The Weblog

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2011 Nov 15 — Layout Revamp   

 

(2011-11-15): [Tidings] has been updated, the Salutations section is finally up and running.

 

2011 Oct 24 — Layout Revamp   

 

(2011-10-24): the [Links] section went live this morning, it took quite some time to go over the stuff in there. Most of my time went into redoing the list of bands, as each needed to be individually checked to see who's still up and running. I'll be putting more links into these pages as time goes on.

 

2011 Sep 21 — Layout Revamp   

 

(2011-09-21): [Tidings / Design Standards] is up.

 

2011 Sep 20 — Layout Revamp   

 

(2011-09-20): [Tidings / Point of Origin] is finished. I also tweaked the global CSS sheet to fix line-height in the content paragraphs, they were running a little close together before.

(2011-09-14): [Contact / Send Message] is working again. I made the recent switch to an openly licenced system which uses PHP, increases accessibility and includes considerable security that should hold up well enough without needing to force users to deal with CAPTCHA.

(2011-09-12): Preliminary [CTOS] is posted and available. [Tidings / Weblog] has also been restored.

 

2011 Sep 12 — Layout Revamp   

 

This domain is evolving.

After much reading, speculation and searching I've decided to rebuild the codebase, starting with a CSS-centered approach, for viewing in modern browsers. This should resolve some issues that arose in the old layout:

• Nav scalability when approaching 100 or more pages
• Flash add-ons not able to run on iOS and many mobile devices
• Embedded content data causing the layout to shift out of place
• Search engine optimization badly needed
• Lacking a means of delivering reliable typography
• Galleries used way too many preloads

As of this revision, here's where things stand:

• The site's current and future focus is on low-bandwidth delivery. This will decrease load times and make access easier, in particular for those users who have a slow, throttled or bandwidth-capped Internet connection.
• There will be an expanding goal to reduce object and HTTP counts, which likewise serves to cut down the load wait time dramatically.
• Gallery presentation is receiving an overhaul. Images will be thumbnail based, with large versions served on-demand by an AJAX applet.
• Web-based typography will supersede all previous type display methods, and while a few browsers (MSIE and some mobiles) still don't properly support the CSS3 spec, sufficient workarounds exist that should be able to make it viable and eliminate platform font dependence.
• I am currently using a set of free, open licence Web fonts provided by Google, hosted directly via this domain. I found in testing that the Google CSS calls are incomplete and fail to address browser-specific bugs, meaning that if we want to see the same styles on all browsers, a fair amount of tweaking and augmentation will be in order.
• Type is now sized in ems, not pixels, to increase accessibility in some client browser features. Letter sizing and line spacing has also been adjusted for increased readability and legibility.
• The colour palette is based on neutral tones as a suitable matting to present art and design content. Since the old layout was blue, it caused some drift in colour perception as its blue tones caused the eye to attempt to reconcile image tones with the background. The new layout doesn't do this.
• The navigation menu applet has been carried forward. It tends to degrade well if the user dumps CSS/Javascript/cookies.
• Addition of right-hand icon menu in article headings giving access to permalink, e-mail and top jump. Future revisions may also roll out print button functionality.
• And several other minor (or major) refinements ...

I look forward to updating the existing content, adding new entries and improving all aspects of the site's functionality during the next few weeks. As you can no doubt tell, this is a significantly large project, and nearly all past or existing technologies are due to be overhauled.

I'll be updating the Contact section first, after an anti-spam e-mail form has been finalized and readied for deployment.

Please stay tuned for further updates.