Stockgrove Brickhill Systems

Archive for August, 2009

Sitemaps

Adding site maps to your websites has two big advantages:

1. HTTP sitemaps will make your websites easier for human visitors to find their way around

   A hierarchical list of pages, reflecting your sites structure, that is accessible from every page on your website will mean your visitors are only ever one click away from a full list of the resources on your site.

2. XML sitemaps will make them more attractive to Google and other search engines when they spider your site.

   An XML sitemap is the first thing Google looks for when visiting your site.  As most site owners want to court favourable activity by search engines, you should make every effort to ensure an up-to-date XML sitemap is available.

HTTP sitemaps

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XML Sitemaps

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The problems with running a large website

If you run a large website then you will know that it can be an administrative nightmare keeping track of what things need doing and what routine maintenance is required.

Specifically the problems are:

• Articles or pages get left unfinished and then forgotten about given your website an ‘unfinished’ look.
• Pages lose their lustre as the text gets older.  They need to be updated regularly.  This can be a headache if your site contains a lot of pages or posts.
• Often ideas may occur to you for improvements to your website but it is not convenient to implement the improvement immediately.

What is needed is a facility that runs within the Wordpress administration facility where the webmaster can manage maintenance tasks and ideas for improvements and additions.

I have had a look around on the Wordpress plugin catalogue but can’t find anything that fits the bill so I have decided the only thing to do is to write my own.

Requirements for the plugin

I have lots of ideas for enhancements down the line but I need ‘Phase 1′ to be ready as soon as possible so I can use it to help manage my sites.

1. Hold as a MYSQL table with one record for each task.   Each task will be known as a ‘todo’.
2. Basic fields for a todo are TITLE, DESCRIPTION, IMPORTANCE, CREATION DATE, LAST UPDATED DATE, CATEGORY.
3. Todos are either attached to an individual page or post or are ‘freestanding’.
4. TITLE is a brief description of the todo.
5. DESCRIPTION is a more detailed explanation of the todo.
6. IMPORTANCE can be Emergency, Very High, High, Medium (default), Low or Very Low.
7. CATEGORY is optional and will allow easier selection of todos.
8. CREATION DATE and LAST UPDATED date are self explanatory.
9. Page and Post edit screens should have a new section to allow listing, creation,  amendment and deletion of todos (must use AJAX so main page editing is unaffected).
10. New top level menu group to allow listing, paging, filtering and searching of existing todos.
11. Full list needs the facility to allow creation, amendment and deletion of todos.   Also, needs to be able to link to parent page (where appropriate).
12. Options tag on menu group.  Categories maintenance can go on here and we will add ’standard functions’ (this will probably be a later phase – It will allow things like ‘add a periodic text review every, say, 90 days’.

In the fullness of time I will add to the Wordpress repository but only after I have used it myself to perfect the functionality.