Kevin's Watch

I've been working on improvements to the official site - it's just taken me a lot longer than I thought since I have some other big projects going.

I have most of the first draft done, and you can view it here:

www.StephenRDonaldson.com/new/

The look is the same, but there are no frames and only the first page is of a fixed size. This should make bookmarking, Refreshing, etc., a whole lot easier. There are also a lot of internal improvements that you probably won't (and/or can't) see. The only part I'm still working on is copying over the various Publications pages into the new site - I only have the first and second chronicles done at the moment.

Please browse through the site and PM or Email me if you run into any problems.

This site is "real." Anything you post in the gradual interview, for example, will end up in the same database as the existing site - so don't do anything that you wouldn't normally do on the official site.

After I get this part of the new site phased in, I'll start on other things that I have planned - like an easy to access list of *everything* that's new since your previous visit (and links to take you there quickly). But getting the site out of the frames was a big first step.

Oh - and there's an interview in the new site from Xignals magazine (Oct/Nov 86) that doesn't appear in the existing site.

nice. I like the links to the essays and like.

Been there. I like it, but it is a bit small. I like the promo, however.

Cool, Romeo. I'll check it out and let you know what I think.-jay

I find the font a bit small as well. With it that small and the white on the brown background it makes my eyes really ache after reading one or two lines.

One of the improvements planned is the option to have small/medium/large fonts. I've done this with other sites that I've made, and it's pretty easy once the site itself is cleaned up. You'll just need to have cookies enabled to set the preference.

Everything else seems to be working well, though? The big visible change is that only the first page is a set size - all the other pages should stretch to fit the size of your browser window. I've put a lot of the borders and stuff into javascript files that will be cached on the computer, so it should speed things up a bit (as they only need to be loaded once, and then future pages can use the cached version instead of re-downloading the code - mostly noticable for dialup users).

Nice!

Should be easier to access on my mobile!!

Seareach wrote:I find the font a bit small as well. With it that small and the white on the brown background it makes my eyes really ache after reading one or two lines.

It might be interesting to change the pallete. Make it less dark (the material is dark enough). Plus, it reminds one that he or she is on a new site.

Romeo wrote: Everything else seems to be working well, though? .... I've put a lot of the borders and stuff into javascript files that will be cached on the computer, so it should speed things up a bit (as they only need to be loaded once, and then future pages can use the cached version instead of re-downloading the code - mostly noticable for dialup users).

Everything is working great. And I think the page format is a lot better than the current version. I've had a good surf and haven't come up with any problems. I did notice that it took a bit longer for the pages to load to begin with (I have ADSL maximum 128bp <sigh>) but if pages are going to be cached that isn't really a problem.