Change Log

Background

See also Welcome to this website.

In 1995, we were one of the first Parish Councils in the country to have its own website. The original website was optimised for fast loading on slow telephone lines, but by the end of the first decade of the 21st century  it was showing its age.

In 2011 the website was relaunched based on the WordPress framework, which as of November 2015 was reported to power 25% of all websites on the planet.

Log of major changes to the site since 2011

In case you wonder why the dates in the table below are imprecise, it’s because many new features have been introduced incrementally over a period of weeks or months, as we find the best ways to exploit them and iron out bugs.

Click once or twice on the Sequence column to sort it with the most recent changes first or last.

SequenceDateDescriptionNotes
24May-18Updates for GDPRGDPR compliance: review personal details published and ensure permission has been obtained. Where possible, replace other organisations’ personal details by a link to those other organisations’ own websites; encourage the use of task-related email ids rather than personal ids; and broaden the use of contact forms (which bypass the need to reveal email addresses)
23Apr-18Use Google Sheets on the Facts and Figures pagereplacing the Easy Chart Builder plugin which hasn’t been updated in five years
22Mar-16Usability enhancementsIntroduce mega menu for better navigation on desktop and portable devices + immediate access to contact form
21Mar-16Migration to new hosting provider (SiteGround)Major changes include: new domain name; SSL; new theme designed for faster loading + better accessibility + responsive adaptation to different size screens; improved search;
20Feb-16Compton school catchment area clarificationCatchment area follows the ecclesiastical parish boundary
19Jan-16Add buttons below tabbed sections to assist navigation with screen readers
18Jan-15Show permissive bridlewaysParish Paths map (which used to be called Parish Rights of Way) now also shows permissive bridleways
17May-14Stop using Event CalendarSlow to load, and problems with repeated Gcal events when one of a series is changed.
16May-14Caching changeUse the Falcon caching engine imbedded in WordFence instead of Supercache
15May-14Link to new Facebook pageCSPC on facebook
14Mar-14Selected 2011 Census data addedFacts and Figures page
13November, December 2013More live mapping featuresParish Boundaries and Open Spaces display
12Aug-13New contact formProvide choice of which councillor to address queries to. See contact us
11Aug-13New table toolAllows better presentation of tabular data, such as this table, with optional sorting.
10Aug-13New General Interest categoryInspired by QI, we introduced the General Interest category to highlight articles of human or historical interest relevant to our parish.
9Summer 2013Live mapping featuresMany mapping features added to the site, including a proof-of-concept of planning application visualisation.
More detail in Maps Maps Maps
8Jul-13CachingBy comparison with the legacy parish website site, this new site has more content rich pages.
To help offset the consequent additional page load times, we have started to exploit a page caching tool (specifically, WP SuperCache).
7Jul-13Under the covers changesFollowing a self-assessed site audit, added some security and integrity features, better anti-spam tools and Search Engine Optimisation
6Jun-13Changes to TwitterNot necessarily visible to users of the site, changes were needed because Twitter changed its interfaces. See for example the Traffic Updates panel in the right sidebar.
52Q 2013Document management systemAllows more structured presentation of downloadable documents, with several display options, including usage statistics.
See Electronic documents and, for example, Governance documents
4Early 2013Events Calendar becomes the defaultBecause of the striking presentation of the All-in-One Events calendar, the ease of selecting which individual calendar to view, and the ability to delegate maintenance (via Google Calendar).
3Autumn 2012Performance AnalysisActivated statistics collection tools (part of the WordPress JetPack package)
2Autumn 2012Subscribe to updatesVisitors can register to be notified by email when new articles are added. See box in right sidebar.
1Summer 2012Smartphone supportRecognise when the site is being accessed from a smartphone and tailor the presentation to suit.
0May-11Soft launch of this new websiteThe first major redesign of the Parish Council website since it was created in 1995.
We were one of the first Parish Councils in the country to have its own website, so there were 17 years’ worth of archive material to migrate, some of which still remains to be done.
The new site is based on the widely-used WordPress framework.