Wednesday, January 30, 2008

New Look

I wasn't able to fix the issues I was running into with my old template, so I've opted to move on to a new one. Still some further adjustments I want to make, including a revamp of the old banner to better fit this template. But so far, I'm liking the new look.

Update: Thanks to a suggestion by Joel, I've added a "Recent Comments" section to the sidebar. This should help folks keep track of discussions, especially on older posts.

6 comments:

  1. Just testing the new comment thingie on the sidebar....

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  2. Talk about a surprise! For half a second there I thought I went to the wrong bookmark. I know the feeling though with getting new templates working.... I have been working for hours upon hours over the last week trying to get the new site ready to go.
    The new look is nice, more space for the content with just the one sidebar.
    Also, not sure if its something you just overlooked or if its meant to be there, but check out the 'Can you predict clutch performance' topic. Two paragraphs start with a larger first font for the first letter of the paragraph and its the only post I can see like that.

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  3. Yeah, they can be tricky. Before, I was using a heavily modified version of "rounders," which included lots of specialized graphics and stuff. That made it harder to customize, and also might have contributed to the missing background issue I was having.

    This new one, based on Sandlot, seems a bit easier to customize, mostly cause it's a bit simpler. I'm much happier with the menu being on the right-side, and I love having as much room as I do on the right side for text 'n tables. I ran into a little bit of trouble getting the bullets to appear in the sidebar, and changing to color and style of my blockquotes, but I managed to get it working.

    Just a bit of photoshopping to do tonight or tomorrow, and it'll be in good shape. :)
    -j

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  4. BTW, the weird caps thing in that clutch post was intentional. I guess I was just having fun... -j

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  5. I personally don't like the font/size. I liked the look of the old page better too, it was unique... this is more conventional.

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  6. Which font/size are you referring to? The body text? The titles? I'm pretty sure the body text is exactly the same as what I was using on the old site. But I'm absolutely open to making changes.

    As for this site now being less unique, all I can say is that a) the last design was starting to break down and act funny, and b) this design is clearly easier for me to modify and customize, and allows me more room for tables--a restriction I always was struggling with on the old design. My new banner will hopefully help once I get that done, and I'll likely fiddle with font sizes and colors for a while yet until I come to something that I'm happy with.

    It *is* already modestly customized from the template it was built upon, though...and ya know, in the end, I just want this site to look "good enough" so that I can instead focus on the writing...
    -j

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