Another website using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS). The website brief was to set up a nice simple looking website that could be edited by the client. WordPress was the perfect match with the many features that WordPress provides. We also added a little sprinkling of jQuery to enhance the site with some animation, it grabs the attention of the user showing off what they do on the homepage with the animated slideshow.

SFS are very proud of their testimonials so it was obvious we had to make sure they were prominent on the website, again using some jQuery to show a snippet of a selection of testimonials and sliding along every few seconds.

Ross Negus: We are delighted with the new look and hope that our current and prospective clients will feel the same.
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The animated slideshow on the homepage as previously state uses jQuery for the animation but it also uses some bespoke WordPress plugins to allow the client to edit the images and text themselves, something they have wanted the ability to do for some time.

Look out for some updates in the not too distant future as the website develops.

Visit the Southampton Freight Services website

The Asante Coffee Shop is a charity project to help raise money for the citizens 4 change (c4c) charity in Chandlers Ford in Southampton.

The website is built using WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System) like many other websites built by The Funk House.

The client can edit the content themselves including adding video from YouTube, adding photos and creating or managing the form for the contact section.

The website has been built in such a way that it only uses one page to show all of the content. All of the content goes down the page allowing the user to see all the content in one go by simply scrolling down the page. This was done because the website does not have much content and it also allows the design to have a bit fun with the moving giraffe. Through the use of jQuery clicking on the menu slides the page down and also makes the neck of the Asante giraffe shorter as the page moves down. This was done to add a little bit of fun to the website along with the Twitter bird in the scene at the bottom of the page. Next to the Twitter bird is the latest tweet from the Asante Twitter account (make sure you follow @asantecafe).

The main aim of the website was to be able to show potential customers what the coffee shop is like. The photo gallery can be easily updated by the client as they introduce new food or drinks. The initial photos in the gallery were taken by The Funk House to help out with the website. The gallery makes use of the Fancy box jQuery plugin to pop up the image in the same window without navigating to a new page. This is very common on the web and looks great.

View the Asante website

The Funk House has been busy building websites and here is one of the recent sites to go live. The website uses WordPress as a CMS to allow the charity SCIL (Southampton Centre of Independent Living) to edit the website and manage the content from different departments.

SCIL is a democratic membership organisation run and controlled by Disabled People.  We are committed to campaign for the full civil and human rights of Disabled People whilst supporting Disabled People to make use of current provisions available to enable them to live independently.

This project was unique as unlike other projects under taken by The Funk House the charity themselves built the website and The Funk House was their to teach basic HTML and CSS while using WordPress. It was a very rewarding project and it was great to be able to help such a worthy charity.

Future developments will include adding the functionality to allow users to view the website in different contrasting colours for those with visual impairments. This will involve creating a new WordPress Plugin for the website.

EDIT: The site has now been upgraded to include the new WordPress plugin to allow the user to change the colours of the website to help them read the website. This will be published for the everyone to use very soon. With the addition of this plugin not only can the user change teh colour contrast of teh website they can also use the enlarge text plugin to make the text larger if they wish.

It is good to note that these are a nice feature but we need to make sure the user knows how to change these settings in their own browser. It is always good practice that if you have these widgets to also have a page to let the user know how to change them in the browser without the use of these widgets.

View the website