Here we have an overview of some of the changes that have been happening on guardian.co.uk this week.
Changes to the live-blogging tool
Our live-blogging tool has many different names depending on the section the reader most frequents. Some people know it as the minute-by-minute(football), some as the over-by-over(cricket) and some as the straight-forward live blog. Recently it has been undergoing some changes. We have changed the way that the auto-update functionality retrieves its data.
In order to minimise the load on the server and the size of the requests the browser has to make, we have changed the refresh so that it serves one each new update at a time instead of the whole body of text. We are also working on a beta version of the live-blogging tool which we hope will make the live-bloggers a bit more of a happy bunch.
Redesign of the Technology front
The Technology front styling has been updated in order to bring it in-line with other fronts that we have been changing recently.
As part of changes that we will be making to the section fronts, we have made a fix to the template to allow certain trailblocks to work in the template. The most noticeable difference is that the trailblock headings have been updated as well as an updated template for the layout of the content.
Some extra ad slots around the site
While you’re browsing around the site, you’ll probably notice some extra ads. We’ve added a couple of extra slots to the templates in order to generate some more revenue. Depending on the page you’re visiting, the ads will appear at the bottom of the article body or at the bottom of the promotional right hand column.