Website Tips – Part 1
The new PSPS website was quietly launched three weeks ago and lays the foundation for a boat-load of new features arriving throughout this year.
This post is the first in an occasional series of hopefully useful tips that will help you derive the maximum benefit from some of the less obvious features of the new site.
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Notification of New News Items
PSPS news on Twitter.
Facebook or 
Twitter simply click on the social media links listed at the bottom of every page and click ‘follow’ on the PSPS social media page. When a new item is posted on this site you’ll see it appear on your Facebook news or Twitter feed within minutes. If you use a different social media platform let us know here and we’ll try to support it in future.
Alternatively if you have an RSS reader – if you don’t know what this means you can assume the answer is no – you can subscribe to the 
RSS or Atom feed by clicking using the links at the bottom of every page.
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Smartphone and Tablet Home Screen Shortcuts
The site has been designed to be readable on the smallest smartphone screen to the largest of desktop screens by seamlessly adjusting the screen layout to best suit your device. You are probably already aware of how to bookmark the PSPS website on your computer’s browser but did you also know that you can add a shortcut to the PSPS website on the home screen of Android and Apple iOS smartphones and tablets? One click takes you straight to this website.
Adding a home screen shortcut on Android is as easy as 1-2-3.
On an Android device open the PSPS website in Chrome, click on your menu key or menu link and choose ‘Add to home screen’.
Three steps to adding a home screen shortcut on an iPad.
On Apple iOS devices open the PSPS website in the Safari web browser and click on the ‘share or save’ button (see step 1 in the image above) and select ‘Add to Home Screen’.
Space Saving Home Page
As a member of the PSPS you certainly don’t need to be reminded of the Society’s raison d’être each time you visit the home screen. Of course if you are not a member of the Society you should immediately stop reading and join the Society now here!
Nor as a frequent visitor to this site do you want to waste a precious second or three scrolling down the home page to see the latest news. The good news is that you can hide the banner image of Waverley off The Needles so that the latest news is always displayed prominently each time you return to the home page without scrolling.
If you look near the top right of the home screen, just under search box, you’ll spot some discrete double-arrows pointing upwards. Clicking on these arrows will hide the banner for ever more until you choose to display it again. You can do this by clicking on the downward pointing double-arrows that will have magically appeared to the right of the ‘Latest News’ title. (If you are using a smartphone in portrait mode you may have to rotate the screen through 90° in to landscape mode before you can see the downward pointing double-arrows).
You will find this banner-free view particularly convenient on a smartphone or tablet as illustrated by the images below.
On a smartphone; before (left) and you cannot see the latest news without scrolling. After hiding the banner (right) you can.
On a tablet; before (left) and you cannot see the latest news without scrolling. After hiding the banner (right) you can.
Six Years of PSPS Blogging
The posts from the retired Bristol Channel, Wessex and Scottish blogs have all been copied across to this site. That is nearly six year of wholesome paddling goodness contained in 396 posts. You can access all this goodness by going to the News page and scrolling down until you see the “Archive” section. Click on the drop down list and choose a month. Alternatively trying typing a word or two in to the search box found at the top of every page.
Some of the older articles still need to be reformatted to display correctly on this site. This will be an ongoing task during the dark winter months.
Thank you to all the PSPS members for their many contributions over the years.
Feedback
If you have any suggestions, likes or even dislikes regarding this site, share your thoughts and help us make this website better. This site exists to serve you. Please let us know how we are doing here.
Thank you.
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