…and we’re back!
The promised transition has taken place, and Bluegrass Today is live again after undergoing a major transformation. While hoping for the best, it is possible that some small gremlins may pop up, especially in certain browsers, and we trust our readers will point them out to us should they encounter any.
The first thing you’ll notice is that we went with a dark color theme, with reversed lettering. We believe that this makes the site easier on the eyes, and allows the many photos we post to shine even more brightly than before.
The organization of stories on the main page is also changed. Gone is the slider of most recent news in favor of a highlighted newest post. Along the right side are shown the next seven stories, in reverse chronological order. Scroll down and the next ten stories appear, followed by a link to see all news stories listed on a single page. That display also has a more advanced search feature.
Obviously, the stories will change each day as new material is posted.
Below those stories on the front page is an events listing of things occurring soon.
The site navigation at the top of each page is also new, and something we believe will make finding things much easier. News categories can be accessed easily by hovering over the word “News,” which opens a drop-down menu that briefly describes each of five news categories, and also links directly to a page with all stories in that category displayed, in reverse chronological order.
In that drop-down menu, you’ll also see a link on the left side for “All Recent News,” which will display all stories going back to the beginning of time, in reverse order, newest first. The advanced search bar appears there as well.
Our Events Directory has also been redesigned, with submitted events broken into categories in a drop-down menu under “Events” in the top navigation. There you will also find a link to all events, and all past events, plus one to submit your own event. The process of submitting an event has also been revised, with a couple of the issues that had troubled users in the past resolved. In particular, the ticket price field is configured to allow for a range of prices for weekend and single day tickets.
Chart displays also have their own menu, and a “More” link is provide to get to our crossword puzzles, contact us page, and newsletter subscription.
All the information from the top navigation is replicated in the footer as well at the bottom of each page.
Commenting on individual stories and puzzles is still run through Disqus, among the most popular commenting apps in the world. You do need to log in to Disqus to comment, but as you will see on every story, you can use Facebook, X, Google, Microsoft, or Apple to quickly do so. It takes just a few seconds and then your thoughts about anything we publish can be added, right on the story.
We hope everyone loves the new design, and we won’t hear about too many gremlins!
