Over the last couple of weeks I was busy working on the site. Most of the changes took place in the background - namely by optimizing the use of templates, configuring caching behavior etc. - maybe you have already noticed a slight increase performance wise. Anyway there were also some more obvious improvements, I wanna talk about.
As mentioned in my previous post I still had to work on the search functionality. Originally I intended to implement the same live search functionality as I used on the old site - but somehow I didn’t manage to do so up till now. I still have to have a closer look at EE’s search module. Anyway because I’m aware of the importance of search - especially in connection with blogging - I implemented a first basic variant. So enjoy :)
When I released the first version of the new “Dark” skin, some of you mentioned that it was a bit too… well dark respectively that the the contrast was a bit low. I guess this was primarily true for those of you don’t using antialiased fonts. In this case I must admit that contrast was really damn low. So increasing the contrast was another task I worked on. Let me know what you think.
In addition I also refined the about section, added some links to recommended books and removed Google ads. Actually I was forced to remove them, since Google suspended my account. According to them I had a couple of “illegal” clicks, meaning that people clicked the ads several times or whatever. To be honest I can’t really imagine that, since the click-through-rate decreased significantly in the last months. Anyway I don’t really care about it and now you guys once again can enjoy an ad-free site :)
22 comments so far
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Frenetik September 30, 2006 at 07:08 PM
You’re work on the contrast is amazing ! You’re interface is far better than before and much much easier and agreable to read !
I really like your work, I found the update of the theme stunning !
Keep up the good work ;)
adrmis September 30, 2006 at 09:46 PM
Your refined design looks much better. It looks more energetic and clean. In my opinion there is still lack of vibrant colors like green and orange.
The search functionality also works better than this old one because I really hate search functionality based on js.
sahil September 30, 2006 at 10:01 PM
first when i saw the new look, i didn’t think it was very nice, but now it’s looking great! good work!
Julian Schrader September 30, 2006 at 10:02 PM
Great! Now it’s not a problem anymore to read the text — you improved the contrast very much!
pm September 30, 2006 at 11:45 PM
Die Seite ist viel lesbarer als vorher :-)
Aber was soll “perfromance” sein? ;-)
Peter September 30, 2006 at 11:58 PM
You may want to keep an eye on this one :
http://www.jambor-ee.com/
Appleologist October 01, 2006 at 12:04 AM
Much Better! Can’t wait to see what else you do with the new theme.
Pati @-;-- October 01, 2006 at 12:53 AM
Seriously, I haven’t troubles with the legibility, I admit that now the contrast is better, though.
I like the way you consider the point of view of your readers, and still, some traces of your older layout are here… it reminds me the last point on this Cameron Moll’s entry:
http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/001266.html
Sean Hayford O'Leary October 01, 2006 at 01:41 PM
Looks much better. I don’t miss the live search too much, but that error you get for a short query isn’t as pretty as expected ;-).
http://www.bartelme.at/journal/archive/ee_further_updates/—my only real gripe is those URIs. Underscores?!
Sean Hayford O'Leary October 01, 2006 at 01:41 PM
(Though I just realized I miss that AJAX comment posting)
Wolfgang October 01, 2006 at 05:52 PM
Yeah I’ve a couple of ideas up my sleeve. So the whole appearance and functionality will evolve over time. I kinda like this idea of constantly rethinking, changing, realigning. The new layout is much more flexible than the previous one, so stay tuned.
By the way I noticed that some of you already tried to post links: Since my “smart links” script didn’t work that good I decided to switch to textile So if you wanna highlight certain parts of your comment or if you wanna insert a link, check out the reference. I will also provide some sort of “cheat sheet” near the comment form as soon as I find the time to. So long take care, Wolfgang
Aaron October 01, 2006 at 06:42 PM
Great! I like the hover notification on the forms and the increased contrast. Good choise with textile btw.
Lode October 01, 2006 at 09:52 PM
Great update! As always! :)
Morishani October 02, 2006 at 04:29 AM
I Love your site and this new design but i still think the contrast (text color,background color) is low.
Search is good :)
Good update.
claude October 02, 2006 at 06:24 PM
I’m really impressed! Great Design as always!
Please, make a gallery of your old designs!
I keep writing this everytime you change your design until you make a gallery of all your old designs, because they where great work as well!!
Wolfgang October 02, 2006 at 07:25 PM
If you’re interested you may take a look at the respective Flickr set which is updated each time I change minor or major parts of the layout.
claude October 03, 2006 at 05:02 AM
Hi Wolfgang!
I’ve seen your Flickr set, but what about the older designs? One of you older ones was one of my favourite designs ever!
Stefan October 03, 2006 at 08:06 PM
I would like to know what kind of Text Formatting do you use for your articles? (Auto br, Xhtml, none, markdown, textile…).
I found myself using markdown, since „Xhtml“ created validation problems in EE.
Wolfgang October 03, 2006 at 08:29 PM
I currently use XHTML formatting in combination with the SmartyPants plugin which actually works pretty well.
Stefan October 03, 2006 at 08:41 PM
It does? Try:
and you’ll get
Only solution to this problem with Xhml-Formating is writing in one line oder doing double CR.
Wolfgang October 04, 2006 at 04:23 PM
You are right – I haven’t notice that yet. Thanks for the hint.
Stefan October 05, 2006 at 06:18 AM
With „markdown“ a double CR a paragraph and you may use normal Markup or Markdown syntax. BR is two spaces at the end of a line.
The problems with „Xhtml“ are known by pmachine and they are searching for a better solution. Up to now this is the best solution I found for me.