ambivalent imbroglio: Welcome to <i>ai</i> Version 3.0

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May 30, 2005

Welcome to ai Version 3.0

And just like that, the imbroglio is all fresh and new. The biggest changes are obviously to the banner and the move back from two to three columns. Long-time readers might recall that the original imbroglio was a rust-colored three-column design, so this is something of a return to the imbroglio's roots. The banner is another story. I've already received feedback that the blue bar behind the title should go all the way to the top of the page. Does anyone else think that would be a better look?

Aesthetics aside, the purpose of this redesign was twofold. First, I was just tired of the old look. It's nice to shake things up once in a while. I wanted something simpler, cleaner, perhaps easier to maintain. To that end the new page is missing several of the sidebar features readers said they weren't even aware of or rarely read. These include the ambivalent bits links blog which was fun for me but for few others, apparently. I'm planning to incorporate links like that elsewhere, or perhaps restart the feature if I find I miss it. Other missing “features” include ambivalent comment (which I'd never fully implemented anyway), the audioscrobbler recently played tracks sidebar, and the ambivalent voices sidebar. Again, some of these may see new life someday, but for now it's nice to have a slightly simpler page. There's obviously still a lot of content packed into this page—too much, some might say. What's here is useful to me, and I hope you find it so, as well.

The other main reason for the redesign was the marathon I'm training for. You may notice that the right column is dominated by a request for support in this endeavor. I have no idea if it will lead to anything, but I figured it was worth a shot. I played with the idea of placing some Google ads on the page to generate marathon money, but then I read here that I probably wouldn't make more than $1-2/week and I decided it just wasn't worth it. My intention is not to offend anyone by asking for money, but to make it easy for anyone who might desire to donate to do so. It's a terrific cause and all donations are tax deductible! I'll be writing more about this as the summer progresses, but anything you can spare will be a great help, both to me in my own fundraising goal, and more importantly, to the important work of the Whitman-Walker Clinic.

I think that's about it other than to note that this redesign took far longer than I expected. The technical work involved is not so great, but I think there's a psychological hump to get over when you're planning to reformat thousands of pages in one fell swoop.

For those of you reading the RSS feed, please click on through and tell me what you think. For those of you viewing the actual page, well, what do you think? Love it? Hate it? All feedback is welcome. I aim to please so if anything does not appear to be working or if anything is hard to read or difficult to understand for some reason, please let me know.

Posted May 30, 2005 09:39 PM | meta-blogging

Comments

I like, I like! But maybe I'm just partial to purple...

Posted by: E. McPan at May 30, 2005 10:22 PM

I think the banner is a little hard to read, with the wide font and the half-blue-half-white background; I also miss pop-up comments!

Posted by: kristine at May 30, 2005 10:38 PM

First impression is that it looks great. Really, my biggest complaint about the old format was that some of the lines didn't show up very well in my browswer. So far, this looks great though, nice job!

Posted by: Matt Schuh at May 30, 2005 10:54 PM

All in all, I like the redesign. Three columns is good for displaying all the info you've got.

I do have one quibble and a couple glitches I want to tell you about, though.

Glitches - In Firefox, the comment text box is wider than the middle column. It scrolls off the right side. Also, when I scroll over your banner, a grey line pops up over the top half of the title.

Quibble - I don't think the banner is hard to read, but it feels too short. With the three columns, there's a lot of information coming at the reader, and the short banner makes things feel, to me, a little overwhelming. I feel like a header should give the eyes a little space before diving into the content. But then again, I really like whitespace (note my overly minimal design... I'm playing around with other options).

But really, the design is nice. Good job.

Posted by: Josh at May 30, 2005 11:02 PM

Holy Crap! Do you work or what?!!? This is pretty f--kin' sweet man! I don't know about the powder blue though. I think Josh is right about the banner being too small. And the left hand column isn't wide enough for some of the names on the blog roll so some of them don't line up all nice. A minor thing really. It displays perfectly in Safari, of course. Really nice job!

Posted by: Famous P. at May 30, 2005 11:44 PM

nice!

Posted by: jose at May 31, 2005 12:06 AM

I'm partial to the three column design. Something I toyed with briefly, but never got working right on my blog was to use the position=fixed tag on css.

I was trying to get it so that readers could scroll down and the left column and top banner would stay still relative to everything scrolling. Couldn't get it to work with both at the same time, but that was my first attempt at CSS ever.

