Life As It Comes
New Look7 Comments
I’ve launched the basis for a new look. It doesn’t have too many bells and whistles yet, but I like it. I hope you do too.
New things:
- The text should be somewhat larger in most cases and, hopefully, appearing in attractive fonts, depending on your platform (click here for some examples of the page rendered on different platforms). I wanted the comment link to be large as well as the sitemap, so that people are encouraged to comment and explore the site.
- I’ve included my Twitter updates beneath the sitemap.
- The headline-only links for each post are gone. I’m relieved to see some content when I visit the page again, and I imagine most of you are too.
- There’s some oddity with the layout such that when you comment, the page will be scrolled without (seemingly) a way to scroll back up to see the post again or to navigate elsewhere. I’ve added a “back to the top” link below the comment box that will fix this issue temporarily until I figure out how to change the layout and retain the look I want. Update: The problem I was having is detailed here; I gave in and opted for faux columns instead.
Thanks for visiting.
Introducing: Opus9 Comments
Welcome to lifeasitcomes.com! The transition to this new domain took much longer than I had hoped, but I am back, and you are looking at “Opus.”
When I first started on the design for the rebirth of this site, I went through several drafts. The one that became what you see here, I titled “Opus.” When I first named it that, I thought to myself, “that may be an overly ambitious name.” Now, having launched, I would say it easily represents my best work to-date in the realm of web design. I say that in all modesty, too.
I expect to tweak things here and there over time, but hopefully I can stick it out with this design for some time to come. (One upcoming tweak is the addition of a logo, arriving soon!)
CSS Selectors Test Suite1 Comment
I’ve been a supporter of Web Standards for a long time. Today I stumbled across this test, and I thought that it was particularly telling:
Mozilla Firefox 3 alpha (nightly build of Firefox 3 - 20070625):
From the 43 selectors 32 have passed, 4 are buggy and 7 are unsupported (Passed 369 out of 578 tests)
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4:
From the 43 selectors 26 have passed, 10 are buggy and 7 are unsupported (Passed 357 out of 578 tests)
Safari 3.0.2:
From the 43 selectors 25 have passed, 9 are buggy and 9 are unsupported (Passed 346 out of 578 tests)
IE 7 (7.0.5730.11):
From the 43 selectors 13 have passed, 4 are buggy and 26 are unsupported (Passed 330 out of 578 tests)
Rumor has it though that Opera 9.5 will fully pass this test.
Live Redesign8 Comments
Maybe a “live redesign” of the site will encourage me to work on it. Plus, you’ll get to see it evolve as I go…
Weblog Design Stagnation3 Comments
For months now I’ve been trying to come up with a new design for this site - one that I plan to write myself. It’s been a while since I wrote my own template/design for this blog (since my MovableType days actually), and I’m eager to design something fresh, pleasing, and interesting.
The problem is, all the “layouts” I come up with are stale. Trite. I’m having trouble thinking outside of the designs I’ve already done, the designs everyone has already done.
Did you ever play an instrument? Remember any nontrivial audition piece? They were all “theme and variation” pieces. Take the Second Movement of Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in Eb, you start with something basic and then as you turn the pages of the score it becomes more and more technically advanced as the variations are presented and the piece continues.
The trouble is, I’ve tried all the themes and become bored with the variations. Take the following three examples. They all have well-known sites which implement them, whose authors make them look great:
the multi-column layout with fancy header:
mezzoblue
stopdesign
the variable-width header and footer with a sidebar:
simplebits
designbyfire
the floating content:
lifeasitcomes (using simpla from ifelse)
treba from ifelse
Are these the only layouts that work well for a blog? Am I over-generalizing?
Look at all the designs from wpdesigner’s self-challenge. Only a few escape that vague “this looks familiar” feeling.
Maybe it’s not the layout, but it’s what you do with it. The design community agrees that the new simplebits is beautiful and well-done.
Even so, I’m bored. I need a new idea. Got any?