Blog : AROnline Classic RIP

Keith Adams

AROnline Classic is no more
AROnline Classic is no more

We reached a very important milestone in the development of AROnline and its move into the 2010s and the shiny world of CMS websites. As of last weekend, pretty much all of the relevant historic content has been transferred onto the new system, and the WordPress-based site you’re reading now should be able to stand on its own two feet.

There are still some jobs to do, most notably the instatement of a proper homepage (we’re on a holding system at the moment that works well but remains a little workmanlike), some tweaks to the index pages and search strings (I want development histories always to appear at the top of any specific search and I haven’t yet figured out how to do that), and how to handle the brochure pages. Currently, the biggest headache ahead is the brochures section, which while extensive, is a little low-res to work well these days (they were uploaded when 56K modems were still king).

The files are still online.  But how I use them, I’m still undecided. Part of me thinks that we should just scrap and start again with the brochures – and rely once again on the generosity of those who enjoy scanning. But even then, I’m still undecided on a menu system.

The main thing is, the old HTML site is now no longer online (although it’s backed up for posterity here and in Germany), and we’re now in the lap of Google to sort out AROnline‘s rankings, and slowly lose the old URLs. I’ve already written a load of re-directs, and no doubt, there are plenty more to come.

The main thing I’d ask you our faithful readers is this – if there are any pages that you referred to that you can’t find on the live site, or ones that you know haven’t been transferred over, please get in touch. Via email, Facebook, Twitter or the forum… I’m sure that there will be bits and pieces I have missed, and it’s always good to have anything like that pointed out to me.

Keith Adams

11 Comments

  1. Nice one Keith – the new site is fabulous and clearly the result of a lot of hard work. Looking at the ‘classic’ home page I agree so much about the firm being the eternal soap opera. That’s what’s kept me interested for the past 40 years, the last 10 via AROnline! God, I’m getting old!

  2. Sad day….!

    Many thanks for all you do Keith.
    If it was down to me, I would be putting you forward for a MBE (or similar) for services to British Motor Heritage.

    Seriously, without Guys like you, our heritage (and especially some of the more recent stuff) could well go undocumented and lost forever.

    Top Guy.

  3. Fantastic work Keith! You’ve really pulled off a full update and modernisation.

    I only miss one wee teeny tiny little diddy thing..

    “Go To Random Page”… Oh man, the amount of times that saved me from boredom….
    “Click – read that , Click – read that, Click.. oh, hello.. not read this before” hehe!

  4. Does this mean you’ll choose a new Logo soon Keith? By the way, I’ll miss the Random page link too.

  5. I reported some time ago that I had problems read the wordpress version. Thankfully those ones have gone.
    Now I am seeing a white area of W 640px by H 400px between the black header and The title(in this case Blog : AROnline Classic RIP)
    To the right of the black area in which the Search AROnline is I am also seeing a white column. Of about 220 wide and running right down the page.
    I am using FF 3.6.18 and screen resolution of 1280 by 1024px.
    I could send a screen print of this if you want.

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