On why the site looks a little different
One of my self-assigned projects for the holiday break was to rebuild the site — not so much how it looked, but the coding underneath. Inspired by the SimpleBits re-do, and armed with my copy of Andy Clarke’s Transcending CSS, I envisioned sparkling new CSS, built on a clear semantic framework. No longer would the site’s undercarriage be held together with duct tape and angle brackets. It would be strong, straightforward and robust.
But that didn’t happen.
Rebuilding a working website is like changing the oil in a moving vehicle. It’s possible, but it ain’t easy. More dispiriting, I realized that all of the vintage hacks and work-arounds I was trying to avoid have simply been replaced with new hacks and work-arounds, such as the Inman clearing method. So, for the most part, I chose to leave well enough alone.
But I did tweak a few things. The headlines are bigger, and the comments sections use significantly more whitespace. I nixed the tree border — that was always supposed to be temporary, but it lasted for more than a year. The box under the brad is gone, as are many of the less-clicked items. I’ve removed the links to other blogs, but intend to restore them at a later date.
Share This
One of the most significant changes is the “Share This” link under every article. It uses Alex King’s AJAX-y goodness to allow readers to bookmark or email a specific entry.
“Share This” takes the place of “Permalink,” and good riddance. For readers who do want to copy the URL of any article, the headline now serves as the permanent link, which is pretty much what every other blog does. The very idea of listing a “permalink” which is not meant to be clicked, but copied, dates back to a specific time in the webosphere, and, well, we’ve moved on.
There are a few other changes on my wishlist, but they may wait until I bring on someone more qualified to implement them. In the meantime, if I’ve broken something that I haven’t noticed, please let me know. That’s one of the driving-while-changing-the-oil pitfalls.
Articles
December 31st, 2006 at 8:25 am
I thought I noticed some differences!
I have to agree about the permalinks. Never really seen the point of them. The “Share this” feature looks cool, I’ll probably implement that over at my site.
The Inman clearing method sounds interesting so I’ll take a look at that too. Currently I use a div with clear:both to do the job, but it certainly feels like a hack.
Nice work on the tweaks John. Haven’t noticed any glitches but if I do I’ll let you know!
December 31st, 2006 at 9:28 am
“There are a few other changes on my wishlist, but they may wait until I bring on someone more qualified to implement them.”
If you need help, just say it.
December 31st, 2006 at 9:28 am
span class="secondlogocolor"could simply bestrong.class=''is unneeded on commentli.December 31st, 2006 at 11:12 am
Joe:
I made your “ul” an “ol” so I could respond by the numbers.
1 and 2: Well, I like my smushed-up giant Arial headlines. I’m a fan of negative leading for display type; that’s me. You like swoopy cursive wedding-invitation font. We all have our tastes.
3: True. That’s a relic. But does it really matter? Semantically, strong wouldn’t make any more sense there, and “secondlogocolor” at least indicates what I’m doing, both in the markup and the CSS. If I decided later to change the color, I’d find it faster with this name.
4 and 6: True. And, based on your comment, I see that lists are still getting the big font, which they shouldn’t. (Update: Big font issue fixed.)
5: li class=”" is used to distinguish official comments, putting the box around mine.
7: I’ve seen arguments that full-text slugs are helpful for search engines, but in general, I too prefer shorter ones. Will I promise that I’ll always make custom slugs? No. But if a particularly snarky idea hits, I probably will.
December 31st, 2006 at 12:10 pm
“Recent Comments” has been missing for a while. I found it was handy for keeping track of conversations.
December 31st, 2006 at 1:29 pm
I actually use the permalink fairly often when I want to link to a particular post in my blog. I can still do that now by just going to comments and editing out the #comments bit in the address bar, then copying my link from that — but it’s a bit more labor.
Still, the share this feature is pretty cool too.
December 31st, 2006 at 4:17 pm
The first thought I had when I saw the title in the RSS feed was “Man those trees were ugly”
Looks good. Keep living the dream.
Also, Steve: The title is also a link for this page, and I assume on the front page you can click to this page through the title without going straight to comments.
December 31st, 2006 at 5:39 pm
“Also, Steve: The title is also a link for this page, and I assume on the front page you can click to this page through the title without going straight to comments.”
Thanks, Jacob. That works great!
December 31st, 2006 at 6:56 pm
John, I have been visiting your site periocially since Big Fish. Grateful to you for your wise, thoughtful and generous counsel. May 2007 be a rich year for you in every way. Gary Shunk (Chicago)
January 1st, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I think it’s kind of cool that Joe Clark commented on your web site redesign.
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:24 pm
New page looks good John. Josh Friedman has reacted to you deleting the link to his blog by actually posting a new blog entry. Yes, really.
January 3rd, 2007 at 7:31 am
ZZzzz… ha, just kidding. I hated the trees when they first appeared. Got used to them over time, didn’t even notice when they disappeared.
January 3rd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Tony:
I am flattered that Joe Clark took the time to comment, even though I didn’t agree wholly with his somewhat-abrupt recommendations.