Changes to site in 2026

Lots of changes are being planned and tested for roll-out in the new year. This will be a major upgrade to the website, the first for well over 10 years when the current theme was adopted. 

Times have changed, browsers have become better, CSS standards have been advanced, and much more browsing is performed on mobile devices. Therefore it is time to knock the website into a new shape. 

The general theme will still be familiar but under the bonnet there will be a lot of code rewriting plus all walks pages will require updating and in the process links will be validated and textual content reviewed. Currently testing is in process so hopefully it will not be long. 

Changes that will be included are: 

• Update, optimize and take advantage of modern CSS standards. particularly with the use of flex and grid based styling to provide a better, more dependable layout and user experience 
• Provide Atom feed and json feed links to all search lists - already rolled out
• Uses of Atom feeds to generate complete label based search lists - already rolled out 
• Use native HTML details element to provide accordion structure for Walk Notes, Directions, Pubs, Features. This will make a better user experience and navigation, particularly on mobile devices
• Wider column formats for viewing on larger screen sizes, the new format will now use a 1200px width for screens that support such sizes
• Add in better walk validation information to remove differentiation between full details walks, summary walks and undocumented walks. The difference is just the validation information. 
• Remove unrequired JavaScript 
• New top navigation bar, completely css based and a lot easier to use, especially on mobile devices 
• Add in CSS print rules to provide a simple printed output consisting of a brief description, map, transport details and walk directions (in many cases the written directions will be recast into a simple list format) 

 In addition it is hoped that the code modules can be published online for others to use. This will take some time to fully document the workflows so is more long term plans. These will include: 

• WalkML schema for construction of walk data in XML 
• HTML information for construction of gpx metadata that can be transformed to a walk page 
• XSLT to transform WalkML to HTML ready to publish code 

XSLT to tranform GPX + metadata to HTML ready to publish code 

 As always, both Griffmonsters Great Walks and Rhodes Great Walks will remain ad free and no user subscription, with GPX files free to download. The ethos behind the site is that information should be shared not locked behind paywalls.

Blow are a couple of sneak previews of the changes. On the left is the new navigation menu as viewed on a mobile device, similarly the right demonstrates the new accordion view

Have a Happy 2026 full of exploring and walking