Redesigning My Site :: The Life of the Traegorn

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Redesigning My Site
Posted Aug 9, 2010 - 10:09:27

So I'm currently in the act of redesigning my website TRHOnline - and overhauling something like this is not exactly... easy. TRHOnline as a website is built on layers and layers of experimental, bizarre and disorganized code. There have been at least five different variations on the backend code, and different parts of different variations are still active. Because of this, design changes to the site tend to be small and minor. The last major change was in... 2006 I think? The overall theme goes back to like 2002 as well.

And honestly, I'm getting sick of the old look. I have been for a while -- but the task of changing it is so daunting that I honestly keep avoiding it.

But I've decided I'm not going to avoid it any more -- instead just take my time making the changes. Right now, the only major change I've made so far is the front page of the site. The biggest step is updating what I refer to as "the standard header" pages -- which makes sense if you're me, and probably no sense if you're not. The change will effect a large number of pages in their layout (and compatability issues can be quite complicated), so I have to do a lot of testing before I roll it out completely live.

This is, oddly enough, seperate from the TRHOnline logo and menu -- which will be a seperate overhaul. I'm fond of the rusted metal, but I want to put something a little cleaner and more readable up there. The logo and menu though are a lot more modular.

The new front page is a bit simpler than the old one - you'll notice a lot of widgets that used to fill the page have disappeared. I might bring back the karma rankings, and the blog updates in some form, but other than that - if it's gone, it's gone. No more post count listings, no more random users -- and sorry, but you'll have to go to the UnCONventional page to read the latest comic.

Change is coming my friends -- change is coming.
- Traegorn