Saturday, June 6, 2009

Site change history

11:04 PM / Web / CommentsNo Comments

Web

I've decided to create this entry to allow me to keep track of changes I make to the site and its design without having to bore you with creating a new post every time I make a tiny alteration. It will be permanently accessible from the footer at the bottom of the recent posts page (i.e. the first one you come to when you visit the site).

  • Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - The archive pages (monthly and category) now display full entries rather than just abridged lists. This should hopefully make browsing through older entries less cumbersome.
  • Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - A new background image, courtesy of Cool Backgrounds, a slightly tweaked logo and larger text.
  • Monday, September 24, 2012 - A smaller logo and other minor aesthetic tweaks.
  • Sunday, July 15, 2012 - Changed the way recent comments are displayed on the main page.
  • Friday, October 7, 2011 - New and improved links section on the main page.
  • Saturday, April 2, 2011 - The Archives section on the main page now only shows the last twelve months. Earlier archives can be found by clicking "More".
  • Monday, March 7, 2011 - A name and valid email address are now required for commenting. (Email addresses will not be displayed publicly.)
  • Monday, January 31, 2011 - Enabled image hotlinking protection in an attempt to reduce bandwidth, which has spiralled out of control this month.
  • Monday, January 24, 2011 - New and improved 404 page added.
  • Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - Automatic comment approval has been re-enabled! No more moderation!
  • Monday, December 20, 2010 - Now using TypePad AntiSpam for improved spam protection.
  • Thursday, July 15, 2010 - The site now has a browser icon. Also took the opportunity to merge a handful of small and/or overly-specific categories (PhD, Waking the Dead, Dario Argento, etc.) into the "main" categories.
  • Friday, July 2, 2010 - BlogJanitor re-enabled. Sorry, folks!
  • Thursday, July 1, 2010 - Due to spam levels, moderation has now been enabled for all comments. However, BlogJanitor has also been disabled, re-enabling commenting functions for entries older than four weeks.
  • Thursday, April 22, 2010 - Switched to a brand new, more streamlined main menu.
  • Thursday, April 15, 2010 - Changed the default font to Arial. Helvetica, the previous default, is now the "second choice".
  • Sunday, March 28, 2010 - Dropped the indentation on the first line of paragraphs.
  • Monday, January 25, 2010 - In an attempt to cut down on spam and site maintenance, I've installed the Blog Janitor plugin, which automatically disables comments on all entries more than four weeks old.
  • Monday, December 21, 2009 - The site now has a new tagline.
  • Friday, November 13, 2009 - I've retooled the index page slightly, removing the "Latest Review" section, given that other commitments are preventing me from writing as many reviews as I used to. In its place is the "About Me" blurb that used to reside in the footer (and a brand new picture of my ugly mug), while the remaining footer text has been shifted about a little. Additionally, I've dropped the "Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional" button, which has been a lie for some time now.
  • Monday, October 19, 2009 - Each Monthly and Category Archive page now shows 25 entries, up from the previous 10.
  • Thursday, September 3, 2009 - The main page now shows the 20 most recent entries, up from the previous 10, given that, during especially prolific periods of posting, it wasn't unheard of for an entry to disappear from the front page in three days or less.
  • Monday, August 31, 2009 - Rewrote the "About the Author" section at the bottom of the main page.
  • Friday, July 17, 2009 - Looking ahead to the future, I've changed Movable Type's settings to generate friendly URLs. In other words, "http://www.landofwhimsy.com/archives/year/month/entry.html" is now "http://www.landofwhimsy.com/archives/year/month/entry/". Therefore, in the off-chance that I switch to dynamic publishing at some point, all my existing entry links should still work.
  • Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - Minor tweaks to the stylisation of the "Recent Comments" section on the main page.
  • Monday, July 13, 2009 - Added a snazzy new 404 page which, instead of just telling the user that the file they were looking for isn't present, suggests where to look for it.
  • Monday, July 13, 2009 - No stylistic changes, but the site has now switched providers from Domains Priced Right to LD Hosting.
  • Saturday, July 11, 2009 - Category and Monthly Archives that consist of only a single page should no longer show the "More posts" section.
  • Friday, July 10, 2009 - In a bid to reduce clutter and speed up loading times, the Recent Posts, Monthly Archive and Category Archive sections are now limited to ten entries per page.
  • Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - To save space, the News Archive Index is no longer formatted with lists featuring a single line for each entry.
  • Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - The Archives and Categories sections on the index page are now grammatically correct for archives or categories with a single entry - i.e. "1 entry" rather than "1 entries".
  • Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - Individual entry pages now contain monthly and category archive lists, thanks to my discovery of the joys of modules and the <$MTInclude module=""$> function.
  • Thursday, June 18, 2009 - Individual entries no longer include links to every archive and category page, just a link to the master archive index. This should speed up rebuild times, which for you, dear readers, should result in slightly less lag when posting a comment.
  • Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - General improvements to the search results page, including increased visibility of the Google Search option and an explanation as to its inclusion.
  • Friday, June 12, 2009 - The entire site has now been converted to tweaked layout. That was pretty painless!
  • Friday, June 12, 2009 - The News section now uses the new and improved redesign. I'll be moving the rest of the site over to this layout on a section-by-section basis. I don't foresee any major difficulties but I want to do it one piece at a time to ensure I don't run into any bugs.
  • Thursday, June 11, 2009 - The site now has a spiffy new background header, replacing the rather plain original.
  • Wednesday, June 10, 2009 - Added an option to the Search Results page to perform a Google-powered search in the event that you don't find what you're looking for. Movable Type's integrated search only covers its own entries, which means that anything prior to the redesign (i.e. June 2009) won't be covered. Google takes a while to index content, but everything should be covered by now.
  • Monday, June 8, 2009 - The Other section, which has become progressively smaller with virtually every single redesign of this site, has now been collapsed into a single page.
  • Monday, June 8, 2009 - Added a bit of "breathing space" to the header by moving the body content down by approximately 25 pixels.
  • Monday, June 8, 2009 - Images now have a grey 2px border as opposed to the previous 1px black border with 2px padding.
  • Monday, June 8, 2009 - Switched the Garamond headers to Palatino Linotype (with Palatino and then Book Antiqua as fallbacks). After nearly fifteen years' usage of Microsoft Office, with which Garamond comes packaged, I'd forgotten that it wasn't a standard Windows font.
  • Sunday, June 7, 2009 - Reduced site clutter by getting rid of the extract paragraph for the recent review showcased on the recent posts and latest BDs and DVDs pages. If people want to read the review, they can click the relevant link.
  • Saturday, June 6, 2009 - Created the "site change history" page.
  • Saturday, June 6, 2009 - Rewrote the CSS for the header and main menu so that menu text is no longer wrongly positioned in certain non-compliant browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer prior to version 8).
  • Thursday, June 4, 2009 - Redesigned the "blockquote" styling.
  • Thursday, June 4, 2009 - Got rid of the sub-menu at the top of each page. The exact same content is replicated in the sidebar anyway.
  • Monday, June 1, 2009 - Replaced the .jpg navigation buttons on the top menu with text-based equivalents.
  • Monday, June 1, 2009 - Launched the new Land of Whimsy design (2.0).
 
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