30th September, 2009
Even though I started this new design with the feeling that I should just ignore Internet Explorer 6, I did realise that there were still visitors doomed to using this browser, either because of their hardware/operating system limitation, familiarity or their company’s refusal to update. I also had all the bits and pieces for adapting a site for 5 and 6 compatibility already in place, and had been adding them as and when I recognised old scenarios that needed them.
So I took this opportunity to start up my old computer, which is running a pretty much clean install of Windows 98 updated as far as it was supported, all on a Pentium 4 with 512mb of RAM and the high-end Geforce 2 GPU: astronomical power compared to what 95 and 98 were intended to work with normally. And then there is Internet Explorer 6!
I was a little bit astonished to discover that despite my fears that the new CSS would collapse in a heap, everything was generally rendering exactly where it was meant to be. The only issues were superficial ones, such as transparent PNGs rendering as grey which were easily fixed. In the end I did make an effort to ensure that users browsing with IE6 do have a reasonable experience.
22nd September, 2009
So finally I’ve switched my website to the new design, with a hefty number of new bits and pieces being added so you’ll have to bear with me for a little while as things get sorted out. Some of the bigger changes include integrating twitter (for which I have had an unused account for years) as a sort of microblogging tool, separating my university work from my professional portfolio and integrating a ‘Related Posts’ system which I have had in mind for a long time but have only just discovered a brilliant plugin that does all the hard work for me.
Above is a shot of a couple of the images I’ve produced for new site features.
You can find that related posts plugin at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/similar-posts/. Another plugin by the same authors is one that shows a list of the most recent posts. In the old design I had this functionality hardcoded into the theme footer but now it can be done with a single line of PHP.
19th September, 2009
Tired with the poor antialiasing observed in big header fonts, I decided to introduce sIFR to the site. Here’s a preview shot allowing me to use High Tower Text as my page heading:
30th August, 2009
I have actually been slowly working on this (slowly being a bit of an understatement) for a while but keep having to put it off for other commitments. Usually this means I get a bit of time when I’m tired and not up to doing much else and a stint on Fallout III is only going to make things worse.
However here are a couple more screenshots of a general basic layout and more button-y bits since the last lot of menu icons!
Other plans include a bigger better blog post preview image, related posts links, using the excerpt field of posts and some form of proper search function that includes AJAX-ed suggestions.
19th August, 2009
I’ve scanned and uploaded a whole load of things I had intended to for quite a while. This is because I had my scanner out to scan a sketch for the new site’s header image:
Among some pretty random old stuff, there were also a couple of concept sketches for my recent Final Year Project:
Website menu buttons in vector:
And a quick scribble of an idea for the idat menu button:
5th August, 2009
Here is a better sample of the graphics I have been working on after studying a number of sites suggested by the client as to the style they are looking for.
Individual vine leaf vector graphics:
23rd April, 2009
I have decided to have a separate set of showcase pages for my project, to be used to present information about various aspects. Currently it’s literally just the header design, but this features a wavy line of icons that represent the process:
23rd March, 2009
In between university work, I’ve made a website for IPGL Limited, based on the design for Matt Wreford’s personal website.
View the IPGL site.
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