PhotoDude.com

Mon. Mar 05, 2001

Redesign Colophon

Change is Our Friend – No, you’re not lost, I’ve just launched a redesign of my entire site, and especially this web log. The new ”look” makes better use of space, and should load a lot quicker. I’ve also added QuoteLog below Pixel Pile in the right column. I’ve always liked collecting the words of others, and now I have place to put them (although I haven’t had much time to devote to it yet). There’s still a good bit of tweaking to be done, but hopefully you won’t encounter any glaring errors, unless you’re using Netscape 6.0, but then, you should be used to it, eh? That’s the basics, but for you WebGeeks, read on….

I never can do things the easy way. You might have read of my last redesign in July, 2000. Immediately after launching it, I discovered Blogger, and shoehorned in a web log. Then I got the digital camera, and shoehorned Pixel Pile into the web log. So, the design became a hack on top of a hack. This time I could start from the ground up to make better use of space for existing content, as well as add new stuff like QuoteLog.

The expanding three column design I’m replacing worked adequately in every browser known to man …. except Netscape 6.0. It rendered the center column of the header about 10,000 pixels wide. Even though, as of today, only 0.3% of my visitors are using Netscape 6.0 (1.2% use Netscape 3.0), it bugged me. Plus, my attempts to break out of the ”box” look caused a lot of server calls per page for sliced graphics. Plus [redux], tables were nested too many levels deep, causing slow rendering in Netscape.

Essentially, I’d used sequentially larger hammers to force the design to work across browsers, to the detriment of load and rendering time, and with only 99.7% success. Then, added the web log [hack 1] and Pixel Pile [hack 2 of hack 1].

It was time to dehack. It started here, when I was playing around with the new versions of Dreamweaver and Fireworks just before Chrismas. Inadvertantly, while playing with the new geegaws and doodads of the programs, I came up with the inspiration for a simplified plan. That got printed out, scribbled on, and became the ”design napkin” you see reproduced in part here. Those programs, and the hard work of the last redesign, made it relatively easy to update the kudzu-like spectacle my site has become: 467 pages, and maybe 5 times as many dependent graphics or image files. Yet, I only had to update eight templates, and two style sheets, to convert the entire mess to the new look (some minor tweaking was needed on a few pages). And some time spent delving into the depths of my Greymatter templates caused all my old web log entries to take on the new look as well. I’m thankful for such software savings. Without them, I might never redesign.

The new design nests tables just one level. It’s not a big visible change from the old way, but a big simplification in rendering the page. There’s also far fewer ”pieces,” and thus, fewer server calls per page. And the pieces themselves are also much smaller in file size. All browsers should be happier. Even Netscape 6.0, you’d think, wouldn’t you?

Well, having purged 6.0 in a fit of frenzy, yesterday I downloaded the latest version, 6.01, with hope. After all, the new design worked well in Opera 5.0, another supposedly strict standards compliant browser. So I loaded the first page of the new design. It worked! I loaded the second page. It worked, after you refreshed the page. I loaded the new version of the weblog. It worked, after three or four refreshes of the page. Wait, I just now tried it again, and it loaded fine … with the browser window reduced. At full size, it broke.

So, Netscape and I have conspired to produce a design that renders properly when refreshed, or loaded in a smaller than full screen window. It’s apparently the best we can collectively do. Honestly, the page renders better structurally in Netscape 3.0 (no Flash, no DHTML, no CSS) than it does Netscape 6.0.

I have not slain the Gecko Beast, but he didn’t totally kick my ass this time either.

I just have to keep remembering that line in my stats: Netscape 6.0 = 0.3%.

And when I see it’s way below the line Netscape 3.0 = 1.2%, sometimes I even snicker.