About the Website
Behind the Website Scenes
The Silchester Website is best viewed using the Mozilla Firefox Browser. Some things, such as the tag cloud will sometimes not display correctly in Internet Explorer.
The Silchester website now uses Drupal as its content management system. This was chosen for a few reasons.
- It is easier for people without technical knowledge to update the webpages.
- The content is all contained within a proper structure.
- Navigating the pages is now much easier
- The webpages can be updated from anywhere with internet access, so this means on site as well!
It used the Zen theme as the basis for the style, with modifications by Emma O'Riordan. Added modules include Tagadelic, Cumulus, Lightbox 2 and External Links.
BAJR Web Award
In December, the Silchester site won the BAJR Heritage Web Award. BAJR gave the following reasons:
The Silchester site won the award for the clean, easy to use design, the wealth of information available. The additional information is constantly changing, tapping into web 2.o and allowing the user to feel that this is a dynamic website, such as the well written blogs, images and finds gallery. The Virtual Environments for Research in Archaeology section, is a welcome addition, informing people a new direction in technology and archaeology, and inclusive of researchers and professionals as well as the public, who are well catered for on the site. A site to emulate.
Visit the British Archaeological Jobs Resource at www.bajr.org
Why do some sections still look different from others?
You may have noticed that some sections have not yet changed over to the new look and system, mainly the 'Guide to Calleva' and the 'Town Life' parts. This is because these are being revamped behind the scenes and will include much more interactive content, more photographs and much more information on the different aspects of the excavation. It is expected that these will be ready by the end of 2008.
The Victorian and Late Roman parts will always look different, as these have been designed as stand alone sections in 2001 and 2003 respectively.
Please let us know what you think - email us here!