This is the website for the American Legion, Department of Texas. I was tasked to build out a dynamic website back in 2006, and since then it has gone through several CMS platforms and major design iterations. I collected and organized all of the original content from headquarters, then initally started building it out in Joomla CMS, eventually switching to Drupal, and ultimately landing on WordPress.
I also handle the layout and editing of the department’s monthly PDF newsletter, The Legion Times.
This is an ongoing project, as I continue to maintain and fine-tune content and functionality.
CHALLENGE: The greatest challenge with this project was creating a directory for their Post Locations. In essence, this needed to work much like a “store locator” would for a chain of retail stores. I needed to include the address of each Post, email, phone number, and an optional photo or graphic for the post. I also needed to embed a Google Map to display the location.
SOLUTION: To solve this I created a custom post type for “Post Locations” using JetEngine. To collect the information from each Post in Texas (of which there are hundreds), I created a standard “Submit New Post” form and we sent the link out to the main Department of Texas email list. As new Post information came in, I cross-referenced verified current Post information on file and added them to the new directory one by one. Sometimes details for a Post may change, so I also created a form to “Update Post” and manually cross-check and approve updates as they come in.
To complete the directory, I used an additional JetEngine feature to create a Search function. This way users can search for a Post by name, city/town, or zipcode.
