Blast off!

I told my kids today that we were about to launch the GreenNet website and they asked me if we’d be using a rocket or a space ship. In the event it was a bit less dramatic than that. Mimo typed in some commands on the server, and I went out for a cup of tea with Liz and Hattie.
Well there was a bit more to it than that…
Liz started experimenting with Sarka Vasku’s new look for GreenNet using this new CMS called Drupal back in 2005. We hadn’t worked with it before so our site seemed the least risky one to try it out on. As she got more into the Drupal way of building sites, so did the others. Pretty soon everyone was working on cool sites with Drupal. And our poor old GN project got left behind. When 2007 turned into 2008 and I found myself writing in the 3rd Christmas newletter running, that we’d be launching a new website in the new year, we all agreed that the delay was enough already.
We took a fresh look at Liz’s half baked site and decided to finish off the job. We argued very noisily about structure for a while, reorganised the original hierarchy, then chucked that out and opted for the disorganised logic of tagging. Different – yes. Takes a while to get used to – yes. But give it a chance. You can make friends with a tag cloud – you just have to sort of loosen up a bit.
Well that’s what we did. and once we got into that tagging thing, we went Drupal module crazy. It was a bit like the way that musicians used synthesisers in the 80s. Mimo was installing new modules faster than the microwave could heat up his Tescos lasagnes.
So after all those months of making like a tortoise in the slow lane, we actually went for a sprint finish – masses and masses of work by Mimo and Liz – ruthlessly applying the most uncompromising standards of coding, colouring and layout. We’ve got a site that can stretch out as big as you like but can shrink down to 800 pixels, we’re cross browser, W3C and semantically valid, and we’ve got rounded corners!!! There’s space to read, links that work, content that’s up to date, and although Sarka’s original design never made it through, I tend to think it was pretty seminal and we have kept her lovely logo.
So thanks to everyone – for putting up with my nagging, and bug tracking, to Mimo and his modules, to Liz for setting it up and finishing it off – and coming to terms with the orange issue.
And to everyone else – enjoy it!