Riley Brennhofer – Producer, SFHS Crier Manager

(For SFHS Media Staff)

2/12/23

Hi! I’m Riley Brennhofer, and I am a Junior during the 2022-23 school year here at SFHS; I have recently been taking charge on the SFHS Crier website during the year 2023.

The website went through a major redesign during the month of January 2023. I will log all changes below for your convenience.

———————

-Color Scheme:

Before the update, it was red/white/black. Now, it is blue and white (with a more consistent blue throughout the website.) Old assets of the previous versions of the website are in the Media section of the dashboard.

-Width:

Before the update, the website content was more “squished”, allowing for a background PNG to be shown. This used to be a red checkered background. Now, the website has been stretched out to full screen width and a background PNG is no longer necessary.

-Widgets:

Majority of the widgets have been untouched. I did add the Scoreboard widget. I also created the Upcoming and BREAKING NEWS widgets. Besides that, I either didn’t touch existing widgets, shuffled them around, or hid ones that never got updated.

–Widgets Subsection: SFHS Today

Something I’d like to note about the SFHS Today widget is that it is a little buggy. The actual YouTube video embed inside the widget does not stretch out to cover the entire widget unless the widget is set to a certain theme (which it is currently selected). I believe this is theme 5, but I am too lazy to verify. Themes 1-4 cause the issue.

–Widgets Subsection: Monthly Poll

This was an issue I couldn’t solve for a little while. You must create new polls in the Polls tab on the dashboard sidebar, but in order to put these new polls into effect, you must go into the widget settings for the Polls and change it yourself; the automatically changing feature doesn’t seem to be working for me as of early 2023.

-Top & Bottom Banner:

I updated the bottom photo to something more recent (as of 2023). I also changed the color scheme of the top banner (using pixlr.com) to match the new colors.

-Menu Bar

Not a whole lot changed besides capitalizing the letters, removing the “MORE” tab, and also stretching it out to fill the whole screen. I noticed that the menu stays at the top of the screen, no matter how far you’ve scrolled down; I don’t know why this has happened but I like it.

————-

That is all for changes I have made. I would like to note some issues I see with the website that I think can be fixed in the future. Whether it is me who fixes them, or someone more talented than me, I don’t mind.

-Bottom Banner

I would like it more stretched out to fill the bottom of the screen.

-Bottom Banner Text

More text and information regarding the website/SFHS Today would be nice.

-Top Banner

I would like to change it so it’s more white-and-blue, rather than having multiple blue hues and black in it (more simplistic design that matches the rest of the website).

-SFHS Today Widget

I would like to fix the video embed bug so the theme of the widget matches everything else.

————————

That is mostly what I’ve got. I would like to thank Ms. MO for allowing me to join Media Class on such late-notice – I promised I would make a great addition to the team and I like to think I have proved myself right so far. I would also like to thank my friends and peers for supporting me throughout my work on the website and taking an interest in SFHS Media. I would like to thank MO again for allowing me to have my own profile on the Crier website with Administrator privileges (the first student account to have these!).

I strongly encourage future students to advertise the website. I believe it has a great amount of potential. It has had near-zero traffic for all of it’s life, and I would like to change that at some point.

And to you, Media Staff, the reader of my article: thank you for taking interest in our website. It means a lot to me. If you have any questions regarding the website, SNO Dashboard, or SFHS Media, feel free to reach out to me:

[email protected] (before June 2024)

[email protected] (any time)

You may also reach out if you have updated the website yourself, or if updates have been made. I would love to hear about any future redesigns or status updates regarding the website.

Once again, thank you, for taking the time to read this log, and for your interest in SFHS Media and the SFHS Crier.

“Once you fly, you will walk with eyes skyward.” – Leonardo Da Vinci