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!