Theme Update

FINALLY. Wow, that took me way to long to get done. So, as I promised in this post here, after many late nights, I have implemented some major changes to the theme of this blog. So for all those behind the feed readers… leave the reader for a bit and click around. Let me know what you think. I spent a lot of time on various elements (including some that I ripped out due to lack of patience) so any feedback would be awesome. Below is a picture of the old home page for comparison (click to see fullscreen):

Screenshot of old theme

Screenshot of old theme

Some features to note are:

  • Snazzy JavaScript slider. Why? Lets me show pictures without taking up too much space. One of my goals for this year is to learn to actually draw well in Illustrator and as is obvious, I have a long way to go and need a place/reason to practice.
  • Proper archives page using the awesome wp_archives plugin. I can’t think of a better way to browse archives (aside from tags maybe). The default WordPress way of dates is stupid… they just have no context. One way in which I might change this page in future is modify the plugin so that I can annotate dates around important events in my life.
  • Social Networks page. This has snippets from other places around the web that I haunt. I’m considering changing it in the future to be a bit of a life-stream, but am holding out for someone to come up with an exceptional plugin to make that happen.
  • Better fonts.
  • More pictures!

Again, let me know what you think in the comments below, any feedback is always welcome.

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6 Responses to Theme Update

  1. Marcus says:

    Hey Andre; Love the new theme, great to see it finally up and running.The hours of work have paid of. Good job :)

  2. Eastwood says:

    Your new theme looks and feels fantastic — the navigation bar is so fun to play with.

    Have you had a chance to check out Snazzy Archives? I’m using it on my archives page.

    Oh, and the Last.fm app had mysteriously stopped working for me back in April after upgrading to Jaunty. Don’t know if you’ve experienced the same..?

  3. Andre Malan says:

    Thanks Marcus, thanks Eastwood. Eastwood, I did actually play with Snazzy Archives, but didn’t like how wide it is. Also, even though it looks fantastic, you lose the ability to do a quick scan. It might be more helpful once you have hundreds and hundreds of posts… but I’m in no danger of that any time soon.

    As for last.fm the scrobbler still works, but the radio is now a paid service to people who are not in the USA, UK or Germany. Not the worst type of discrimination, but geographical discrimination still sucks.

  4. Jocelyn says:

    The new theme looks amazing! Great navigation and usability. I love the combination of your scribbles alongside your serious thoughts. Gives a great personal touch amongst other things. =)

  5. Jared Stein says:

    This theme is excellent. You going to make a version of it available to the public?

  6. Andre Malan says:

    I am considering it. I just need to put some time into cleaning it up a bit. If anybody would like a chance to work with it as is (strong warning of messy code) I am happy to post it.

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