New Layout
At Boris‘ request, I thought I’d post a quick entry on the new site layout I put live yesterday. Why a new layout? Why the hell not?
Well, to be honest, that’s not the only reason. I was getting tired of the old layout – it’s been relatively unchanged since 2001 – and wanted something new. So, ta-da, here it is. The content itself is unchanged, due to the wonder that is “separating presentation from content” achieved using SSI and various templates. I actually wanted to take it a step further and redo the templates to use CSS, but damned if CSS just doesn’t play well with others. The main change is that the site takes up all available screen real estate, as opposed to only occupying a fixed width strip down the center.
I usually redesign my site once a year, just to keep it a little interesting, change things around, and otherwise waste a bunch of time. Websites: a blackhole for your spare time. That’s catchy. I should really trademark that.
There, happy Boris? Comment away!
um.. Is that photo supposed to be all stretched and distorted like that?
If you’re talking about the main page one – chances are you’re seeing a cached image from the old site if you’ve visited the site before. The top image has the same name as the old one, and I guess some web browsers don’t properly check the last modified date.
However, it looks like I forgot to update the “comment preview” template. Sigh. Thanks for the heads-up.
Some day I’ll stop bullying you about your own site, Brendon. Maybe after I’ve actually met you in person :p
“Layouts through the ages” — cool! You certainly don’t design like any techies I know… It will still take my brain some time to equate this new look and feel with “Brendon”.
“CSS doesn’t play well with others” — if you haven’t worked with CSS very much, especially table-less layouts, it can take some adjustment. Or rather, some trial and error as you figure out the different browser bugs. In the long run, it makes for easier updating. Still, you should at least be using XHTML 1.0 Transitional…
And of course, “table-less” shouldn’t really be the goal — use tables where it makes sense (the calendar is a good example), use logical DIVs for other places, use tables for the “framing” if you can’t possibly get it to work any other way.
Anyway — congrats!
I like the new design! FYI, in NS 4.07, the tables don’t wrap to 100% of the browser width, resulting in a lot of horizontal scrolling if one wishes to read all the text. I love the ‘comments’ function… wish I could write code well enough to put it on my own site 🙂 Keep up the great blogs!
Yeah, I noticed that when I showed the new layout to a friend on their computer. I’m not really too concerned – IE 6.0 and 5.5 make up 72% of all the traffic I get. If you count all versions of MSIE after 5.0, other browsers only comprise less than 17% of the browsers that visit my site. Pre-Netscape 5.0 versions of Netscape account for less than 1%.
Sad to say, but the browser war is over, and we know who won.