RC Website Blog

What’s new

therc — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:07:42 +0000

The Wiki is back up: http://www.rc.lsa.umich.edu/wiki

Check out the page about funding, linked from the home portal.

We’re working on switching the homepage to a dynamic system that allows for multiple editors and more structured info. The system is Symphony, http://overture21.com. It outputs pure XML — check it out.

Coming in the near future is better presentation of events and news.

I’ll be discussing starting a forum for prospective students with the RC Admissions folks soon. It would be a place to pose questions, chat with others, etc.

As always, if you want anything posted to the site, email rc.web.request@umich.edu

Where’s the wiki?

therc — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:16:46 +0000

Back around the days of RC40, I started a wiki for the RC. It’s not online anymore, but I still have all the files and data. After as we finish our server move I’ll try and revive it at a new address — probably http://rc.lsa.umich.edu/wiki (NOTE the lack of the www at the front of that address. We’re trying to do away with that)

It’s a MediaWiki install, so it shouldn’t be hard to restart.

What are we working on this May?

therc — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:11:28 +0000

Now that the Winter term is over, we’ve started looking at some core aspects of the RC site.

On the boring side (if any of this isn’t boring to you, let me know!), I updated quicklinks, search, and some other code on EVERY SINGLE PAGE of the RC site.

Particularly interesting: we’ve switched to Google for searching the site, so hopefully you will get real results when you search now.

We’re also thinking of changing the navigation soon. Here’s what it looks like now:

This is what the new style would look like:

I think the second is a lot more readable. You can also tell where on the site you are with the indentation.

Eventually, we MIGHT move those top-level links (Home – Future Students – Current Students – etc) into a bar that stretches horizontally across the top of the page, instead of being on the left-hand side. The navigation for each section will stay on the left. The rationale is: having the links across the top would put more stress on the sub-navigation, and would also free up more space on the left-hand side. But this is still a MIGHT — it’s just an idea for now.

On the big changes front, we’re moving to a new web host at the University. That means we’ll have access to a new set of tools — PHP, MySQL, Python, and the software that they allow. That will (hopefully) make posting updates and events a lot easier. There probably won’t be any large visual changes associated with that move.

Welcome to the RC site change blog

therc — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:57:03 +0000

I’ve been working on the Residential College’s website for a while, and realized that what we’re doing there is not at all public, transparent, or even discussed much outside of Craig Regester’s office. Craig is the website manager and the alumni & outreach coordinator.

I also work on the email newsletters, the RC Network, and other digital projects as they come up.

So, for the record, if you want to see anything on the RC site, if things are broken, if you want to get involved, we’re open. Comment here or email me: matthew.hampel@gmail.com / hampelm@umich.edu