Editors Blog

8 February 2010: Cap Finistere

Pages regarding Brittany Ferries latest vessel, Cap Finistere, have been updated here.

1 December 2009: 2010 Calendar Available now

Our 2010 Calendar is now available. Click here for more information.

24 August 2009: We're Tweeting

We have joined Twitter. Follow us online here.

19 July 2009: The Relaunch

Welcome to the new look bfenthusiasts website! 

First let us provide a brief introduction. Over the past three years we have seen an increase in the number of people use the site as well as information that needs to be published. Due to the way the site grew, we had several different aspects all powered by different systems (the forum, gallery, main site, blogs...) and great difficulty in making them look coherent, as well as providing easy navigation between them for our members.

Behind the scenes, we had ideas for features and articles that we wanted to publish, but found that bolting them onto the existing systems was becoming increasingly hard to do as well as complex to maintain. The fantastic content of the site was written in static HTML, and so articles could not be published or updated without access to a particular computer and involved very many manual modifications.

We came to a point where we realised all of these inefficiencies were letting down our members and ourselves. After some brief brainstorming and experimentation (about twenty-four month's worth) we hit upon a winning formula, and started to work on it. So, we are proud to present the new BFE!

The new BFE is supported by a platform of integrated systems. We have spent a lot of time fine-tuning the operation of the various aspects of the site, as well as writing our own code to ensure that the site does exactly what we need it to. And, "we" means "we, the community". Here is an overview of the new features:

• Consistent, new look and feel. All of the major parts of the site now adopt a single look and feel, which means less confusion and simpler navigation for our members. It is hoped that the new look is distinctly BFE , giving us our own professional identity while still strongly relating to BF . This should help remove any confusion for new visitors to the site, while allowing us to open up more discussion on non-BF matters.
• Integrated menus. All pages of the site now belong to some part of one menu system. In other words, you know where you are and can see how to get where you want to go at a glance.

• News Publishing. We now have a news publishing system which also archives past stories. This allows us to update the news pages as things happen.

• Front Page Feeds. The main page always displays the latest news, forum posts and gallery photos - updated every minute of every day.

• Online Editing for Staff. We can now edit almost every aspect of the site from any copmuter, allowing us to keep the site truly up to date and publish stories from anywhere in the world.

• Nostalgia Wiki. We have built in the famous MediaWiki software to allow our members to personally contribute to the knowledge stored at BFE about past operations. Every BFE Member can contribute to the site!

• Cross-site User Awareness. We have ensured that you only have to remember one username and password for BFE , and for most areas can enjoy Single Sign On (SSO). The wiki requires you to log in again, but you can use your existing forum username and password.

• AIS Tracking. Through a third party, we are able to provide AIS tracking worldwide. The page loads in the English channel, and you can easily identify passenger vessels and find out more information about them.

• Events Pages. Our events are now categorised into past and present, and can be updated even as we sail to keep everyone informed of the latest news and pictures.

• Automatic Cross-Links. All of our old pages display relevant links on the right hand side, so you can find out more at the click of a mouse.

• A Dynamic Home Page. The new home page has been greatly improved. We can push content to it to make sure that you can access the latest articles right from the home page. What's more, the forum, gallery and news items are all automatically summarised in the "feeds box". It really is a one-stop-shop for BFE , so you can check on the site at a glance, from work, on your phone or the Armorique.

• Page Rating System. You can now rate all the site pages so that we know what's working for you and what's not. This means we can adapt the site to better suit the community's preferences.

• Increasing Use of Web 2.0 Features. A web-speak cliché that provides you with a real benefit. Instead of waiting for pages to load, we are trying to make as many actions as possible happen there and then, just like in a real program on your computer.

Getting Started

We will do our best to put some help and guidance online in the near future. In the meantime, here are the key things you need to know about using the new site:

• The forums and gallery should work just as they did before, only they are now encapsulated in the new BFE theme.

• The main site can be accessed by everyone, although many pages will have changed location. Hopefully a quick look at the menu should guide you but do contact us if you have lost something you want to use. We have tested the site on most platforms, but currently reccommend viewing the site using Firefox for best results.

• The Nostalgia Wiki will only allow you editing rights after you have made a second log in. Do this by finding "Log In" in the info boxes on the right of the page. Your existing forum username and password should work, unless your username has a character in it that is not a letter, number or underscore. If this is the case, contact us and we will gladly change it for you.

• There are clearer guidelines for moderation, interaction and updated terms and conditions for the site. Make sure you read these and accept them before continuing to use the site.

We do hope that you are pleased with the changes and are excited about using them. We welcome comments on the new site and its features, as well as any support requests. We thank you for your patience in bringing things up to date, for dealing with the small learning curve we have introduced and for your continued support of BFE .

As ever, we ask you to use the Book Online link at the top of all pages if you are planning to make a trip with BF. It costs you nothing more than booking directly, but a small thank you is provided to us which helps us to keep the site running.

The BFE Staff