Lying somewhere around the apartment, in the living room I think, I have a stack of sketches with design explorations that I made in the first few weeks of the redesign that has led to what you’re looking at right now. A flurry of attempts at coming up with a new form. Something to break the backbone of the blogosphere; the monotony of header, content, sidebar, footer.
Having played around for a few weeks with the elements that combined constitute Binary Bonsai, I eventually landed on the inevitable conclusion that the revolutionary layout I was looking for was a wild goose-chase, and the inevitable conclusion was to restart the redesign.
Having run this site for a couple of years, I have if nothing else, learned a lot about how I personally utilize it, and the new design needn’t necessarily invent a new form, but rather further the previous one through the experiences I’ve gained.
I hereby present, header, content, sidebar and footer…
First, a Word on Colors
I’m good at many things that have to do with graphics. I can draw (though I won’t be making a living off of that any time soon), I can model in 3D, I know all sorts of stuff about rendering and usability.
But I can’t do colors to save my life. Yes, it suddenly now makes sense why the previous designs have been somewhat monochromatic in their presentation, doesn’t it?
I love colors though, and I am envious of people like Dave Shea who seem almost oblivious to how virtuosic mezzoblue’s new look really is.
So one of the highest priority items on my todo list for this design was to get some color into it. I played around with a variety of setups, only to continually ram my thick skull into the wall of “Hmm, if I just lower the saturation on this a little then…”. In short, I’ve had enough of desaturated, monochromatic color schemes.
So I tried a variety of approaches before I finally settled down on the current blue / pink combination. I liked the overstated boldness of the pink links, in that its connotations are so feminine. But then again, I did warn you. On the other hand, I was also a bit dubious about using something so different from what I would expect of myself.
In the end, it works for me. If nothing else, then because its so different from what I’ve tried before, a I think we all do well with some change now and then.
My work would’ve been considerably more grueling if it hadn’t been for Color Schemer Studio, which is just a damn near perfect application for assisting in web design.
No Validation, No Testing
Yes, it needs an entire headline all for its very self. I haven’t validated this site, nor have I tested it on anything other than Safari and Firefox for OS X. It has errors, there is no doubt about that, but it is—as with the content—a work in progress.
Starting with Kubrick
Kubrick was written with two goals in mind. On one hand I was trying to meet the wishes of the people who were querying me on whether or not they could use the Binary Bonsai design for their own blogs. This was what drove the look and feel of Kubrick. On the other, the code was driven by my desire to create a base from which new designs could arise.
So it was only natural that I employed the 1.3.0 base that Ryan Boren cooked up (based off of version 1.2.5), in an effort to simultaneously upgrade WordPress from 1.2 to 1.3 and move the now aging and slightly soggy 3.5 design that was carrying Binary Bonsai until a few weeks ago. So if you’re looking at Freya and thinking: “This bares an uncanny semblance to Kubrick”, then you’d be right.
In designing Kubrick, I did everything I could to make it the best possible template, within the frames I had to work with. And considering its general purpose, it still is the best I can come up with in terms of the information architecture it has.
Of course, where Kubrick is a template made for general consumption, with Freya I can of course implement all the little hacks, plugins and addons that I don’t want to otherwise clutter up Kubrick with.
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed
As many of my entries can attest to, I care about my past in all its many shapes and forms. Binary Bonsai has gone through a range of different looks since its inception in June 2002, and I did my best to pull on my experiences with the previous designs.
- Despite believing it to be a nice move, I decided against Kottke’s minimalistic header and instead retained a rather space consuming header.
- Though I believe Greg has nailed it, I also decided not to go for a 3-column design, and instead retain the exact same setup that I have been using for years.
- I also seriously considered going back to a single column design, mainly for aesthetic reasons, but decided against it for usability reasons. Though there are others, like Matt and Mike (inspired by my first design no less!) who pull it off elegantly.
These are just a few of the things that I had pass through my grey matter as I slaved over my Powerbook, oblivious to the presence of such secular matters as… ehm… my girlfriend (I am convinced that she is as happy the worst part of this is over as I am).
