This time I mean it.
The weekend’s experiment was too slick, but this one is just right: it balances the need for easy access to articles with being able to see more than one at a time. This one is pretty readable.
All supportive comments are welcome.
Seems you went for a NYT style. Nice, I like it. But then, I always had the strangest of tastes. My favorite webpage is google.com.
BTW, answering an old comment by you, I’ve never gone anywhere, I just read your blog from Google reader now (which means I won’t be seeing your marvelous design overhaul anyway ha!), and the themes are not exactly of my taste, so I’ve been commenting less and less. But I still read you (even when I don’t like it, just like when you speak about music).
Looks nice, however, I really don’t like layouts that directly control the horizontal widths. When I view this on a wide screen there are huge blank areas on the left and right hand sides of the page, i.e., wasted space. Most of the climate blogs are the same.
Mark — I’m thinking of filling the interstitials with my etchings.
Luis, old pal! Sure, Google’s nice, but not much to read on the home page.
This works for me. I missed your earlier, failed attempt–it was gone before I revisited. but I like the at-a-glance exposure of recent posts without scrolling, and for my plane vanilla Explorer browser, the visual appearance is fine.
It’s a beauty.
I guess I’m a horrible old fogey, but I’m going to complain anyway. First, though, I love the look. It’s aesthetically gorgeous.
But:
1. This format offers more for the occasional viewer at a cost to the regular viewer. Those of us who visit every day don’t need to see what was published Wednesday last week … we’ve already read it. Having to click through on the new story shouldn’t be problem usually, except …
2. when the article turns out to have only one or two more lines over the page. This is frustrating.
3. because of the delay in opening new pages, and due to my own impatience, if I do get to your Blog after a few days delay I shall end up with a proliferation of browser windows and tabs since I’ll start reading the next article while waiting for the old one to open in a new window/tab, and then open that one as well and start reading another.
4. The front page is retarded in its capabilities. Formatting and hyperlinks are lost. Even line breaks, judging from the look of Part III of the Goldberg story on the front page. I used to read Melanie Phillips blog a lot, but now I visit rarely because nearly every story has to be opened, and on the front page is hard to interpret. For example, she frequently quotes blocks of text, but without formatting this isn’t clear on the front page.
As I mentioned, it looks really nice and if it were on paper it would be fine. But I suspect that the ‘traditional’ in-line format of blogs continues to predominate not only because it is the default setting, but because it really is the easiest for the bulk of readers, especially loyal ones.
Thanks, Stephen.
I certainly want to make my regular readers happiest.
Many read this blog through an RSS reader of some kind and so can’t see the front page, nor any of the fancy formatting. But your other points are well made. What I’ll do is modify the code so that the excerpts retain their formatting/capabilities and thus will be easier to read. Most of my articles are ~800 words, so almost always the excerpt won’t show everything (I’ve set the excerpt length to 200 words). I’ll also play with the idea of showing the latest story in its entirety so no clicking is involved (that will take more work, the way the code is structured).
Take a look and see what you think. (Still a minor bug: I haven’t managed to figure out how to strip the caption off the img tag in the preview…)
Looking nicer already with the formatting restored on the front page! On reflection, the proliferation of windows/tabs may not be so much of a problem since your site is much, more more responsive than the UK Spectator site. Having the most recent article in full on the front page may upset the current attractive balance, but you will be the best judge of that.
In any case, in my opinion it is content that is king, and here the king is worth esteeming.
Your RSS feed doesn’t work anymore with Google. Not sure if this is linked to the redesign but maybe.
Karen,
Very probably. But I’ve just checked the link and it appears to work. That link is
http://localhost/wordpress?feed=rss2
for the posts and
https://www.wmbriggs.com/blog?feed=comments-rss2
for the comments.
Could you please do me a favor and see if these are the ones you have?
Stephen,
“Hail to the King, baby”
I am not sold yet on the new scheme. But, I resist change.
Have you considered keeping a page with the classic look, for those of us that fear the new?
FWIW: I gave it a few days and like it (I think). That might be a good reason to go back as my opinions are usually far from the mean when measuring their popularity.
I like the desing, I can read your blog on my phone while travelling by train without zooming. But I am missing the next and previous links. I would really appreciate if these links could be restored.
Thanks,
Pieter
Pieter,
There were next and previous buttons at the bottom of stories? I had no idea. I’ll look into restoring these. There are “Older entries” and “New entries” buttons at the bottom of the main page.
Matt,
Now you mention it, I’m not totally sure that there were next/previous links. Maybe I thought they ought to be there.
Sitting behind a pc, there is no problem because of the tab functionality in the browsers. But I have to read the more complex articles several times to fully grasp what is being said. For some reason I end up doing this on this tiny computer with a tiny screen with a browser that has no tabs. In this situation the next/previous links are very helpful.
If I am the only one that needs these links, don’t bother, I can live with it. If you do add/restore them it is appreciated by at least one person.
Thanks
Pieter
Update
I checked the wayback machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080212055630/wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/02/09/how-to-look-at-the-rss-satellite-derived-temperature-data/
I can’t find next/previous links on that page.
It is very likely that I thought they ought to be there.
Pieter