It's not often you're asked to replace a live website with its internal blog, while maintaining all of the old links that people may have bookmarked. This wasn't just CSS and XHTML editing, but also involved Apache rewrite and alias module directives in the root .htaccess file (system level stuff).

The Ohio Boating site is part of a much larger and extensive, multi-site, blog-engine redesign that AstonishMe! is currently working on. Because it would be some time before the Ohio Boating site benefited from that larger overhaul, a short-term solution was to give it a quick facelift and move the dynamic content to a more prominent position, replacing the pretty (but static) front page. For a quick turn-a-round, we kept the existing fixed width layout, as both the blog and the site were both fixed width. Instead, we focused on integration.

The Blog "Before"

OLD SITE: The Ohio Boating Blog BEFORE integration. The skin was a modified version of the "custom" template, which ships with b2evolution.

On the left is a picture of the Ohio Boating blog, as it existed off the front page. For those familiar with b2evolution, you might recognize the page as a modification of the "custom" skin, designed by François Planque, who is also the project manager of b₂evolution).

To make certain that return visitors weren't confused by a completely radically new front page layout, we kept the original banner image and internal link buttons, seamlessly grafted the blog menu immediately below.

All of this work was done in a new, unique blog skin, which involved coding a new skin from the ground up. We tidied up the sidebar content and tweaked the styles to better match the new theme. We added a CSS drop shadow effect around each post, which pops them off the page and provides the blog with a 3-D effect (depth) that was lacking prior to adding it. The drop shadows also help to delineate the content, between posts and we thought that the results were visually pleasing.

Deploying the new front page also meant checking internal links, as the site's home page was now a PHP file and the blog link no longer worked. All 10 of the original pages were modified and at the same time, modified the .htaccess file to make certain that any old blog or page links, were seemlessly redirected to their new location. It took a bit of time to make certain that all the links, both internal and external, were properly pointed in the correct direction.

Within two days, the new integrated blog was deployed and our client was very happy. :D