Sonnenmulde Website Museum
The web presence of our winery over the years.
Year of publication: 2000 | 2003 | 2006 | 2012 | 2020 | 2025
The web presence of our winery over the years.
Year of publication: 2000 | 2003 | 2006 | 2012 | 2020 | 2025
The web is old enough for a museum. In 1999 we started to create our
first website, which was then published in 2000. Since then, the web has
evolved at incredible speed, and time and again a complete overhaul has
been necessary. In these days the speed of change has slowed down a bit,
but still we have reached the 5th version of our website in 2020.
Here we now offer a retrospective of the development of the Sonnenmulde
website. Our archived pages of the past, as a museum to click through.
Something to smile about for all those who were there "back then", and
to be amazed by for the younger generation.
The Sonnenmulde archive is designed to be viewed with pretty much
anything that ever saw the internet! The archived pages themselves of
course need browsers corresponding to the time period of their
publication. But this overview works with anything that can handle the
simplest and most ancient HTML.
The first version of our website. Created then as now in a text editor
with the help of SELFHTML. In
the process, we established principles that have been followed in all
versions of our site since then.
We adhere to the relevant web standards and the site should be
accessible to all people easily and without restrictions. This even
includes avoiding JavaScript to a large extent. Although there is some
use for it here and there, the page works without it in any case!
This site consists of pure HTML with very little CSS. And yes, the first
version of our site actually used frames and recommended specific screen
resolutions. Such things were the preferred choice for contemporary
websites back then, even though it didn't help much with the
accessibility we praised above. This was one of the reasons why we
started developing a new site after only 2 years. You can see that one
below.
The second version of our website with a completely new look. The "Aqua"
design of the then brand new MacOS X operating system left its mark -
stripes were simply modern.
In the beginning, this site was also created in pure HTML, but then soon
switched to PHP. This allowed for easier, modular maintenance and the
addition of a mail form and guestbook. Initially there was even a menu
entry for a webshop, but this was never realized and the guestbook took
its place.
Structure, content and navigation were largely the same as our first
website, except for the design. And like that, version 2 was already
completely bilingual. (German, English)
The third version of our website and the biggest relaunch of all. Even
though this site has not met modern requirements for a long time, it
formed the basis for all further versions.
We developed our own simple Content Management System (CMS) in PHP.
Content changes were thus very easily possible via entries in a few text
files. All this was very specific to the layout of the website, so a
redesign practically required a complete new development. The site was
created in XHTML and for the first time there were links to social media
platforms - Facebook and Twitter to be exact.
The layout and content of our current website are still based on this
version. It was also the first time that we offered an archive of wine
vintages and news from our winery, including an RSS feed. These archives
are until today part of our current website!
The fourth version of our website, for the first time not entirely
self-developed. Up to this point, all changes to the website and its
content were made exclusively by Andreas Schreiner. This was finally
going to change, and so for the first time a full-blown content
management system was used.
Because of the for the time excellent support for multilingual websites
SilverStripe (2.x to 3.x)
was chosen as CMS. The layout of the website was nevertheless created in
our own good old fashioned way. As always standard compliant, accessible
and without requiring JavaScript. Even if the site looks different,
structure and content of version 3 were kept for the most part.
Nevertheless, version 4 remained an outlier. It turned out that a CMS
was actually unnecessary, since all changes were still made by one
person. In 2012 there were already many smartphones as well, but mobile
internet was not yet important enough to consider small devices in the
design of the site. However, that was to change quickly, and so we were
soon no longer entirely happy with this version of the site. But a new
development takes time, especially if you want to do it yourself,
besides working in the vineyard and cellar. And so this version was kept
in use for quite a long time!
Version five, the return of simplicity with static HTML and CSS, almost
like in the last millennium. This version not only returned to simple but
effective solutions from the past, but was also finally easy to use on
Smartphones and similar devices.
After the “fat” version 4, a lean, flexible website should be created again.
In contrast to the 1990s, one no longer has to create everything by hand.
There are static website generators that take over a lot of redundant
typing. In our case, we opted for Hugo, supported by a few small
scripts written in Python and PHP. Visually, the site is similar to
version 4, and some of the content and paths are even identical so that
old links still point to the right place. Technically, however, they are
completely different, as Version 5 is much closer to the easy-to-maintain,
flexible version 3. A great relief for the webmaster.
Another innovation, finally a web store. It's hosted externally, but still.
19 years from the planning of the first webshop to the real launch is
almost record-breaking ;-)
For the first time, messages from social media were also displayed directly
on the homepage. These come from our own Friendica server and with this we
also participate in the decentralized Fediverse.
Version six - not an archive, but our current website. This version was
created because we wanted to better integrate the webshop into the site.
It is still operated externally, but the two pages are integrated in such
a way that it is barely noticeable and the design has been modernized a
little too.
Or at least that's the idea, because we're still in the middle of
implementing it.
Apart from the design, not much has changed technically.
Hugo is still the page generator and a few
minor updates are still waiting to be implemented. More on this when the
site is finished.
Except where otherwise noted, all content on this site has been created
by Andreas Schreiner and is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License..
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