When I originally set up robives.com I had some downloadable models that I'd brought over from flying pig and a few new models looking for a new home. After setting up the blog, the first thing I added to the web site was the shop. As I created new models I wrote about them in the blog then added them to the shop. Gradually this evolved into the models appearing on the blog then being added to to the shop in batches as and when I got round to it. As time went on and the website evolved the shop has become more and more sidelined to the point when it is now just a slightly out of date mirror of the downloads on the blog.

I've been thinking about the structure of the website and the time it takes to do things, it seems like the whole, copying things to the shop thing is just wasted time. I copy models to the shop then link back to the blog for more information about the project, it seems rather redundant.

Time to make some changes. What I've done is add a few fields to the blog database. Now when I type in a new blog entry I can click a switch to say that it contains a product, another field contains the price and a third has a space for the big picture that appears in the show case on the front page. That done I can set up a page that just shows the blog items that contain a product, that way the blog itself can be used as a shop and I don't have to do this silly double entry thing.

You can see progress here.

The only problem is that I'm having to go through all the shop entries and add them to the shop, then go through all the blog entries and tick the appropriate switches in those that contain products. It is dull beyond words. But it needs doing and once done should streamline things considerably. As Jay who you'll have seen in the comments, says:  "infrastructure makes growth possible."