Site Update

I regret that I haven’t had any new observations to post recently. I have, however, been putting a lot of work into the structure of the site. I’m a print-media designer by trade, not a web designer. So I knew there were probably a lot of inefficiencies and poor choices in how I chose to up this place. So I decided to educate myself a bit about css rules and proper usage. A couple lengthy courses at Lynda.com were really enlightening. For one thing, I was using tables to lay out a lot of things that could be left to css for structure. It was a real mess trying to convert things over, but I think I’ve got most of it done.

One immense benefit to this approach is with the galleries. It was getting progressively more difficult to update my table-based galleries as I added new sketches. I’ve now converted them to simple html lists that use css to flow them into a grid layout. Now I can insert an entry anywhere into a gallery very easily without having to completely redo a table in the process. I’ve also separated the Solar System Gallery into Solar Sketches, Comet Sketches, and Planet Sketches. One thing I’m still trying to work out is how to consistently display font sizes across different browsers and platforms. I’m still trying to work out the kinks, but if you see anything bizarre on your browser, like fonts that are obnoxiously large or small, and you have a moment to fire off an email, I’d love to know what you saw, and what browser and operating system you are using. (See the site header above for my email address.)

Thanks in advance, and I hope you’re getting in more observing than I am!

3 Replies to “Site Update”

  1. So far evrything looks good with the site.
    As for the observing…hehehe…I can’t speak for everyone but,so far this season has been dreadful.
    Hope you have clear skies soon!!.
    Andrew

  2. Thanks for the words on updating your blog. It looks great and sounds like it’ll be easier to update. I will be taking a look at lynda.com in the near future. Thanks for the tip!

  3. Andrew and Ben, thanks for the comments. Thank goodness for that comet breaking the dry spell.
    Ben, Lynda.com has a nice range of software/systems training courses. Accounts run $25 per month. If funds are tight, you may want to find a list of courses you want to take and how long each course runs. Then figure out a month when you have the time to blitz through the ones you want and cancel the subscription at the end of that month.

Comments are closed.