built this website. It is a fantastic piece of software which powers over 30% of all the websites on the internet. It is very well supported with tutorial videos on YouTube and lots of free advice just a google search away. I believe anyone with the motivation can easily build a website using this software.
Gutenberg
Gutenberg is the editor used in WordPress to create and style a web site. When I built my old parish web site I used WordPress with what is now called the “Classic Editor”, which was quite limited in its functionality. In 2018 WordPress introduced Gutenberg which uses blocks to create headers, paragraphs, image containers and much more. If you tried WordPress in the past but have not tried Gutenberg it might be worth another look.
Kadence blocks
While Gutenberg has added a lot to the functionality to the WordPress CMS there are still areas where it could be improved. One of the strengths of WordPress are its themes and plug-ins. If you want an easy way to achieve some effect or functionality chances are you will find a plug-in which can help you. I used the Kadence Blocks plug-in to speed up the development of my site. While there is a paid version of this plug-in, the free version was more than adequate for my purposes so that is the one I used.
Kadence theme
I also used the Kadence theme and one of its free templates to get me started. All this together allowed me to redesign and launch our new site in just a few weeks. While the financial cost was zero the cost in time to learn and implement was substantial.
Hosting
I am fortunate to have a free hosting package and a domain name provided by the Church of Ireland.
Conclusions
The Lock Down has enabled me to develop this hobby, which I have enjoyed since I bought my first Sinclair Spectrum computer way back in the 1980’s. If you are interested in knowing more about how this website came together then do drop me an email, contact details are on the contact page.
Alan