Feb 18, 2006

New Layout

So, while many of you may not notice this, my blog has undergone a tremendous revision.

Most people probably won’t notice anything different at all. Some frequent readers may notice the addition of a (currently blank) right column, where some blogrolling stuff will eventually reside. Those with a REALLY keen eye may notice that my menus have changed their look somewhat…

But, the biggest change will probably go unnoticed, so I’m gonna shout it out, because it is too momentous and amazing to let it go unheeded!

THIS PAGE DOESN’T USE TABLES FOR LAYOUT ANYMORE!!!

WOO HOO!!! *High Fives Anyone Around* *Struts Like the Badass He Is*

Ahem… Right.

Well, for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, its MAJOR. HUGE. Well, OK, maybe not really major either, but in the web dev world, we’re talking MONUMENTAL. Its only taken me 4 billion hours, but I’ve finally mastered (somewhat) the art of CSS Layout. This is the first step towards being able to make amazing interchangeable designs by only updating the accompanying CSS files.

Besides the obvious benefit of more easily changed themes, there are many benefits to this method of layout. Some quick ones off the top of my head:

  1. Smaller files, quicker loading
  2. Ability to write HTML with fully semantic markup, rather than a hack of semantics and presentation.
  3. Easier accessibility to mobile or other devices
  4. Much simpler HTML structure in the page
  5. Much more search engine friendly, with source ordered layout (content up top, vs mished in the middle)
  6. Tables in general suck for layout – they are slow, inflexible, don’t degrade well (meaning scale for small pages) and they print poorly

Well, I admit, that wasn’t all of the top of my head, but you get the idea.

This is the first step in several planned changes, culminating in choosing a new blog home. Blogger has been great, but its starting to chafe around the edges. Categorization, trackbacks, single page designations and concerns about “control” are all pushing me to be evaluating several types of blog systems.

Currently, I’m looking at:

Each can be downloaded and run on your own server using various DB options (but usually MySQL). The top three are PHP based and the bottom 2 are Microsoft .NET based. Being an ASP.NET guy, I’d really like to use one of the latter, but I think features and functions are going to push me to the PHP versions.

Anyway, I’ll update again with reviews, pros/cons, etc of each one as I move closer towards making a decision.

Oh, and while I may have kinda alluded to the fact that I’m a “master” at this, well please don’t take me too seriously. I’d be very interested in hearing if you find anything on the blog that is screwed up. Mostly ’cause its 4AM, and I’m not exactly in the best Quality Assurance frame of mind right now. :^)

Thanks in advance!

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