Anyway, back to the matters at hand. Freya, which is what I have baptized Gil Elvgren’s great pinup girl that has adorned my header many a time. He painted her somewhere in between the late 30’s or early 40’s, along with a great many other sexy and unbearably innocent women, designed to entice the GI’s going abroad to fight in the great European War…
The question of copyright inevitably comes up whenever she is discussed, and while I wish I could give you an assurance that I have every right in the world to use her, I can’t, because I most likely don’t… But we’ve had his paintings hung in our kitchen for a long time, and I’ve come to like them so much that it almost feels wrong if I were to take her down.
As I’ve been working on the different aspects of the site, I’ve spent a great deal of time looking at how other sites do similar things and taken notes as to how their implementation could be put into use or improved.
Alas, many of the things that I was counting on having ready for the launch aren’t, but more on that later.
Content, Content, Content
Most blogs rely on a constant string of updates and thus mostly ‘live’ in the now. In fact, some blogs have such a low regard for archived content that it is next to impossible to explore them, let alone find a specific item.
I treat my blog not only as an outlet, but also an archive of my life. And having on several occasions had to find an old entry in my own archives, I’ve felt the pain of sifting through tens if not hundreds of useless entries, until I just ended up giving up.
With that in mind, I decided to focus most of my attention on the archival system of Binary Bonsai, hoping to make it easier and more fun to traverse. Currently only some of these features have yet to be implemented or activated, however the plan is to have everything working as soon as possible. So don’t fret if you’re unable to find some of these points.
- Everything relating to the blog is interconnected. If you are on a permalink, you’ll have the option of going to the next or previous entries, to the categories in which is resides or categories related to those. And finally you get a list of entries that are likely to be related in some way. Click through to a category archive will bring you the latest 10 entries in that category. On the sidebar you’ll be served with a list of entries from that same category that I have marked noteworthy, making it easier to skim the cream. And again it will tell you which categories somehow relate to the one you’re currently viewing. (I need to start marking the 1200+ entries as noteworthy, which will take a little while).
- The archives all tell you what you need to know about where you are. If you’re reading the Binary Bonsai category archive, you’ll for instance be told, on the sidebar, as well as in the title, where you are and what this category is all about. (I couldn’t set this up on my testbed as the database differs from the live one, but I’ll get right on it, it’s mostly a matter of setting up some numbers).
- Some categories, like reviews, have slightly different pages, specialized to take care of their particular subject matter. (Again, since my database differs, I haven’t actually moved reviews into their new categories, though the categories do exist, they’re merely hidden).
- Livesearch is nothing new, but it is nonetheless a minor revolution in searching, making it much easier and effortless to find what you’re looking for, by making changes on the fly. And of course, the search input is finally back in its proper place.
- Ping- and trackbacks are now sorted out from the comments list and placed in a special container in the comments section sidebar. (Not currently operational, detection of comment type differs from 1.2 to 1.3, and all my code is for 1.2…).
- On the backend I now have Amazon Associates integration, which I will be using when I’m linking to Amazon items. I hope to also setup a more integral system for connecting the various entertainment media related categories and entries.
Also I recently suggested on the WordPress hackers list, that a new search engine be built for WordPress, as the current one is absolutely horrid in its simplicity. So look forward to relevance sorted searches.
One of the things I really would’ve liked to have had ready for launch was this idea for a new ‘digging archive’ system (pardon the name, it was the best I could do.
The idea being that either all the data is preloaded on the page, or fetched using the same code that powers livesearch. The mockup above isn’t entirely accurate, actually the entry titles should be in opposite order, the latest being at the top…
When you first load the page, the current year and month is active, with the titles for all entries underneath that month loaded at the far right. Press another month, and the entries will change to reflect that month. Click another year and the months change to reflect that year instead…
The clever part being the ease with which you can quick hone in one that ‘something about kubrick that I posted last summer’. Variants could also allow for category segregation at both year, month or entry level (I would probably go for month level myself).
The crux of the plugin needs to be the speed with which it operates. It can’t be counting on passing variables between reloaded pages, it needs to all be inline.
If you feel up for the challenge, let me know.
Left To Do
There are still some things that need to be adjusted a little. Tweaked if you will.
- Some spaces between headers and metadata is too tight or too loose. Some lists need a bit of space adjustment as well
- Ping- and trackbacks need to be segregated from regular comments. Layout is all done, I merely need some segregation code.
