Well, this weekend I finally bit the bullet and did some maintenance work on this website. The changes were mainly on the menu, but I made a few other changes as well.
Read on if you're interested, or click here for a screenshot of the revamped menu.
I only ever do website maintenance when I have more time than I think I need, which means that it doesn't get done as often as I'd like. It's just as well though: on this occasion I spent two hours configuring an updated version of the menu, which all seemed to be working all right. Then I went out for the afternoon, and when I looked at the website later on in the evening, I discovered to my horror that none of the menu items linked to anything!
It's all fine now -- the emphasis being on the word "now". One does not wish to be pessimistic, but the new menu is a 30-day trial version, as a pop-up on the website keeps informing me (and everyone else), and I am slightly dreading buying the non-trial version in case I have to go through this whole rigmarole again.
Come to think about it, the most time-consuming aspect of the process was working out where the various web pages are, so I think before I pay for the upgrade I will make a note, or take screenshots of, all the settings. That way, if I do have to reproduce them yet again, it will not be quite such an arduous task as it has been.
The fact of the matter is that there is actually a ton of stuff on this website. Maintaining it, and maintaining the links to different parts of it, is a challenge.
One of the things I did, for example, was get rid of a page called "What's new". (I haven't actually got rid of it, just made it invisible.). It isn't that there isn't anything new -- there is usually something new every day -- but actually announcing that there is something new can be a bit of chore. Consequently, the last time I had updated that page was, I noted to my disgust, January 2007 -- nearly two years ago at the time of writing!
I've streamlined the menu a bit, and changed some of the labels to make them more descriptive or transparent. Hopefully, people will find the menu even easier to use now.
Two things I've discovered: trust your intuition, and test as you go. I'm usually pretty good at both of these, but some weeks ago I started using words in the article filenames instead of the automatically-generated article number. I ignored the feeling that I ought to test whether the "Listen to this article" link still worked. I tried it over the weekend, finally, and discovered that it doesn't.
The free utility I use, which is the Talkr website, automatically generates an mp3 file from the blog text, but it does so by referring to the article number, regardless of whether or not the number forms part of the article's title and, therefore, its URL. I'm going to have to explore whether there is a workaround for this problem, either in Talkr or an alternative service. If there isn't, I have to decide whether to retain user- and search engine-friendly titles, or the audio-friendly -- and therefore disability-friendly -- numbered titles. Your comments and thoughts or suggestions on this would be most welcome.
I was hoping to have a bit more of a rest next weekend. That is already beginning to look like something of a forlorn hope. 
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