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09/08/2008: New Site Design

It has been a long time coming; the last several designs of the site just seemed too blog-like or in the most recent case hard to use. Part of the blame (wholly resting upon the author) was the influence of eeevil web templates from a variety of sources instead of sitting down and just hammering out a functional yet readable design. I would be incorrect in saying that it scales well because there is a lot of specific css goop being used (as in not just for general tags but a lot of list reformatting, strange margins - that sort of stuff). The current design harkens back somewhat to earlier site designs (as in 1999 to 2000) where accessibility to a lot of the information at the site is readily available.

Enhancements

Not quite sure if that is the correct word or not but I refuse to use features....

• Simple navigation bar at the top is back. Got a lot of complaints about it disappearing in the first place.
• An advanced set of menus has been added on the right with drill downs into particular areas of the site people might want to get at faster. The two in-site menus on the right are a guess for now; hopefully logs will reveal whether or not they are of any use.
• Kept the logos - some of my favorite project logos are staying at least as long as they fit in.
• Popular Texts on the left side - thought this might be a neat feature for readers. The current plan is to review the last two months of logs every month and adjust the list according to that. The problem of course is some material may never bubble up.
• Added news digest pages; the idea here is that old news lists might be added to one of the columns later on.
• Added direct links to the sourceforge repository for people who wish to examine my horrific projects quickly.

Graphics

The header I sliced out of a picture and imprinted some code onto - the observant will note there is a syntax error in one of those. I chose code from each language that has been featured here more than once. The navigation bar I just plain made using the gimp; I could probably css the background if I did a little research. The gear - of course - had to stay in some capacity.

Future Work

The main reason the current layout is so elaborate is so I can stop messing with it and get back to business. Following is a list of stuff that might be coming up:

• periodic roundups: I have been making lots of tiny code changes that only exist within CVS logs. I might start doing periodic roundups and posting them in the digests.
• writings in the pipeline: There exist still a number of writings in pipeline that have yet to be published. So more stuff in the texts section definitely is on the way.
• semi-annual text qa: Once every two years I re-read and correct any errors in the last two years texts (which is why I front-loaded the texts over the summer). Anyone using this site as a reference might want to come back although the changes are usually grammar related. I do proof everything 3 times but invariably (usually due to lack of sleep) mistakes slip through.
• Ongoing adjustments: It is already clear that some of the changes may not be worthwhile or something was missed (for example the drill down menus on the right may be a waste of space) - small changes like that can be expected.