We are in the process of changing the look and feel of our Front Page. As promised some time back we are finally changing the layout of the castlebar.ie front page. Behind the change in design is a more fundamental change in that we are moving to a content management system (CMS) for the front page and for the site as a whole insofar as this is possible. 

Previously we have only used a content management system for the Castlebar.News section. With the release of a new mySQL database driven version we can now handle a much large number of pages than was possible with the older system which had been groaning under the strain of the few thousand pages in the system. We explored a number of other CMS options including Joomla, Mambo and others. None provide precisely what we need but the new Article Manager system has a degree of flexibility that will allow us to mix and match existing items on the site - polls, bulletin boards, photo galleries, etc. with a database driven system that can handle the large number of pages required. It will also allow for sections of the site to be allocated to individual editors or content creators who can simply cut and paste text from word processors or other sources. The new system is much faster than the old system. All existing content providers will be automatically transferred to the new system when they log in.

So expect some rapid changes in layout over the next few days. Comments are of course very welcome. Once we are happy with the layout we will put out a call for people to undertake a list of tasks required to update the site as a whole.

We still have a growing audience with over three million hits per month making www.castlebar.ie one of the larger websites in the country. Our recent Christmas poll shows too that most of the people visiting the site are directly connected with Castlebar. Our polls only allow one vote per IP address in order to provide as objective an answer as is possible. Thus multiple voting by the same person is prevented - although this also means that just one vote is available for the entire County Council Staff, for example and likewise just one within large companies such as all Castlebar Baxter Staff, etc. This means that the 150+ votes in the above poll gives a good representation of a much larger cross section of our visitors. In total we have over 200,000 separate visits to the site each month - that is a lot of visits by any website standards with many people visiting on a daily basis. 

The consistently high number of visitors is a great encouragement to all the volunteers working on the site. We are also very grateful to all who contributed towards the upkeep of the site in the past few months - over 1300 euro has been received and we are now hopeful that together with a modicum of advertising revenue the site will be self-sustaining in the longer term. Still a few hurdles to overcome in the next few weeks but it's looking reasonably hopeful that the site can continue as it is into the future.