Minor site revisions and new features - UPDATED
Feb 22, '02 10:45:06PM
Contributed by: robg
I apologize for all the changes this weekend, but I wasn't happy with the new look from Friday. So after a couple more days of editing and rework, I think I've reach a "happy medium" with the look and functionality of the site. It's not perfect, and there are still a lot of HTML errors and coloring issues, but it's now more functional and less garish than it was previously. This look (barring a public outcry) will remain in place until the major redesign that will accompany the Geeklog engine upgrade.
The nicest "new feature" I added is the "Email this hint..." link on every story. If you see something you'd like to tell someone about, just hit that link, enter the person's name and email address, and hit "Submit". They will receive a note with the title of the article and the URL for the full story, along with a blurb explaining that this is not spam and that their email address has not been captured in any way.
As much as I'd love to make macosxhints fit an 800x600 screen, it just won't happen with Geeklog 1.1. This will hopefully be addressed by the planned two-column layout for the upgraded site. The new layout has a much narrower header, however, which helps somewhat.
Keep your eye on the "Pick of the Week" box, as it will be updated regularly (new pick each Monday morning), unlike the Favorite Applications box. If you'd like to see what else has been changed, and learn a bit about the new navigation and search features, read the rest of the article...
Here's the current "What's New" report reflecting all the changes:
- Header area redesigned - The logo has been significantly reduced in both height and width, and the tagline has been (at least temporarily) removed. On the right is a new feature meant to address the "static" nature of the "Favorite Applications" box. Each week, I'll place an application or utility that I find interesting in the spotlight. I've renamed "Favorite Applications" to "Hall of Fame Applications." The only programs which make the cut for this box are those that have proven personally indispensible over a sustained period of time. It's not easy to make the Hall of Fame, and there are currently only four listed applications.
- Revised navigation structure - All navigation and control elements are now contained in the two yellow boxes. The first row contains the information that was (briefly) in the top right box this weekend, and used to be in the large green stripe. The middle two rows contain the topic selection area; click any topic to show hints only in that topic. The last row handles quick searches, access to the advanced search page, and switches the view to Headline Hint mode.
- Revised advanced search - Although the Advanced Search page has always been available, not many people knew about it. It's now much more obvious, and I've made a couple modifications to make loading and searching much faster. For most searches, restrict the "Type" to "Stories" instead of "All", and your search will be even quicker.
- The color scheme has changed - The "hints" box is now lighter, and the garish green headers are gone. Hopefully the new scheme is somewhat more appealing; if it's not, I'm sure I'll hear about it!
- Link color changed - In an effort to make links easier to see in the body of hints, they are now color differentiated from the rest of the article.
- Code color changed - To make code snippets easier to read against the background, they are now burgundy instead of green.
- CSS code updates - Font sizing should now be much more realistic on Mozilla, OmniWeb, IE, and iCab. This is the only CSS change I have made, so any comments about changes in alignment or window sizing can't be explained by CSS (or any other!) changes that I made. If you're having alignment or box sizing issues, please send me a quick note with info on which browser and with a screenshot if possible.
These are all just "easy" changes meant to make the site a bit more usable until the Geeklog engine upgrade occurs. I realize there are still hard-coded colors and HTML validation problems. The new Geeklog engine will help with both of those issues, but it's simply not worth hand-correcting the outdated code. When the Geeklog engine upgrade occurs, there will also be a much more notable layout change (two columns, new design), along with (I hope) much better HTML coding and CSS implementation.
As a quick aside for those new to web templating systems, if you're wondering why the HTML isn't a simple thing to fix, Geeklog (and all other web page template systems) operate with a large collction of independent code snippets and functions. Each of these adds various bits of the page to create the finished product. For example, the home page here is built by something like 10 separate code pieces (What's New, Topic Bar, Polls, etc), and probably double that number of function calls. So finding the source of that extra "" tag isn't a simple matter of reading a page of static HTML or feeding it through a syntax checker. Instead, you have to parse through the code step by step to try to determine which code piece or function call added the extra tag. If (like me), you're not a programmer by trade, this can take a very long time! Hence, the HTML errors remain but the Geeklog upgrade should take care of them...
-rob.
Comments (20)
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20020222224506526