I don't know for other readers, but I just noticed that the comment form is too wide for the column it is in.

Posted by: luminous at May 31, 2005 12:41 AM

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I've sort of fixed the comments box in Firefox but it still should be a little smaller. I've also adjusted the header to make it easier to read and to give the top more breathing room. I agree that the look was sort of "smooshed" -- I did that so that for people with small screens vertically (like me) they could see more content, less banner. But I think I overdid it. I'm not really happy w/the current compromise, but I don't have time to play w/it further now. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Question: I know about the grey line that pops up in the banner when you mouse over it -- that's because hover links are set to highlight w/a grey bar. Does anyone know an easy way to turn off that grey bar for hover links for just one div or style class?

Posted by: ambimb at May 31, 2005 07:05 AM

i like it! i especially like the cute little picture at the right side of the banner.

Posted by: monica at May 31, 2005 08:06 AM

Wonderful! I really like this new layout - I am partial to three columns.

The comments in Firefox does seem to be fixed. It does jut out a quarter of a cm, but that's fine.

The bar on top doesn't bother me, but I do echo the sentiments that as soon as you load the page there's a lot of text coming right at you.

Apart from that, great job :)

Posted by: GIdeon at May 31, 2005 08:17 AM

I like it! I especially like the little image on the banner (that's new, right? I don't remember seeing it before).

I do miss pop-up comments, as Kristine mentioned, and the comment box does need to be a bit smaller.

For the grey bar that pops up when you hover over the banner -- I don't think "none" is a valid value for background-color. Try changing it to white.

Posted by: CM at May 31, 2005 10:02 AM

If you want to turn off the gray bar for the banner, you can create a new class called, say:

.banner a:hover { text-decoration:none }

or such. You can also duplicate your regular a:hover class but get rid of the element that creates the gray bar. (However you have that set up.)

Posted by: kristine at May 31, 2005 12:06 PM

Um, yeah, CM answered better than I did; I just looked at your CSS. Background-color: white will probably work.

Also, "remember me" isn't working.

Posted by: kristine at May 31, 2005 12:09 PM

Hmm. So I've fought with the glitch in the banner with the gray/white bar when you hover over it and I can't seem to get rid of it. Any other suggestions?

I don't know what's up with the "remember me" feature, either, so any help there would be appreciated.

So what makes pop-up comments preferable?

FYI: The little guy on the right of the banner was always there but he was just black on whatever color background you preferred so he wasn't very obvious. Maybe I'll post a screenshot of the old design so you can see what I mean.

(Tangent: This is now a tiny comment box in Safari. I hope that doesn't stop anyone from commenting at length.)

Posted by: ambimb at May 31, 2005 09:08 PM

Hey, this looks the same... oh, wait... RSS, sorry. ;)

Overall, I like the look, although I'm personally more of a minimalist when it comes to design. But you've done a pretty good job of arranging all the info you present. I think the 3-column layout works well for your site.

Pop-up comments *suck*. Hate 'em.

Also, you need to activate TypeKey... I tried to sign in via your link, and I got an error saying to send you a message asking you to enable it. :)

Posted by: Dave! at June 1, 2005 12:24 AM

I like the adjustment to the banner and the comments text box is fine now.

This'll get rid of the bar in the banner:
#banner2 A:hover { background: none; }

And I'm with Dave! here. Pop-up comments are evil. I bookmark posts I've commented on, and I like being able to open the comments up in a new tab. Having to switch between windows or click another link to see comments is annoying. (In other words, I'm lazy.)

Posted by: Josh at June 1, 2005 09:37 AM

Aw yeah, Mr. Glacier! You are indeed the baddest -- your background: none did the trick nicely. Thank you, sir!!

Posted by: ambimb at June 1, 2005 07:52 PM

Hi Todd, The site looks great. But of course, I still prefer MyShingle!

Carolyn

Posted by: Carolyn Elefant at June 7, 2005 02:20 PM

I like it! Maybe because it reminds me of my own redesign (of my currently-defunct blog), which I absolutely adore ;-)

Keep the top banner the way it is - keeping whitespace dominant is easier on the reader's eyes and makes the whole layout seem more open and less busy.

Also, I'm thrilled you kept the "On this day in years past" sidebar. One of my faves.

Posted by: blm at June 24, 2005 10:10 PM

Crikey! In Limine has vanished! Why? What's up? Are you coming back? What happened!?

Posted by: ambimb at June 27, 2005 07:36 PM