Hardhat Zone
I'm finally implementing the changes I've been working on for the last few weeks. I wish I were able to devote more time to the task, but unfortunately I just don't have that much available to me. Anyway I've finally gotten to the point where I've managed to complete some of the features which have been on my wishlist since I opened the doors on this place.
I only wish I had been able to keep blogging while working on the necessary PHP. At least now all my media will have a place on this site. I stopped posting partly because anything I posted I'd have to repost once these changes were in place, so now that they're happening there's no reason to hold back anymore.
I'll update this post as implementation proceeds.
So far:
- Plugins transferred
- Theme updated
- New navigation works (finally)
- Sidebar Layout done for now (but evolving)
- Reduced the number of queries
- Headers complete, both for IE and FireFox
- Fixed mousovers for IE6
- Catching up on photo content (piece by piece)
... and all this 5 minutes before Wordpress 2.5 comes out with a built-in gallery. I console myself in the knowledge that I would have had to mod the shit out of that too.
I'm essentially done now with updating the theme. Most of it works, and finally tweaks will happen over time.
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Eh, I’d take WP upgrades with a pinch of salt - most of the times, it takes a while for a version to be stable, so you’re good. And I should really work on decreasing the amount of DB queries that go out too; it just slows the entire site down a lot.
I am just not sure I like the black & white header images, though. The color images with the black and white theme sort of had a very unique look and feel. Your theme may work alright in IE, where everything is B&W by default, but on FF, it just looks a little odd with the rest of the pictures being in color - could just be me, though.
Yeah, that was a tough call - so tough I’m not sure I’ve made it yet.
The photo pages are the killer though - I really didn’t want to distract from the photo being displayed.
I may decide to change the header on photo pages to something other than the regular rotation - something neutral there, but only there… leaving the other pages with colour headers.
Those are my two choices I think… either the header always rotates and is B&W, or there’s a header specific to photo pages only, which is B&W, while the others remain in colour.
I’ll ponder all that - that’s an easy change anyway. Thanks for the feedback!
I’ve been up far too long, so I might leave this implementation half-way done and finish up in a few hours.
Cheers ;)
Well, upon careful consideration (which means when I finally got around to it) I made some changes to the headers as per your suggestion, Karthik.
I’ve returned to colour headers, which are black & white by default on IE, but which turn to colour when you hover over them. This definitely does fit better with Firefox which doesn’t make the rest of the site’s images monochrome.
As a bit of a compromise, I’ve made a header specifically for photo pages, which I’ll have to keep relatively fresh. This header has fairly low colour saturation overall, so doesn’t interfere TOO much with the picture being viewed.
All-up, this continues the previous overall feel in IE, which I really wanted to maintain, but doesn’t look awkward for users of other browsers.
Thanks for the tip :)