Flutterby™! : New look

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New look

2001-03-19 03:07:23+00 by Dan Lyke 10 comments

I'm playing with a new look, I may tear it down shortly, it hasn't yet been implemented on all my pages, and I'm still trying to reconcile a few design issues for differing use cases. Anyway, tell me if it sucks too hard, and other suggestions are appreciated too.

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:21+00 by: TheSHAD0W

Ummm... You know, this page now renders VERY badly under Nutscrape 4.74. Maybe it works under 6, I don't know, but I haven't gone to 6 yet on purpose. Please don't use dhtml on your pages. 8v)

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:21+00 by: TC

It renders plenty fine in Exploder(windoze) & Oprah(linux)

on a personal note. I like the top title bar look but think it's too dark. I verified this on a non LCD gamma corrected monitor. Also gotta trick I wanna show ya with gradients

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:21+00 by: pharm

Mozilla copes fine, but as a previous poster points out, Netscape 4.76 hates it :)

And yeah, the gradient is a bit dark.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:21+00 by: Dan Lyke

Ugh. Okay, I'll diddle with 4.76. No DHTML here, I used constructs I've used with 4.x before...

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:21+00 by: Dan Lyke

Okay, those changes should brighten things up a bit (although there's some mach banding that I think I need the later version of GIMP on my machine at home to tweak) and make things render on Netscape 4.x while actually making things a little more usable to wireless browsers. Adds an extra table, which sucks, but such is the way of progress.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:22+00 by: Larry Burton

I think you've improved the design. I like the new banner better than the old and I like the way you've tightened up the white space.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:22+00 by: debrahyde

Actually, I need a touch more white space, but I'm talking just a touch more padding. Overall, it is an improvement over the irregular white space of the earlier version, and I appreciate the more uniform horizontal space between entries. I love the injection of color the banner brings to the page. (Using IE right now.)

#Comment made: 2001-03-20 13:44:42+00 by: topspin [edit history]

I recall seeing a tan graphic with multi-butterflies in the "new flutterby" post from the first of March. It was a smaller graphic, as I recall, without gradient issues. The multi-butterfly idea for threads/comments makes sense to me and reminds me of seeing multi-butterfly gatherings on stream banks. That's more a "feeling" issue than a "design" issue, though.

Hmmmm. I can't seem to access recent archives (post-11/2000) to reference the exact post.

The "comment instructions" at the bottom of the page remain useful, but seem sorta out of place. I wish I could offer a better solution and I know it doesn't please Dan. A pop-up help console seems natural to me, but that's likely unworkable in a multi-environment (Palm/Lynx/etc) design.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:22+00 by: Dan Lyke

Yeah, the other graphic is in a Flash movie I'm still playing with. It was actually quite a bit larger than the new scheme (128 pixels high), and I'm still planning on integrating bits of that 'cause I like the whole multi-butterfly thing too. Just still trying to figure out the right way to do some of that in Flash; I want something like a boids effect when you mouse-over it.

I could move the comment instructions to a separate page and link to it, perhaps that'd help? Hmm... I've also got to look at why the format isn't defaulting to text.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:23+00 by: ebradway

Dan, we need a link back to the main page from the comment page. I don't like using the 'Back' button when I post comments because so many pages screw up and duplicate your posts (which I'm sure Flutterby doesn't do, right?).