- The category listing on the main archives page needs to be changed, I’d forgotten about that. It was one of the pages lost this morning.
- The .htaccess rewrite rules for some reason bork, meaning that /kubrick/ isn’t redirecting you to kubrick.php as it’s supposed to.
Where We Go From Here
It has been my desire to write longer, more prosaic and topical entries (no Tom, not tropical!) and Freya has been designed to stand in the middle of that and the more pragmatic information architecture described above. Thus both the white-background entry part of the permalink pages as well as the comment section fare best when presented with entire paragraphs and not the one-line entries of the recent past. To quote myself:
“Life has perpetuated itself against odds of meta-biblical proportions. Intelligent life twice so, and I would hate to believe that we crawled down out of the trees so that I could waste your days with something that I cannot stand by fully. So enough of that. From here on in I won’t let myself off that easy.I have opposable thumbs dammit; hear me roar.” #
Of course, that’s not quite how it went down. So much for opposable thumbs. Time to live up to my own hype…
Cleaning Out My Closet
The archives have inherited some of my charming personality, and upon entering them, my hordes of zombie-cyborgs quickly and ninja-like count up some daring stats that define the backbone of Binary Bonsai. It’s currently telling me that:
“With its 1204 entries, totalling 226,540 words and 7721 comments totalling 448,636 words, the Binary Bonsai archives are by now quite expansive.” #
And I can tell you with some certainty and authority in my voice that not all of those 1204 entries are worth their weight in the magnetic flux patterns they generate somewhere in the Northern US on Matt’s server…
So, the dilemma is: Do I go back into the archives and delete the one-liners, the now extinct clippings archive and pointless clutter entries? Or do I respect the sanctity of the grave and the comments, however few, that would undoubtedly fall with the doomed entries?
I’m not entirely sure yet. Though I’m leaning towards an audit of some sort.
What Could Have Been
Not so much for your good, as it would be for my won archival purposes, I hope to scan some of the sketches that I did in the initial redesign phase and get them up here or on flickr.
And also for archival purposes, here are some of the early rough mockups that I did, while trying to find my groove. They’re presented as they were found, which means that elements are bound to be disproportionate, poorly placed, colored and so on and so forth. Standard disclaimer.
- Boring – Not much to say, other than: I don’t think so!
- Clean – I actually don’t mind this one so much, though for it to be turned into something proper, it would obviously need some more work. Seeing it again, I’m reminded of my old menu structure, which was actually a good idea. Maybe I’ll return to that at some point. The header uses a piece of the Worn design.
- Word – This one almost made it! But I decided that the world had enough ‘worn’ blogs out there, and on top of that, it didn’t really have any of ‘me’ in it…
From Here on In
I need to fix the various bugs that’re cropping up (ugh), and add in the things I’ve talked about. After that, I’m looking forward to writing something cohesive again.
Also, I think I promised you a Half-Life 2 review?
Michael, you’re a very amazing designer – you’ve earnt respect from me in so many different regards. Keep it up, keep working on it, it’s looking very awesome and making me (and i’m sure others) jealous..
Chris
Gotta love Freya, looks very clean, good job.
I love the new design. Very clean and fun to look at. I particularly like the fonts and the contrast between the sky blue background and the hot pink links.
If you ask me, I say people should just design for Firefox and Safari, and tell IE users to download Firefox or live with crappily-rendered web pages.
Wow, that’s some striking new colour scheme you have here. All looks good to me though, several things may ‘influence’ me on a redesign soon as well.
I dont mind the pink, it is good for the links and you could maybe tone it down a rad on the sidebar just so it visually steps back a bit from the content on the left.
The blue and pink do workwell together and give it an almost minty fresh feeling imho – plus its fully unisex ;-)
Im intrigued by the sidebar coming back on single post pages but if it works then why not?
I dont think you should remove any posts in your audit, maybe combine some but certainly not delete anything, thats sort of Big Brother history revisionist stuff – very scary!
The word style is nice, but yes worn looks are over done and Bauhaus (which that typeface is similar to) is one of my personal pet typeface hates .. shudders. ;-)
Makes me want to have more colours on my site but they always end of as a dogs dinner, hence I just have the one… two if you count grey but I suppose technically its an absence of a degree of colour .. i should stop now.
