Blog
Part of the last few things I'd like to implement before the 1.0 release are some SEO optimizations. Clay itself gets indexed really well, but the theme doesn't have all of the meta tags that help page rank and the page titles could be adjusted to improve search rankings. Most of the optimizations will be in the theme for now.
Once I branch off into the 2.0 dev builds (1.6+), I will be implementing a router to allow human friendly URLs. It won't take a lot to do it, since I most of the utility functions are built into the core and apps already. That will be a big SEO improvement.
I'm working on finishing the contact app and pages app, so I can release Clay 1. I want to also finish the generic menu block, but that may just be an update after Clay 1. I'll be back porting some things into 1.x once I start on Clay 2. I have some other projects coming up so I'm just trying to put time into Clay while I can.
I've finally enabled user registration and comments. Took a while longer than I planned. Register and try it out. Let me know what you think.
Was looking for a tweet to test Twitter embeds and saw this...
The plan is to enable user registration and comments this weekend, but I have a few other things to work on so we'll see.
I mentioned in my Clay Roadmap post I wanted to finish a few apps before I release Clay 1.0. I restarted one tonight, it's a contact app. Here I use a Google form for contacting me, it's pretty convenient and they've added some nice features. I know that isn't always desired, so I'm building a full featured contact app that will store the message on the site or send it in an email (or both maybe).
It'll also have some more professional options, such as a map and directions, as well as other means of contact such as social media. Also, I may do a plugin that allows each user to have a contact form.
Another app I had considered is a messages app, so I may use a plugin from it to the contact app. Messages will be like text messages, not chat, but I do want to enable a few forms of notifications. That one I believe I could do rather quickly, but it may have to wait until after 1.0 is released.
I don't think I will have time to get to all of the apps I want before the 1.0 release. I also want to finish the Pages app, which is a priority, and I'd like to do a simple forum app as well. I'm more concerned with generic apps right now and will probably work on the more complex ones in the 2.0 branch.
Here is a good read on why more sites are moving to HTTPS (other than security):
https://www.troyhunt.com/life-is-about-to-get-harder-for-websites-without-https/
I've been getting some bugs out of Clay and decided to try some theme updates. Some mobile browsers now have a light blue colored address bar when you are on the site.
I also added another security setting for HTTPS headers, along with some other admin features. You can't see it currently, but when you perform actions on the site there is a notification message. I moved that to just below the navigation bar, as it sometimes would be hidden behind content. You will see that once I enable user registrations.
I like this where things are going with this version of Clay and the site.
Well, I finally finished the site upgrade I'd planned since May. There are tons of differences between the version of Clay that was here and the new one. Most of them you can't see yet.
The biggest obvious difference will be blog post formatting, my old text editor didn't work on mobile, which is where I do most of my posts. Now there should be line breaks and a better display of the posts.
Upgrades (* indicates not enabled here yet):
- HTTPS (secure connection)
- Improved overall user security
- Updated theme with newer Bootstrap
- Updated Blog Post layouts
- Better appearance on phones and tablets
- New text editor
- Comments *
- Image uploads
- Media sharing
- Plugins to hook parts of apps together
- Improved installer/upgrades
There are many changes within Clay that you can't see here, but those listed above the ones important for here.
The next step in the upgrade is to enable user registration and comments, then I'll start working on some more design improvements.
There should be a Clay release coming soon, I'm pretty happy with this version, but I have identified a few bugs to fix. The roadmap I blogged about a few days ago still stands so far, but the next one will be another 0.9.x.x release.
