ACT Bus Website - Overhauled!

Started by Buzz Killington, November 29, 2009, 09:00:26 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Buzz Killington

You may or may not have noticed as yet, but the ACT Bus Website has been completely overhauled.

We've been working hard behind the scenes over the last few weeks to get this up and running by our original deadline of 1 December, and we've ended up being ready to go a few days early We are quite pleased with the results and hope you will be too.

It's probably easiest to go into dot points to list the changes to the site, as there are a fair few.

Navigation
Pages are categorised as per usual with sections listed down the left of each page. Other sections of the site (Forum, Wiki, Gallery, YouTube, Twitter) are found at the top of each page.

Search
We now have a search function! The box can be found in the top right, or use the advance search via the link on the left hand side.

Enthusiast Section
This section has been removed with content moved to the Information section. Games have been removed and at this stage will not return unless by popular demand.

Where Is It?
This new section is designed to appeal to the site visitors and has been sourced from the forum. It is not taking over from the forum based games. New images will be added periodically and from time to time there will be unique images not sourced from the forum. An answer key is provided. I'm keen to hear feedback on this section.

Route Listings Expanded
All current ACTION Services (including School Routes) now have their own pages. Deanes and Transborder (Route services only) also have individual pages.

'Years in Focus'
This new section replaces the former 'From the Past' section featuring articles by Ian Cooper. These articles have been reformatted for this section which takes a look at a particular year in transport history - major news stories, fleet changes, vehicle arrivals and disposals. At present the years featured are 1968, 1978, 1988 and 2009.

Other New Content
There are new pages for Kingston, Ainslie and Woden Depots.

PDF Pages
Each page can be viewed as a PDF for easy download to your mobile device. You can also email a link to any page in one click or view a printer friendly version.

Links Section
We encourage all members to submit links for our new section.

Popular Content
All page hits are recorded which will show you (and us) the most popular content on the site. Based on this information we will be able to expand on the most popular sections of the site to give you more of what you are interested in.

ACT Bus has been online for approximately five years now, and with December we celebrate the first anniversary of our move to the actbus.net domain and the second birthday of our forum. I'd like to thank all of you for the site what it is - it has grown a lot bigger than I ever thought it would have.

Thankyou to everyone who visits our Forum, Gallery, Wiki and Website - even if you prefer to be a 'silent' member.

Thanks go to our regular Gallery contributors 'Lemon', 'Sir Pompously', 'Irisbus Rider', 'Martin', 'Bus 400', 'ScaniaDriver' and of course 'MaxiZac'. Thanks also to contributors from other sites such as TransitWorld and Bus Australia as well as Peter Kane and the Retired ACT Transport Employees Club.

The staff of ACT Bus also deserve to be congratulated for their efforts:

Forum Team
Jack Bauer, MaxiZac, Sir Pompously, Irisbus Rider

Gallery Team
Martin, Sir Pompously

Wiki Team
Martin, Sir Pompously

My sincere apologies if I have forgotten anybody!

Feedback
I do bring this up from time to time, but again give us your feedback!!!. It is instrumental to me in running this site and giving the visitors what they want. What do you like? What don't you like? What would you like more of? Less of? Got an idea? Got a contribution? Get in touch! You can send me a Private Message on the forum, email at website@actbus.net or use the new website contact page which has a handy email form so you don't even have to open your hotmail or outlook: http://actbus.net/site/index.php?option=com_contact&task=view&contact_id=1&Itemid=78


Cheers


smitho

I can see a lot of work has gone into that overhaul - well done.

Snorzac

#2
The new website deserves a big :WOW:. It looks awesome!

Snorzac

Upon looking at it more I think that the inly thing that could make it better is a bit of colour. Maybe fill the navigation bars with blue or something.

Buzz Killington

I was undecided on that one up until I launched it. I may change the bus stop image to a colour image in the near future, just have to find the right one to put there.