IT services discussion thread.

[Cathal]

The existing solution is in place and working, and that was discussed at the committee meeting and that is what we are staying with for the foreseeable future. Put simply, there's not enough good reasons to make it worthwhile moving away from the very very good package we currently have.

The existing setup offers far more, and for far less cost, than any proposed changes so far shown. Add to that, the in-house setup has many more advantages that may not be easily quantified in cash, but are either very difficult to get or flat out not possible to get outside of what we currently have.

As I said above, if there are specific issues with the current website or backend, then feel free to raise them and I'll do my best to rectify them.

Any changes or ideas that people want to work with, will happily be looked at if they can be implemented with the existing solution. As we are not going to move from Skynet's hosting to any off-site hosting anytime soon, all improvement efforts are being devoted to the current website and back-end, and any and all assistance to that end would be appreciated, and I won't turn down any help that aligns with that.

[Mícheál Howard]

Hey Cathal. About the "mantra" theme. I think its good, but needs some tweaking.

Firsty, I would remove the background image, because you can't really make out what it is and its a bit distracting. Mybe just a plain ould white or something instead

Secondly, I would make the banner photo much bigger. This will make it more prominent and with a less distracting back ground it will stand out more.

Thirdly, I think the club logo should be in there some where at the top. Maybe beside where the name is. Or like wait till the new one is designed and put that one in


Sideshow is class, a great addition. Need any pics just let me know and i can send them on too

[Cathal]

The banner photo is a placeholder till a better pic is sourced, and that has the wolves logo and the ULKC logo on it as well - was all part of the plan.

The content for the disciplines sections is yet to be done, and I'm sure that we can get more interesting / relevant photos for the banner slideshow, once the content is uploaded from the past year or so of posts, that'll start to make a lot more sense as the 5 most recent newsfeed post pictures can be set to automatically show up there.

I've gotten divided feedback on the background pic and most of the people that have voiced an opinion have suggested it's good. I'll have a chat with Caoilinn about it.

[Mícheál Howard]

Made up one like this. that you could use till something better comes along or till the new wolves kayak club one is made

[Cathal]

Can you email that pic to me and I'll put it up on the site. The theme suggests that the width can be 1100px and whatever high. The current one is 125px tall. I think that it would look better with a banner instead of a block at the top, as that then allows the pics on the slideshow to be seen more easily.

[Ethan]

the background should be removed like micheal said. I asked gav to do it before he probably forgot. If you look at any modern wordpress theme you'll see they use it with a simple background. it must be soft colors with a simple texture or none even just flat. there is plenty of free textures available. I think a light gray/brown would suit us based on the other colours we use on the page