Two Weeks' Notice, Or: New Design
posted on june 11, 2004, tag: site
Sorry about disappearing without warning you. I sort of knew it was going to happen, and I had plenty of opportunities to tell you I was coming back, but I didn't. Fear not—it's not because I don't love you. It's because I've been working on a bunch of different stuff. One thing I've been working on for a very long time now, on and off, is the new design of this website you now see (at least you should).
After 23* different failed redesign attempts, I ended up with something I like that is, sadly, quite similar to the previous design. Since this is the first time I've redesigned since I finished the new back-end, this is the first time I've been able to allow for you to choose between two different designs. I use XSL to transform all my XML content, so creating a new layout was as easy as creating a new XSL sheet. You can now switch between the new design (called "Sunken"), old design (called "Exclaim") and a third design called "Plain" (which is, well, plain). Find the style controls on your right.
The masthead image for "Sunken" will randomly change with each view. There are about 32 images there so far, with plenty more to be added in short order. There are a few you might have seen already, but a majority of them are new. The new design also uses transparent PNGs to place the shadow above the background, and this works in all modern browsers as well as IE for Windows (thanks to the crappy, stupid filter functionality). The design looks best in Safari (doesn't everything?) since it has native support for the text-shadow CSS3 property. In all other browsers, I've faked shadows using some CSS tricks. If you're using Firefox on a Mac, you'll need to download the newest release candidate (0.9 RC) to see these faked shadows. There was a bug with the opacity handling in 0.8, and it was patched in 0.9. I hope you like the new design.
I recently bit the bullet and finally bought an XBOX, so I've been playing a lot of games lately. I whipped up a fun little side-project related the gaming, and I'll release that tomorrow. There are other things I want to do with this idea in other directions, and maybe when I get around to it I'll do so. Anyway, more tomorrow.
In other news, I've been working on a non-computer-related project lately that has me really excited and involves both writing and getting behind a camera again. Eventually this project will involve the web, and when it does you'll be the first to hear about it.
Now I'm off to tweak this new design a little bit. Feedback is appreciated.
* Not kidding. 23 different PSDs.
Comments
There are 14 comments, comments are closed
Richard on 06/11/2004:
I like it! Very modern and chic. I love the little white indicator bars below the section headings, though the one under "Archive" stuck on just now :D
The black and white/colour style buttons are a nice touch.
Well done!
Stew on 06/11/2004:
Nice looking design.
Regarding the Xbox, you got Xbox Live? You'll not regret getting an Xbox - great fun witha few mates :)
Justin Williams on 06/11/2004:
I like the new design, but the shadows on the navigation bar don't look right. Try messing with their positioning a bit maybe?
Joe on 06/11/2004:
Great job on the redesign! The ability to change layout styles by just rebuilding you XSL/CSS stylesheets is a big plus.
How about a more in-depth entry on how you're using XML/XSL for you content management? A few ideas along the lines of how you're processing it (I'm assuming PHP is involved along the way somewhere) as well a few examples of just how extensible it is.
Many of us are teetering on the edge of moving to using XML/XSL, but are still in need of a few good, solid tips, tricks and working examples to push us over. Without many (or pretty much any for that matter) PHP/XML/XSL-based CMS' available to delve into, it pretty much leaves most at a standstill as to where to start.
James Bachman on 06/11/2004:
Very nice design indeed.
Unfortunately in IE5 for Mac it looks like a dog's dinner.
Ah well, they're discontinuing development of IE for Mac anyway, so who cares?
Garrett on 06/11/2004:
The underline issue with the navigation should now be fixed. It was an issue with the difference between the fonts Lucida Grande (Mac) and Lucida Sans Unicode (PC). I added a check for Windows and created an extra style to fix the problem. It's ironic that Chris is having the exact same problem right now.
Stew—I haven't gotten XBOX Live yet, but I plan to.
Joe—I will post more about the system in the coming days.
Oh, and James—IE Mac... ugh. I know. It's a problem. I haven't decided whether or not to deal with it yet.
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
Stephen on 06/11/2004:
I'm a new visitor so I'm just going on first impressions here - I like it - very clean, stylish design with a high attention to detail. The random photo at the top is a nice touch, as is the overlayed shadow. Very neat, good job :-)
Geremy on 06/11/2004:
I really, really like the redesign more than I loved the other design. My favorite part is the header and the different images that appear each time that the page is refreshed. I'm trying my best not to look at all 32 of the images so I can be surprised each time I visit this site.
Keep up the good work!
daniel on 06/11/2004:
awesome new design. It may be similar to the last, yet I still like the rotating masthead. While on the subject of xBox.... when halo 2 comes out Nov. 7 or 9 (somewhere around there i forget right now) it's going to be awesome. No work will be getting done. It's going to be a good day.
Eric on 06/12/2004:
Garrett, brilliant design. I especially enjoy the random images in the masthead, splendid touch. Everything just manages to flow exceedingly well, brilliant.
Stephabe on 06/12/2004:
I really like the new design, clean, simple with just a little touch that make it classy.
And I do believe you did 23 different PSD, I'm at my 5 or 6 version since last year and every design is from 10 to 20 different PSD. Right now I'm at 18 and just got a couple of more idea last week :-)
Stephabe on 06/12/2004:
Oups... forgot. I also like to hear more about your back end, I'm still trying to figure out if I go with MT or another cms/blog tool and maybe move my hosting since I don't have an SQL.
Hearing from other help a lot in deciding what to use.
Andreas Jakopec on 06/13/2004:
you're page is awesome! really nice and impressive design!