Launched: ISUtv Website

I discuss how the ISUtv website has been launched and what went into developing the site.

I did it, folks. Although is posting is about 4 months tardy, I launched the ISUtv website running on a WordPress-based CMS (content management system). What does all of this mean? I’ll explain

[caption id=“attachment_522” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“ISUtv Website”]ISUtv Website[/caption]

WordPress is best known as a blogging software and provider, with websites at WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Users can make both posts and pages, and they have the ability to organize them and add them as they please. WordPress also provides plenty of documentation for altering site templates and manipulating the software to customize a personal blog. With such flexibility, it’s been very tempting to use the WordPress software as a content management system, or a software system that makes updating and maintaining a website very easy.

I decided to go with a CMS for the ISUtv website because I knew I’d only be around for a couple more years, and if we had a sustainable CMS operating the website, it would simply be a matter of passing along the password to the next webmaster of the organization. Also, WordPress has great features, including plugins that are developed by people across the world, and an RSS feed option.

I customized the basic template, using PHP to display only posts with certain categories and certain tags on the main page. I also used the jQuery UI library to make the rotating carousel on the front page. In fact, anything marked with the tag ‘front’ will appear in the carousel. The tagging option is available when writing a post.

Use of WordPress on the ISUtv website was split between pages and posts: the posts acted as the “news” items and shows that I wanted to appear in the website’s feed. Pages served as more of an informative look into the station and things pertaining to more static information. Another benefit of using pages is that there is a built-in commenting system, where users can speak their mind on a particular post.

After a bit of CSS, JavaScript, and PHP work, the site is running. While there is still quite a bit of development yet to be done, I think it has served the organization well as a new medium for broadcasting its content.

Believe