Damn, after all that I forgot to mention – I really like the comment count after the post title.
Yah, don’t pull a Lucas just because you aren’t happy with what you did in the past. Acceptance, young Heilemann :) Acceptance
Actually, I am just as impressed with the dissection as I am with the new design. When I finally got around to finishing v7 I was ‘computered-out’ and have never got around to dissecting my methodology as you have.
I like the pink/blue/grey colors, even though they do remind me somewhat of Dave Shea’s Mezzoblue.
I think you did a great job with the font treatment on the post title and love the welcome message on the comment form (I am definately gonna steal that).
Now you will just have to put up with endless requests for a Freya template for WP ala Kubrick :)
Hi, Great design, it looks nice. I was just wondering, if you had any links to tutorials on how to make the “torn” effect. Thanks, -Ben Hiller. (Also, the auto-preview when posting comments is awesome.)
I can’t believe that nobody has said this yet… she’s a real hottie. Thanks for that. :)
On top of that, I love the readability –
Hold on… am I seeing a real-time preview of my comment? Whoa!
- of the design and the clean lines of the text, even at small point-sizes.
Nicely done!
The first thing that’s just plain excellent is the use of color, feminine or otherwise. Wish I could something like this :| But the design in itself is not the radically different thing I was expecting; its only a really, really fresh face to the previous one (and yes, looks much better!) Given your obvious talents, I thought you’d burden a crisp site with beautiful but utterly useless graphics; and now that I see something that’s cleaner and simpler than its previous design, bravo!
:)
FYI, your colophon redirects to the main page as well… probably got some major re-write issues there. You should at least fix the link for now so people can get there. Also, the Boring link in this post goes to a php error, and your list of those are spaced weird.
The design is… okay. I won’t express my opinions, because it’ll only stir up unneeded hatred towards me :)
I like the re-design, but it’s nothing all that new. I mean, you have a new color scheme and couple new features (not all that big) and a new header. Don’t get me wrong, I love the look of the site, but this is nothing to “break the back of the blogosphere.”
It’s different.
I like different. The colours work well, and, well freya? She has to be the hottest image to adorn a website IMHO. The artwork and graphic stlye of the 1940’s and 1950’s was racy then, and to some it still is, but it has a grace and style we lost somewhere along the way.. It somehow suits the whole layout.
I note as I type this, there is some for of active content below the post form, that displays what is typed in near real time. For a truely shocking speller as myself, it’s great to see what the final post will look like, formatting and all.
As Kyle has said, some things are borked, but that is to be expected when you perform what is effectivly a code triple bypass, and are yet to clean up some of the more borked sections.
Simple, clean (I like minimilistic) and easy on the eye. Spacing is pretty good. Spacing is important, it allows the readers eye to move comfortably. To little, and one feel’s as though ones head will explode, to much, and one finds discomfort in having to shift focus over each element.
I now covert your new layout. With a passion.
While I hope, at some point, Freya may adorn more than one web log, I would not blame you for keeping this one for yourself :)
I admire the way your mind works.
I recently switched to WP and your Kubrick design is the most perfect thing. I adore it.
I am of the mind that the blog must be good to the owner and to the reader.
I look forward to your further developments.
Oooh, I just saw the live comment preview! I need that.
runs
Nice to see the Gil Elvgren work back up – it’s what initially caught my eye at the Bonsai as I’m a bit of a fan of the classic genre (Rolf Armstrong and the like).
Certainly seems like you’ve struggled enough with it.
Your design is awesome. When will I be able to download Kubrick again? (link is broken) By the way, a search for ‘freya’ returns 1,205 results and your error page for the Kubrick link is unstyled. Great job, and good luck with the template requests!
One word. Bravo.
Not that I feel Binary Bonsai compares, but Tolkien did go back to edit The Hobbit after finishing The Lord of the Rings… I don’t see anyone pointing fingers at him :)
Heh, well I might take some of the elements and port them to Kubrick, but for now Freya remains mine, my own. My precious :)
Sam, I know, there are a lot of errors just now. The new Kubrick page is up and running however.
There is much wisdom in this. A slightly more basic version of Freya, would fit the way Kubrick works, it is like the previous binary bonsai layout, but not the same as. If something like Freya, but not the same as, was offered, that would please many people.
