Redesign of "My Art Gallery"

My Art Gallery (http://my-art-gallery.co.uk/) is my fathers online art gallery which features most of his artwork. The website also includes a variety of downloads including backgrounds, 3D models, textures, etc. which people can use in their own artwork. I originally created this website in 2006 using ASP.NET in conjunction with a MS-SQL database which has served well for 4 years.

After 4 years the website began to look a little dated and so it felt necessary to bring it up to date both visually and functionally. The web has changed significantly and nowadays people tend to expect facilities like RSS, comments and track-backs.

Over the past week or so I have designed and implemented a new website which this time is built upon PHP with MySQL and WordPress and utilizes the plug-ins NextGen Gallery and WP Door. This has led to many new features which help make the website both more flexible and easier to use at the same time.

My Art Gallery - New and Old

Here is a list of some of these improvements:

  • Easier maintenance of website for the author (my father in this case).

  • Built-in statistics using WordPress.com Stats.

  • Additional horizontal viewing area because navigation menu moved from left side to top.

  • More control over how images are presented in pages, posts and galleries.

  • Content warning message cannot be bypassed.

  • URIs are now “pretty” which helps to make the website easier to navigate and help to future-proof links.

  • News is now posted as a blog which provides a lot of added functionality and is additionally printer friendly.

  • Search support for both images and posts/pages.