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January 11, 2015

Announcement: A Better Blog! Coming soon…

It’s blog announcement time!

In the next week or so, the Gluten Free on a Shoestring blog is getting a bit of a makeover. On any given day, about half the readers of this blog are new and half are returning. Today’s post is just for “returning” readers like you! This better blog won’t be totally unfamiliar, though. Think of it as an evolution of the site—to serve you better!
A better blog for web

[*For a higher resolution version of the above image, which will allow you to take a closer look, click on this A Better Blog image link.]

All the features you know (and hopefully love!) will remain, but there are some important changes coming down the line. Here are a few highlights:

  • The newly evolved site is built using “Responsive Web Design.” That just means that it will resize, reorganize and adapt itself fluidly to fit beautifully on any size screen—from desktops and laptops to tablets and mobile devices. Right now, if you are reading this on a desktop, try clicking on this responsive site and resizing your browser window from bigger to smaller, in any size and shape you like. The site will not just get smaller and larger. It will reorganize itself automatically. Genius! That’s the biggest and most important change, as nearly 65% of you view the blog on tablets and mobile devices. 65%!
  • More Photo-Driven: We eat with our eyes. No doubt about it. The newly evolved site will be more focused on photos as you navigate through it. There will be an editorial view, which is what you see on the main page on the desktop screen above. Don’t worry, though. You’ll be able to toggle on a “linear” view, which will allow you to read the blog with every word of every post in chronological order, no clicking required. You can always just bookmark the linear page, if that’s what you prefer!
  • Faster Load Times: The site is going to load rocket-speed fast, because all of the photo images are going to be hosted elsewhere. On a food blog, that’s a lot of images!
  • Post Archives: You’ll be able to navigate post archives by month, not just by category. So if you want to see what we made last January, or in January 3 years ago, for example, you can do that easily in just a couple clicks.
  • Recipe Requests: There will be a form right in the sidebar for making recipe requests! You’ll be able to quickly and easily ask me to create a blog recipe for a favorite food of yours. Be sure to check the Recipe Index first (or use the search function), though, because it might already be in there! I think of it like a really important companion to our Must Make Gluten Free Pinterest Board. I love reader recipe requests!

A-better-recipe-index-for-web

[*For a higher resolution version of the above image, which will allow you to take a closer look, click on this Better Recipe Index image link.]

  • Better Recipe Index: Speaking of the recipe index, it’s going to be new and improved! The photos will be much larger, and the categories and subcategories greatly improved.

So look for the newly evolved site to go live sometime in the next week or so. There are always always always hiccups when a “new” site goes live. If I could avoid the issues, I most certainly would. Instead, I ask that we navigate them together, and you alert me to whatever doesn’t seem to be working. My longtime amazing web designers will be standing by to fix things on the double!

Any questions? Shoot me a comment and I will do my very best to answer!! 

With love and gratitude,
Nicole

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