All change!

So, there are a few things around here that are still a bit.. erm.. broken. In the spirit of transparency, and in case I’ve missed anything that you’ve spotted, here is everything that will be fixed or changed in the coming week, fortnight.. month?

  • Archive page – this will be slightly different from the previous one, depending on what plugins I can get to work
  • Comments – still some work to do on these, I’d like to be able to highlight MY comments, and I still think it needs some tidying up. I’d definitely like to “pretty” up the comment form itself.
  • The “First Visit/Previous Posts” area still isn’t quite how I want it. Might need to span both columns to stop it wrapping at smaller window sizes.
  • Search results need work, mainly showing more, truncated, results on a page. Also need to decide whether to lose the sidebar for ‘single’ pages (a decision that rolls out across other areas of the site).
  • More whitespace between the columns? Maybe.
  • The link colours still elude me, I quite like the contrast between the main content links and the sidebar area.
  • Blogroll needs a drastic update!
  • CSS issues – a variety of annoyances thanks to IE collapsing margins, most notable in the comments (the numbers are cropped in half).
  • Double-checking the banner is properly centred!
  • A “go” button on the search box at the top of the page will be added.

Suggestions are encouraged as ever. I write the content for me, but how the site used is solely aimed at you, dearest reader. And no, I’m not changing the font (it’s been this one for AGES, that bit didn’t change!).

Of course all of this is simply procrastination, but I figure if I post this list I might actually get some of the items fixed. Maybe.

In the meantime, I’m sure the Post of the Week site will keep me busy.

Comments

  1. For the “first visit?” thing, why not have a cookie left by the site on a browser, and if that cookie isn’t present, then it does the “first visit?” thing?

    After all, you can do the cookie to die after a month or two, if people keep coming back then it’ll keep refreshing, otherwise it’ll disappear in 30 days, or whatever.

    No unique IDs or tracking necessary, but kind of cool. Oh, and easy to do…

  2. I think the “first visit” text might change, I’d rather not have the links just disappear as they may remain valid for repeat visitors… I did have an early version of the site which had the section “toggle-able” but that was when I had more graphics in the layout and .. well it was all slick and AJAX-ey but I got bored of it pretty quick.

  3. I must admit, the thing that still drives me potty about your blogroll is the two-column layout. I don’t know why, it just annoys me loads.

    Don’t get me wrong, I understand why you’ve done it, but for some reason it just annoys me.

    Highlighting your own comments should be fairly easy – I’ll have a look into WP and see what I can figure out.

  4. What would you do with the extra space if you took the sidebar off single-page views? I don’t think I’m alone in liking the content column limited to a maximum width, as it is now.

  5. I’m thinking I might move the comments alongside the post, sort of… I agree the width of the content column shouldn’t be too wide but there are other things that could be switched out into the sidebar that might be more useful to people.

  6. You should totally do something with mouseover on the header/banner, like I have. But mine only works in Firefox.

    It looks really cool though.

    In Firefox.

    I did the highlighting comments thing too, but only with copious help from a Mr. A. Sevitz, Esq. And although he’s fluent in Moveable Type, I don’t think he’s so hot with the WordPress. Although I could be wrong.

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