行くぜェ!!

Sunday, October 2, 2005 » general webdesign

I love titling these things with Japanese characters because then I can't even read them.

Anyway, here comes the brand new page, just in time for 2005! This has actually been a long time in the making. I originally started planning the redesign after getting back from school last June (2004), if you can believe that. However, I never settled on a design I was really satisfied with, and then, before I knew it, school started up again and I put everything on hold, returning to it for a short while in December. I came up with the template that eventually became this design in February, and actually finished most of the layout that month. Then, for some reason (probably header-related; that thing was probably the biggest issue throughout the whole process), I ended up shelving it until this summer, when I knew I'd be done with classes (for good!) and would have the luxury of worrying about building a swarm of new MovableType templates and setting up a new hosting arrangement. (Did you notice the new domain?)

It hasn't been all stress, though. My main goal for the redesign (besides a fresh look) was to get all the HTML to be independent from the CSS, to the point where it was skinnable. I've done a few other sites since beginning the redesign that were completely skinnable, and I'd say this one is now about 95% there. Ironically, the reason I'm saying it's not 100% is because I had to toss in a few weird HTML snippets to get my skins to look how I wanted. You can test out the skins, by the way, by checking out the Groove Select box up in the corner. I'll very likely get rid of the box in the future when I tighten up the HTML/CSS even more, but it was a fun experiment putting them together.

Here's an overview of all the other new features:

New gallery. I've moved the gallery into MovableType, so now you can comment on the images directly. Well, as directly as possible without scribbling all over them, anyway. (Maybe I'll add that later.)

Categorized photos. I split all my photos into separate pages by date or event. It's a little more intuitive than eight nameless galleries. So finding that horrible photo of you is now even easier. Plus I finally added my photos from New York.

Even more famous. Based on my referrer logs, Famous Actors is one of the most popular site features, so it's getting its very own space in the menu. (INTERNET: Please note the brilliant examples of correct it's/its usage in that sentence.) I've also added a few new ones to celebrate its return, and you can now suggest new additions via the form.

The sketchbook is a lot nicer, too.

All right, time to never update again!