I’ve recently moved to a Wordpress CVS nightly as well, and I do find the modular way it works, particularily the templating system great, to wit, perhaps a public form of “the precious” might be available by the time WP hits 1.3 release. :)
Just as a side note, I lived in Wellington for quite a while, where vast portions of LOTR was filmed, at one point about a kilometre away from where WETA Studios is located (now living in Australia, damn but I miss NZ’s scenery) :\
Well ‘they’ already have Kubrick :)
I’m loving it. Freya rocks.
Really nice. But here’s two comments: I LOVE the red links…these are very easy to see. It’s really annoying to miss a links just because of the color. The other thing is: is it my browser that’s crazy or have you removed the “closed thread” marker?
Henrik, what ‘closed thread’ marker specifically?
This design rocks Michael.
You’ve managed to outdo yourself and I’m sure alot of your ideas will inspire other sites. So far my favorite feature is the use of cookies to remember the comment author details, etc.
I need to look into how you did that. :)
That part is also in Kubrick 1.2.6 :)
Nice site. I am truly amazed.
Henrik is most likely referring to the “comments off” feature of the last binary bonsai.
I prefer the new version, because its stylistic… but it is a little confusing… I guess… (I figured it out pretty quickly though)
Thanks for the eye-candy. I love the blue and pink. I also just noticed the live preview.
I didn’t realize there was another “Seth”, so heres my full name to circumvent confusion.
Ah, now I think I get it. When an entry has comments off, it doesn’t show anything. Yeah, that is a purely stylistic decision. A little present for myself :)
Love Freya. I always wanted to have a gorgeous pinup in my header, but never managed to find one that fit.
Just one nitpick. I think you shouldn’t justify the headings: justified text and large fonts don’t work well if you don’t have hypenation, just look at “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed“ over here.
Michele, good catch. Consider it fixed.
Magnifico!
I believe the choice of refreshing rather than redoing the whole format of the site, is excellent.
None of that pretentious getting to know it crap, we’d be dealing with if you would’ve gone for a design that would “break the backbone of the blogosphere”.
As usual, flawless.
Yep… It was the “comments off” I was thinking off… Dammit’ I must be getting forgetful in my older days – Let’s put it this way: Last tuesday it became legal to douse me with cinnamon (Well the Danes out there know the custom at least)
This time you really got it. Typography is very good and the pink works.
I only wish that I can have the thought processes and supportive ideas that you possess within your design procedure. It’s truly amazing and I appreciate you giving us the ability see first hand how that procedure takes place.
great job! congratulation. gotta love the new layout. the color scheme is great! my favourite feature is still the spotlightesque search engine.
one thing i don’t fancy so much is the separation of the comments with the little light cyan boxes. i would’ve made them strech across the whole width of the blog, like the very first band. now it almost feels like every other comment is highlighted and more important than the others.
also, i don’t like that blog and archives are two different menupoints with the same weight as kubrick and photos. i feel that archives is part of blog. maybe if it was called blog archives?
the last thing is the comments. i like the numbers, it’s innovative and cool, but from usabilty point of view i feel it’s wrong. why next to the headline? seems like it’s part of the headline, but it’s not. how can you tell where to comment? first i thought there is no comment available at all. i don’t think it’s fair to expect the reader to hover over all the links around a post to find the comment link. i understand that you tried to clean up the layout as much as possible, but i think it’s gone a bit overboard. of course once you learn it, there is no problem, but if we go with this thinking, it would be enough to put a one pixel link instead of a bloated number. readers can learn that too. :) of course it all depends if your objective is to cater the geek community or to develop new design concepts with a more generic audience in mind.
i realize that this is work in progress and this blog is a testing ground. pls. don’t be offended by my comments, i’m just expressing my views. besides just look who’s talking. :)
Ivan, I definitely think you have a good point about the comment number being next to the headline, and it was one of the things that I was slightly reluctant in implementing. As I mentioned earlier, I did this for purely aesthetic reasons. I might move them down unde the entries, though it annoys me, having to waste an entire line for a single number…
As for the colors, I tend to agree with you, and I think I’ll need to come up with a new alternating color…
As for the menu points, it works because if you press the archives link, you’ll be taken to the top of the archive hierarchy, which wouldn’t work if there was only a single blog button… And I’d rather not rename it, as ‘blog achive’ is an awfully long title :)
Hi,
your name sounds so german, so you have to read that in german! ;-)
mir gefällt deine neue Seite sehr gut sieht nett aus! :-)
I really like the mixture between clean, cool (the blue and the simplicity) and warm friendly (the woman, the pink)
BTW: Sweeet Pin up Girl! :-))))
$0.02
Rene
Keep the comment count after the title its brilliant in its simplicity because its obvious what it is.
