PHP Switch
Back in April I decided to switch from ASP to PHP. The reason for this decision was mainly that I wanted to test my site on my Mac using the built in Apache web server. Now four months later the new version is finally online.
So you may probably wonder how it can take up to four months to convert a small site such as Bartelme Design form one scripting language to another one. Well actually I already had a running PHP version of Bartelme Design at the end of April. But after finishing I thought that I could take the chance and implement some new features and optimize the site’s structure.
Structural changes
The home page has undergone the most significant changes. Instead of just listing three journal entries, you now get an overview of the latest twenty entries as well as a list of recent comments.
Furthermore I wanted to get rid of the paging in the journal section, since paging is definitely not appropriate for browsing a chronology of articles. So instead of using the paging you may now browse older articles via the archive. Andy yes, now there is also an archive for forum entries and sidenotes.
Live Search
Another new feature, that I’m kinda proud of :) is the new live search functionality. Just type the intended search string and the respective results will immediately be displayed below. Just in case that you do not like the live search or you have disabled JavaScript, just hit the return button and you will be redirected to the conventional results.
Backward compatibility
So what about existing links to Bartelme Design? Well I am glad to tell you that all older links are redirected to the respective new PHP, so you shouldn’t even notice the switch. This of course also applies to my two RSS feeds — though I would recommend that you update the RSS URLs in your feed reader.
New Design
A bit more obvious are the changes to the layout of Bartelme Design. By the way if you feel that something looks a bit strange just make sure that you have the latest CSS and Javascript by emptying your cache and hitting the refresh button.
So what are the deliberations on the new design? Well primarily I wanted to attach more importance to the actual content: I increased font size for better ligibility and reduced spacing at the top of the page by positioning the header next to the main content.
The only downside of this approach: Horizontal scrollbars at a resolution of 800x600 pixels. Well from my point of view this is acceptable, since I don’t know anyone who still uses such a small resolution. Anyway, as always I’m eagerly awaiting your feedback :) What do you think?
