State Pages

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve changed up the State Pages. The layout is much the same, with a few minor changes, but the back-end structure has changed, removing all of the cumbersome tables and using the recently installed Elementor add-on to create the structure. This will make updating the pages easier as well as providing greater flexibility to add features. In addition, they now look much better on mobile devices.

If you bookmarked the previous pages, please note those bookmarks will soon no longer work. Previously, I used a little programming trick that took a “shortcut” <xx>-state-page, where <xx> was the 2 letter abbreviation for a state, and redirected it to the actual page location. As an example, typing https://www.patriotguard.org/tx-state-page redirected to https://www.patriotguard.org/2018/05/02/texas-state-page/. Those longer URL’s will no longer apply, and the shortened version is the actual URL. So, to go to the Texas page (for example),  you simply use https://www.patriotguard.org/tx-state-page.

So, to summarize, in addition to using the “Go to your State Page” link that shows when you log in, you can go to any state page by using https://www.patriotguard.org/<xx>-state-page – substituting the state abbreviation for the <xx>.

In addition, I’ve removed the listings showing the actual email address for state captains, and instead use a form to send an email. We were beginning to have issues with spammers scraping those email addresses to send SPAM. Also the link to the full calendar for the states was removed and replaced with a button that it easier to see and use.

Changes to Come

This change, as well as the soon to completed National Leadership and State & Regional Leadership pages are all part of the project to the convert the site to a new theme. Instead of using the current pre-configured theme, we will begin using Elementor and their basic theme. This gives us fewer pre-configured options, which is actually a good thing; because it provides us with a framework that allows us to not only recreate the site to look much the way it currently does; but gives greater flexibility to add other features, and put the features where we want them. You’ll be seeing some other changes in the coming weeks. The basic layout will remain the same, with some minor styling changes, but you’ll find new features added over time.

Looking for Website Help

If you have experience with WordPress, especially with Elementor, and are interested in helping with our website, we could use definitely use some help. Just drop me a line at vpoperations@patriotguard.org.