You may have noticed some changes to MASH4077TV.com today, especially if you’re viewing the site on a tablet or smartphone. I’ve also finally gotten around to adding the news archives dating back to 2000 to the site. Plus, I’ve made a number of other tweaks and updates, all aimed at making the site easier to navigate.
This is mostly an upgrade to the look of the site rather than to the content. My ultimate goal is to find a way to make older blog content accessible because it isn’t being found by new visitors. I have several projects in various stages of completion that I think will be showcased first in the blog and then published as standalone articles. We’ll have to wait and see.
Here’s a look at what’s new:
Mobile-Friendly Design
Thanks to the fine work by the folks at Catch Themes, the site is now mobile-friendly. I upgraded to a premium WordPress theme that features a responsive design optimized for browsing on all devices. I’ve tested it on a desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone and it seems to work well. It’s a vast improvement over the old static layout that was tiny on smartphones.
This was a necessary step to keep the site useable and findable. For example, Google recently announced that it will start ranking mobile-friendly websites higher in searches using mobile devices.
Old News Posts
I started reporting M*A*S*H news sporadically in 2000 and more regularly in 2002. When I started using WordPress way back in January 2009, I imported everything going back to August 2007 and for years I’ve thought about bringing back the news posts from the very start. So, late last year I started digging through old files and added hundreds of additional news posts from 2000 to 2007.
I’m not sure anyone is actually interested in these old posts but they are a record of all things M*A*S*H for the better part of a decade. Topics covered include the release of M*A*S*H on DVD, the 30th anniversary special, the series on television (FX, Hallmark Channel, TV Land, etc.), and much more.
Adding all of these old posts meant getting rid of the long list of monthly archives in the sidebar because it would have been even longer with all the old content added. Now there’s a simple dropdown menu.
Improved Tagging
While importing the old news posts I expanded my use of tags and I’ve added a tag cloud to the sidebar to make it easier to find content. I hope to continue adding more tags to existing posts in the coming weeks.
Return of the Sidebar
I’ve brought back the right-hand sidebar to the entire site including articles and features. Right now it just has the basics (recent posts, recent comments) and the aforementioned tag cloud but I’m planning on sprucing it up a little. The episodes section is now a little easier to navigate because I’ve added navigation menus for the episode guides and other information.
Other Changes
Nearly all links are now a gold color that hopefully makes them stand out more. The static front page is gone and I’ve integrated the blog into the main page. If you have the blog bookmarked it will redirect to the main page. The comments have been improved slightly to make them easier to read.
I think that’s about it. Let me know in the comments if anything is broken or looks weird.
