davemcnally.net

If you have visited this place in the last couple of weeks, you’ll probably notice things are quite different around here now. I’ve not just uploaded a new design but have done more of a complete overhaul. There was a lot of clutter and irrelevant information lying around the place. Too much waste to sort through so I decided to start a fresh. It wasn’t an easy choice but I’m glad I did. Guess I should explain a bit then.

I rushed into each of my designs up to this point and didn’t think too much about the underlying structure. This led to several problems each time I wanted to change something. There wasn’t any consistency to my code and no style guide in place. I just made it up as I went along and got pretty lost pretty quickly. So I decided I needed to get some routine going and wanted to make sure the new site was future proof. Only time will tell if I succeeded with that one.

About the actual design, I’ve gone for something that implements a lot of graphic elements but is still relatively simple in its approach. I wanted to cut out all of the things weren’t needed and streamline the function of the whole site. I ditched categories altogether in return for tags alone. This makes a lot more sense to me as the majority of my posts relate to the web and design so they were all in just a couple of categories. Having tags instead allows me to be specific with sorting, without going overboard. With categories gone, I was running out of things to play in a sidebar which then led to further streamlining and the removal of the built in sidebar. There are still some side bar type elements on the homepage but they are only visible there. Single posts now have a lot more room on the page, taking up the full width of the wrapper. I’m not sure if that was a good decision but with the efforts made so far, it should be easy enough to replace the sidebar in the future.

I’ve included a links section in the footer this time around and there were a few reasons why. You may just be thinking I’ve done it for something in return but that’s not the case, the majority of the people on the list don’t even know they’re on there I assume. I’ve done it provide readers with something else to look at and with them coming to my site, I’m fairly sure they’ll find the links of interest too. If you’re on the list, by all means feel free to return the favour but I won’t be removing your link just because you don’t link back. On the other hand, should you wish to be removed from the list, just shoot me an email and I’ll do the honours. Please don’t contact me to be added to the list though as I’m not interested in exchanges or growing the list just yet.

This place also serves as a personal playground for my learning purposes. That’s possibly not the best option when it also acts as business site and after all, I’m counting on this site to bring in more clients and work. That said, I’m always trying new things, learning new technologies and the new design was another opportunity for me. I had not previously had much experience with Javascript and so decided to learn a bit more about jQuery and make some use of it. Thanks to all of those that helped during that time, plenty of patience was needed!

Finally, I’m fairly impatient too so I’ve gone ahead and uploaded the new design before completely polishing it off. Whilst it should remain completely functional in modern browsers, I have yet to do any testing in Internet Explorer so don’t be surprised if things are a mess on that front. There may be several blank pages too whilst I work out the rest of the content. I’ve completely started a fresh and have quite a bit to do which should keep me busy.

As usual, feel free to leave your comments and apologies in advance if those aren’t looking great yet but rest assured I’m working on it.

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