If you move it im afraid Ill be forced to move mine after my post titles ;-)
Rene, mein Deutch is sehr schlecht… Which I’m sure my spelling and grammar attests to, but I understood what you wrote though ;)
matthew, I shall keep it for now then :)
Well, I just took a look at the site from my brother’s machine. He’s got an LCD screen and it makes everything look much nicer, with the smooth fonts and all. I’m not sure if it’s because he turned cleartype on, or if it’s on by default in Linux, but Century Gothic definately fits in nicely when it’s not jaggied.
Hmm… right now in IE, no style, and an error in the archives:
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare archive_header() (previously declared in /home/binarybo/public_html/masterarchives.php:124) in /home/binarybo/public_html/wp-content/plugins/nicer_archives.php on line 166
Like the ideas, though!
yea LOL, I dont want have to change mine ;-)
Congratulations on the new design. I have decided that I like it.
Thanks for sharing with us the thoughts behind it. It’s quite interesting and inspiring.
Finally, although I am not sure you care, the site looks sweet in Opera too ;)
Sorry, this is probably a really cheeky questions but ive done rather confused googlings and searches in wordpress but no doubt im looking for the wrong words.
How have you done the pages such as about (or colophon) and kubrick with 1.3?
Ive tried putting similar style pages (ie theme style header/footer and different content in between) in both my theme directory and the main wp directory.
Obviously id like them in my theme directory for consistency but if i try to access the page direct (ie mysite.com/wp-content/themes/mytheme/mypage.php) aside from a nasty url it doesnt work.
And i havent gone too far down the road of in the main wp directory but it means i have to put some urls in manually and it doesnt seem entirely well.
Any ideas? Anybody?
Cheers.
The previously broken links should now be up and running. The search is also working, though the main archives page still needs some work.
Having been able to explore the site for a day or two now, I’d like to offer my comments and friendly criticism.
First of all, wow, what a great redesign. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into this, and it shows. This is much more than a re-*design*, it’s more of a re-*thinking* of the information structure. This is great, and I hope it’ll set an example to up and coming bloggers as well as veterans. Additionally, I’d like to congratulate you on having a clearly focused purpose of this redesign. It’s quite clearly a labor of love, designed to withstand some time and heavy blogging. Very nice.
What I like
The colors & design
Fresh, and clear, with great contrast. Still, quite neutral, being able to carry a wide range of content. Love the header and the pinup girl.
The attention to detail
“Welcome back Joen (Change)”. I saw this in a version of Kubrick, and I’ve wanted to steal it ever since-would you kill me for that?-The clearly distinguishable barrier between article and commentary. It’s just fast and easy to scan the page.
-“Entry meta, next post, previous post, related”. Very nice, adds value to the content already there.
-Live preview. Oh yes.
Navigation
Easy to use, fast, simple, and a permanent search box. Just how I like it.
What could stand improvement
Search button
I do miss a “go” button next to the search box. LiveSearch is all fine and dandy, and people will press “enter” anyway. I just think some sort of search button would remove all doubt as to the behavior
Headers?
You’ve had some great headers during the course I’ve known this site. Where are they now? Will we ever see them again? I can understand why you’d want to move away from the recipe which does feel a little worn, but still?
Link underlines
Some will hate me for this, but I’ll say it anyway. I think that links in the main content area (posts, not sidebar), should have some sort of underline — be it a dotted underline, or a different color underline – but still, some sort of underline. And this is not a usability comment — after all, usability only states that links should be “clearly distinguishable from text”, which I think you succeed in with the pink color. This is mainly a personal preference, and as such, ultimately up to you. My thoughts on this is, if I squint, and scan the page, links are harder to make out.
