Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Changing the blinds

8:27 PM / Web / CommentsNo Comments

Web

You've probably noticed that there have been one or two cosmetic changes to the site in the last day or so, most significantly the new background image and larger text. This version of the site has looked more or less the same since its inception three years ago - a record length of time given that, back when I had time to spare and the inclination to constantly tinker, I was completely redoing the entire site on (at least) a yearly basis. In the past, I've found that the site sees the most activity in the months following the launch of a new design. So, I thought, let's see if doing so again will encourage a new phase of productivity.

Originally, my intention was to go with a completely new design, using a pre-existing Movable Type template rather than creating one myself - the logic being that I would have a swanky new design with only minimal effort required on my part. I actually started playing around with a rather nice-looking template on a separate Movable Type installation... but things went a bit pear-shaped and I ended up accidentally overwriting all the tweaks I'd made with the default template, and I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

I've also made some significant changes to the way the category and monthly archives are displayed. When I first launched this design, I was with a different web host and was having severe performance issues. (If you've been following this site for a while, you'll probably remember a period three years ago when it would literally take upwards of two minutes just to post a comment.) In an attempt to lessen the load on the server I devised a drastically pared-down archive system whereby, rather than displaying full entries, only the title and a brief excerpt of each post would be displayed. In the end I ended up switching to LDHosting in July 2009, which has always been lightning fast for me. The old design remained in place, however, and to be honest I quite liked the fact that it was a bit different. I've come to the conclusion, though, that it's not exactly the most user-friendly way of displaying old posts, given that you have to open each entry individually in order to read it. As a result, I've gone back to a more conventional setup that looks more like the front page (see, for example, the BD Impressions archive). Much better, as I'm sure you'll agree.

I'll probably continue to tweak the layout as and when the inclination takes me, provided it doesn't result in any disruption. Any thoughts on the changes? Positive? Negative? Don't care?

 
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