The new Extension website: behind the site-building, part 1

We have been plugging away on our new website for almost a year now--the project is a collaboration of many teams in Extension, not the least of which are the Communications team and Extension Technology. We started last April on this project, and I tell you what, that feels like about a lifetime ago!
After months of planning and research, just a few months ago, we entered the site-building phase of the project. This, for me, has been the most exciting part so far! So I want to share a behind-the-scenes view for you to get excited too!

[this is the start of a series of website build posts]

Here's a screen grab of how our site is shaping up.

Favorite features so far!

Translation

The new website has a pretty slick translation capability. Our web developer, Christian, picked this as his current favorite feature of the new site.
When content has a translation added to the "translations" tab on the back end, the two are associated together as a single "node" and an option is given the user to display the node in the available languages. 

Here's a screenshot of the back end:

And this is what the web page viewer will see when another language is available:

Tables

We have made it very easy to add data tables on the site. In the "Add Table" content block, you can fill in the blanks or upload via CSV. The table is both mobile-responsive and meets accessibility guidelines. And it looks nice too when it is all done!

Here is the back end:

And here is the front end view:

Version Control

I have been spoiled by the Google Docs world we live in. I want to be able to see what changes were made when and by whom! The Drupal Revisions tab lets web editors do that.

Publishing States

One of my favorite things about Drupal is that you can give content different status states. You can sort by these states, and many of them determine whether something is live on the site or not. These are customizable and we can add new states as needed. For example, we added the "Needs Review" state, which allows content to remain live on the site (as opposed to "draft" which unpublishes it) but note that it needs to get reviewed soon.

Movable Content Blocks

Terri, our other web developer, had trouble deciding on just one favorite technical feature, but ended up picking the ease with which we can rearrange the 'blocks' that make up a page. It's drag and drop!!

I hope you've enjoyed this sneak peak at the nuts and bolts that are putting together the new website. We still have a long ways to go, and I'll keep you updated on the exciting parts as we go with blog posts like this!