—You could pull a Jon Hicks and simply make the links bold? Other, subtle solutions, would be to use the Daring Fireball method of having the links be a shade of the link color — that looks great.
All in all
Very nice, I’ll look forward to seeing it carry some weight once it settles.
Finally, a few questions or three. About that live preview, it’s great — but it seems to flicker sometimes? Does it not use “onKeyUp” ? Nice with the textile preview though.
And about Wordpress 1.3a4 — how is that working for you? I’ve tried a few nightlies, but with too many bugs to trust it. Are you using the new “Pages” feature?
Thanks for you thorough walkthrough, very cool :D
Already in v1.2.6, which came out a few weeks ago :)
I agree, and I might add it. If I do, it’ll probably be the same size as the input field, aligned underneath it.
I still have most of the headers in my archive, and I’ll probably, for nostalgia’s sake, do an archive at some point. Currently I haven’t decided on whether I’ll do the same thing with this header as I did with the last one. But given the size and shape of it, it’s an obvious choice :)
I’ll try it out. I don’t necessarily have a preference either way. Whichever is easiest to read.
… What? :)
It flickers I think, because it makes a roundtrip to the server :) — It was the only Textile livepreview I could find.
It seems to be working fine overall. I’ve got a few plugins that need adjusting, which is of course annoying. But other than that it seems fine.
Nope :) Old-school static pages :)
Please! How are you doing these?
Unless im being stupid im sure ive tried various methods of placing the static pages.
Try it out, though I think a mini button would do better. Maybe a graphic? Just a thought.
Do an archive, of course. What I really meant was, have you given any thought as to how you’d do a new graphic header in the current setup? The logo would remain, as would the tabs I guess – what about the pinup girl? Or to put it otherwise, it seems somewhat harder to make a new header in the current setup (tho it could definitely work).
Argh, I knew I should’ve linked up. I hope you don’t have your comment moderation set to instakill. What I was referring to with the different color link underlines was, of course, John Gruber’s Daring Fireball website, and the way he does it there – a light link color and a dark underline color.
cough Jon Hicks has one cough
Okay. Hmm. Still undecided as to how to go about this. They probably haven’t fixed the bug that keeps chopping off the “www.” part of the Blog URI…
matthew
Unless im being stupid im sure ive tried various methods of placing the static pages.
If I’m not entirely mistaken, a static page is just that — a regular webpage with no Wordpress, just like the good ol’ days — and then link to that.
I’ll post the code I’m using as soon as I can get around to it. It’s actually some code that I got off of Joen :)
Yes, Ive done that with my live site which uses an earlyish version of 1.3. But with 1.3 and themes it doesnt seem to work properly (atleast not on my local powerbook test site).
I have however managed to convert my current site, which uses 1 index file for all the archives, single page etc, to 1.3 using the is_single() command, but as ive gone very far down the 1.3 route of single.php and archive.php etc Id rather stick with that.
Maybe ive not experimented enough but whatever I do doesnt seem to work. Id have thought you could access pages in your themes folder with mysite.com/index.php/mystatic.php or similar but it doesnt seem to work.
Which brings me to another question. How have you done your htaccess file Michael? 1.2 helpfully creates it so you can copy and paste but 1.3 (again unless ive overlooked something) doesnt. Have you used your 1.2 htaccess? in know you can do index.php/day/month/etc but id like to keep my urls as they are.
Is that for me and my static pages? please say yes ;-)
I hope im not hassling too much with these questions but i am trying other sources such as google and wordpress site only there doesnt seem to be too much info out there.
cheers
OK, I think i managed it using instructions here, which is basically using blank wordpress pages (as in the new wordpress pages feature) and templates but it seems a bit of a strange way of doing it.
1.3 did the primary parts of my .htaccess file for me…
Either way, as I said, I’ll post some of my code soon.
I really nice the new look of the site. I’ve actually got the same placement of the comment count on my own blog, but you posted your redesign a few hours before I could post mine. I just noticed a bug, it’s in your sidebar on the frontpage. Under the header which says Clippings there is a link to del.icio.us but it points to http://binarybonsai13.test/about/ instead of the real URL.
