Winter liftingstones.org updates
Last time I promised I’d share some of the things I’ve been working on over the last month or so on liftingstones.org. During the winter in late 2019 and early 2020, I built the very first version of liftingstones.org, and nearly every winter since I've set aside a little time to update the site – it's basically tradition.
Here’s what’s new, feel free to jump to the topics that interest you most:
- New map filters
- New author section
- Currency display
- Dinnie Stones enamel pins sold out
- Quick-fire changes
- Footer
- RSS feed
- EMOM timer sounds
- Site-wide skip links
New map filters
The highlight of the winter website work is new map filtering to make finding stones you want to visit even easier.
On the map, click the slider icon on the control panel to open the filter drawer from the bottom of your screen.
From there, you can select which stones to view – from historic, contemporary, and liftable stones – giving you better granularity over what you see.
Filtering also works in conjunction with the sharable map links so you can share your exact map view with others using position, zoom level, and filters!
You might notice that means the liftingstones.org map now has better support for contemporary stones, mirroring some of the filters from the stone directory. If you maintain a list of established contemporary stones and would like to include them on the map, send me an email.
New author section
Over the years liftingstones.org has published articles from multiple experts in the community and I wanted to highlight them and their articles more. So one of my projects this winter was to build a new Authors page showing a cool grid of all of the authors who've contributed their work to the site.
Each author has a profile where you can read a little about them, visit their Instagram or website, and find a list of all the articles they've published on liftingstones.org.
Currency display
Although products sold in the liftingstones.org shop have always been available in a range of currencies on the checkout page to save you from conversion fees, the prices on the site have always been displayed in British pounds. This created a situation where people thought they would be charged in GBP when that wasn't the case.
So I found a way to dynamically set the currency based on where you connect to the site. For example, my friends in the US will see US dollars, and my friends in the EU will see Euros.
When you visit the shop, you should now see products in the currency you'll pay at checkout so there are no surprises. If you see British pounds and you don't use GBP in your country, it likely means your currency isn't currently available – please reach out if that's the case, in most cases I can update the checkout to accept your currency.
As a side note, since this currency display is based on where you're connecting from in the world, if you use a VPN or if you're travelling you may see a different currency, so please keep that in mind.
Dinnie Stones enamel pins sold out
This one isn't really a site update, but it is an important piece of news – the Dinnie Stones enamel pins are now sold out! Last time they sold out, I decided to produce another batch. Unfortunately, I've had to make the decision not to produce another batch this time around. I'd love to, but the costs are becoming prohibitive – a few months ago I had to adjust the price for some countries due to additional shipping costs and fluctuations in exchange rate.
Out of the things I've created, the Dinnie Stones enamel pins are probably my favourite, so I'm incredibly sad I won't be sending any out for people to enjoy anytime soon. Having said that, I'll reevaluate my decision if there's demand for them to return.
Quick-fire changes
Here are a few smaller changes that are less flashy that might make your experience a little better.
Footer
The site's footer was getting a little too busy with all of the links, so I decided to update and organize it with categories. As a bonus, I could add some more links that were missing.
RSS feed
While RSS readers aren't used as much these days as they were before Google shut down Google Reader, I made a few tweaks that allowed me to make a convenient RSS feed for the site. If you use an RSS reader, this will allow you to catch new articles as soon as they're published.
- Copy the feed URL:
https://liftingstones.org/feed.xml- You can also find the feed in the site's new footer
- Open your RSS reader.
- Select Add / Subscribe / Add feed.
- Paste the feed URL and confirm.
EMOM timer sounds
When I first built the EMOM timer I didn't really focus that much on the sounds so they ended up being a bit lifeless. Since the EMOM timer now gets a decent amount of use, I spent some time making the sounds more appropriate for more intense training. They now sound more like the stereotypical sounds you hear for a three-second countdown at the start of a race.
Site-wide skip links
For accessibility, I've added a new 'skip link' to the site that allows people using screen readers to jump straight to a page's main content – like article text – by hitting tab just once instead of having to tab through the whole navigation bar.
That's it for now! As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions to improve the site, you're always welcome to send me an email.
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