Five Reasons Why We Launched Our New Chanitz.org Website

by RaffiChil
2016 marks the tenth anniversary of our Chanitz blog and on this occasion, we have recently launched our rebranded website. It wasn’t a simple task migrating the whole content from one platform to another, but eventually, we made it to our new and beautiful home.

Now, why did we launch a new website?
Lately, we've been contemplating about this complete overhaul. The web has changed a lot in the recent years, and our previous website hasn't been providing the best experience to our readers.

Here's a list of features that we had in mind while going through the migration:

Colors and fonts

We wanted to have simple yet invigorating colors on our website. That's why we chose the colors of the Chanitz logo, and we added to it indigo that goes well with the rest of the theme.
The fonts were provided to us by the hosting agency, and it renders well on all the screens, and most importantly it's readable on all the platforms.

Responsive design

Who hasn't heard of this new trend, which is almost every designer's craze these days? The technology has provided us with a lot of platforms, mobiles, tablets, laptops and desktops, and each come with a specific screen size. We wanted our website to be responsive, we wanted our website to look seamlessly on all the screen sizes, be them tablets but more specifically the mobiles phone.

Fresh and simple look

If you look at our new website, you can see that it has a fresh, clean and simple look, with a lot of white space, that provides easiness for our readers' eyes. We took away some clutter that was found on the sidebar of our previous website and we opted to include the vital sections, like subscribe, social media links, search, prayer, and partners.

Usability and ease of reading

Usability and ease of reading have become one of the most important aspects of a great website. And if you're a content providing website, then you know how much this is crucial. While, looking around for new hosting providers and templates, this 'usability' feature was always at the back of our minds. We wanted to provide the best experience for our readers and followers.

URL mapping

We wanted to keep our old content and migrate them to a new location. Fortunately, our new hosting provider gave us the option to transfer all our blog content with all the uploaded images in a single click.
Afterward, we had to clean the URL mapping, in order for all the old links that are scattered everywhere on search engines and social media platforms to show the correct content, rather than showing a 404 with a message that says, 'oops, the URL isn't working'. Thankfully, we had a nice option to map the URL into the new form and viola, the links started showing the readers the correct content.

Interestingly, the birthday of our Chanitz Blog coincides with the birth of our Armenian Evangelical Church. Today, we are ten years old, and our Armenian Evangelical Church is 170 years old.

Hey, it's our birthday, and we'd love to receive your emails, messages, feedback.

From the Administrator

Lately, our readers may have noticed the increased amount of ads within the emails, one of which was the 1/Feb/2010 newsletter, in which ads were displayed, that may not always coincide with our mission.
We still do not have control over all the ads, and we hope that we will be able to raise funds, to pay the annual fee, and control the ads displayed.

On another note, we would also like to clarify and remind our readers, that the authors of each article bear the sole responsibility for their views. Chanitz.org will give space to different kinds of views, within the borders of respect. Otherwise, if you have another point of view, please write them in the comment box, or by replying to the newsletter email.

Keep praying for this ministry.

Administrator,
Raffi

A New Feature on the Chanitz Blog Greatly Appreciated

A new feature on the blog was added that shows related articles and posts. The added value of this feature is that it not only shows the titles, but also displays the related images. Anyone who is reading an article will find at the end of each article a "You might also like" section, showing 3 images linked to their corresponding articles, as shown in the above example.

Administrator

New feature on the blog: "Related Posts" added below each article

Yet another milestone achieved for the blog!

A new feature that we've long been waiting for, the addition of the "Related Posts" below each article. This will help you, whenever you are interested in the same subject/theme, to be able to have a quick view of the related articles/posts.

In order to see the related posts, you have to click on the title of the post, which will take you to that specific post. At the end of the post, you will find the list of the related posts.

We have added for you a screenshot of the way it looks:



Yet another milestone achieved for the blog!

Dear readers: do you want this blog to continue?

Despite the many encouraging letters that we have received during the last three years, I've always had this doubt whether this blog would continue to be read and whether its voice would still be heard.
Despite the many emails that we have received, till today, practically there's little concern about the value of this medium that brings the news of our youth, churches and schools to the public.

I may sound negative about the fate and continuity of this blog, but this blog is getting a huge amount of my personal development and time. The doors that we've knocked still remain close, the questions that we've asked still are
unanswered, the proposals that we've developed are still on paper.

In the end, I would like to ask you, dear readers: Should this blog continue? Is it worthy?

Raffi

"Email the Author" is fixed

You can now email about any of the articles and posts by clicking on "Email the Author", highlighted in red.
In the past, this was not possible and we were not able to get the emails sent to us through this feature. But now, this is up and running and we await your emails as well as your comments.

Below are the two screen shots that will show you what you will see when you click on "Email the Author".

Raffi

Listen to the Chanaghpouyr Interviews in One Place

You will see that at the bottom of the page, there's a box, in which you will find most of the interviews that we have compiled.
You do not need to go to interviews one by one to listen to them. Now, we've given you the ability to have them all in one place and you can just start listening to any one of them, at ease.
More interviews will be coming soon and you can also send us your requests for subjects that matters our youth, our Armenian cause, or our Christian faith, or any other issue that we can touch and learn about.

Raffi

New, Easier Commenting System!

After much await for the new commenting system, I am happy to announce to our readers the launching of the brand new and simple commenting feature.

There's no more need to write special characters, that sometimes would give you a headache and will be non-readable.

We will try this new system and hopefully this will be a feature to remain...

Here's a snapshot of the commenting box. You only need to write your comment and then select a profile. The fastest and simplest one is Name/URL. A box will show up in which you can fill you name and you can also leave the URL empty. And voila! That's it!

Beta Version

The Blogger engineers have been preparing their users to migrate to the new Beta Version. And the time has come for us, after being invited, to migrate. The Beta Version is not stable, hence the word "Beta". Therefore, we will try to benefit from the version the best, during the process of which we may stumble on difficulties. If you happen to find problems when viewing our blog, please do report to us, and we will try to tackle the problems as soon as possible.

Moreover, some features, like "verse of the day", "search tool", "email notification", "polls", "Our board" will be temporarily unavailable. On the other hand, the posts will be labeled according to their type/subject, which will allow visitors to easily navigate and view. The label section will be available in the right column soon.

In the meantime, enjoy reading the posts.

Update: "Verse of the day" is back, "Search tool" is back, "Email notification" is back, "polls" is back.
Update: In the right column you will see the labels/categories.
Update: At the bottom of the page you have "Older Posts" which allows you to see older posts.
Update: A New "Our Board" is launched, found at the bottom top of the right column.

N.B. Mozilla Firefox portrays the blog much better and the Armenian font in it is very beautifully shown. The Board also runs and loads better, the "Smileys" box will show in Mozilla, but not in Explorer. If you want to download Mozilla, go to www.mozilla.com/firefox. It's free and better.

The Administration

Say Hi to the Camera Above you!

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