Well further I’m a taker on your “Digging archive” if I can find the time, I did a write up about it last night se Digging down the archives at my blog. It’s not a finished plugin, it’s actually quite far from it. I’ll try to hack something up tonight just to see if it could work in the real world.
Andreas, I’ve fixed the del.icio.us link, thanks for the heads up. As for the ‘digging archive’, keep me updated! :D
Michael,
I was going to post this to the item about the Comment form, but commenting is disabled there. I believe you’ve spelled a word wrong in the Attention paragraph. You’ve spelled it “benefitial” when I think it’s “beneficial.”
Either that, or you’re using some Danish spelling with which I’m unfamiliar. I hope you see this soon since you’re obviously working on that code now.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve corrected it now. That’s what happens when I go to work without a spell checker :)
While we’re at it: the title attribute for the links to the comments on a post are currently saying “Write or Read Respones to this Entry”. You might want to correct that, too. :)
Oh but where have the comment permalinks gone?
Way, this site is to awesome. I just loove the colors ;-) And after a little browsing, I figured that you are a Dane like me.
I’m gonna watch your site now. Great stuff!
This design is absolutely amazing. I am so impressed, I think you’ve just made me scrap my new design, and start a new one. I love how you arrange your content, thats what makes this design especially sexy. :D
Hm, maybe comment permalinks should be a pound sign (#) next to the “Time ago” for each comment.
Comment permalinks are in there, I’ve just commented them out for now, until I reach an agreement with myself on how they should look :)
Mathias Bynens,
Until Michael desides whether he should have comment permalinks, or where they should be, you can always use the “Show Named Anchors” bookmarklet.
http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html#named_anchors
It works great for me, when I’m trying to dig up permalinks to link to.
Comment permalinks are now working. Notice that bright blue number i the left hand corner of every comment? That’s a link. I don’t know if it’s the optimal way of doing it, but it’ll do for now.
Is that the white number in the top right? ;-) Should the post title on the permalink page also show the amount of comments with a link to the comments?
Ive now got WP1.3 running on my proper web server as a test so I can develop my site more ‘real-world’. I didnt realise WP1.3 writes its own htaccess file – very clever.
I seem to have manage pseudo static pages by using blank templates but Id like to do proper static pages so when youve got that code ready Id be very interested :-D. Oh and will you be releasing code for your live comment preview at some point?
Im basing my new site (well its more of a tweak really) on Ryans port for 1.3 (Link and credit in my footer). Ive done this primarily to get my head around 1.3s system but it also allows me to grab bits from Kubrick I like (for instance the welcome back on comments) and integrate it with stuff I already have (subscribe to posts – which was fun getting working in 1.3 ;-) for instance and colouring my comments or my new idea – noteworthy authors comments). However the predominant design and code is mine or from the original WP code but I figure – why try and reinvent the wheel?
Im hoping this should allow upgrading WP in future easier as most of the files are in the theme folder, though I had to move the livesearch stuff to the root.
I suspect I could move my site to 1.3 now but id like to tweak it a bit more and get all the pages working on my test site first so as to make the move quick as possible plus im having major problems finding a banner Im truly happy with.
If youre interested in the URL (cant imagine why but wtf) im happy to send it to you.
Michael, how did you manage your clippings with del.icio.us? I’m testing the plugin from linuxbrit at the moment, but it seems to slow loading times a lot..
Do you use another plugin/hack, or made your own code?
I wonder if you or anyone could give a “Dissection” of how you accomplished this, or point to a source that might teach me to do something similar. Kubrick seems to contain the barebones of something like this in its sideabr; I’m just wondering how to work with it.
Nice work with Freya, by the way. very nice work, indeed.
I’ll throw up a batch of my code as soon as I can get around to it.
Looking very nice here, but I want to note I just can’t read the text below “About” and “Related” until I increase textsize twice… that’s my only gripe though, tiny text :-)
What browser and OS?
Joen,
Thanks for the link to that bookmarklet. However, at the time when I posted the comment, there weren’t even anchors specified. (I checked using Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox.)
It’s nice to see the anchors are back. Maybe you’re right, Michael, maybe there is no need for displayed comment permalinks.
Well they’re there though, and since I like having the comment number as well, the combined two make a nice pair.
Michael,
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but the background image is about a pixel off to the left at the beginning of the comments.