I'm back! Yeppers, this blog is back, but with a difference. By late last year I was getting tired and finding that keeping my sites updated was sapping my enthusiasm for blogging. Just before Christmas I had a brainwave - what if I created less work for myself by combining sites?
That inspired silly idea led me to take down three sites, grab the content from one I had taken offline in the middle of the year, then set about mapping data and combining it all into one WordPress database. This was no easy task. One of the sites had been started back in the 1990's and had been through various conversions from Nuke to Mambo to WordPress, one was still on WordPress 2.5, another had been built on b2evolution.
"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx
Database completed, I then set about creating new functions to make WordPress behave the way I want. That done, it was time for theming.
My guiding rules for the new theme were these:
- I wanted something that looks just a little different;
- A visual design with a nod to the age of Art Deco;
- Progressive enhancement so the heavy use of jQuery would degrade nicely;
- Functions the same and looks very similar in all major browsers.
And that was where the real fun started. What is a major browser these days? I settled on Firefox (of course), Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer. Given that IE6 is now over 8 years over 7 years* old and IE8 is close to being released, I decided to drop support for Internet Explorer 6. If you are visiting this site with IE6, sorry, but its likely to be pretty awful. It's bad enough that IE7 and IE8 render websites differently and after 8 years of working around IE6 bugs I say enough is enough!
The theme is still a work in progress as I have yet to test it with Opera or Chrome - that should be happening soon. But, after all the work converting content, then weeding out the old and useless, it was time to get back online. So, here I am!
* Internet Explorer 6 was released August 27, 2001.
What do you think of the new theme? Have you found any issues with it? If you have, I would love to know!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 3 comments… read them below or jump to the comment form to add your thoughts }
Not finished testing browsers yet, but there is life! http://lynnepope.net/life
Hi Lynne,
It sounds like a lot of work to create this site. Why choose Wordpress? What about Mambo? I was wondering whether I should have chosen them instead of Blogger. Blogger seems easy but maybe not as configurable. Mind you I wouldn't be doing the configuring
Best wishes with the new site and I'll keep my eye on it. I like the colours you've chosen, calm rather than glaring like many sites.
Ciao, Wendy
@Wendy: Mambo is a fantastic content management system and some of the content I brought into this site came from one of my Mambo sites. But, for this site, I wanted a blog. It's really all about choosing the best tool for the job and as a blogging platform WordPress is hard to beat.
This is a stand-alone, self-hosted WordPress site so its much more configurable than anything you get with hosted blogs. Blogger is better than wordpress.com though so if you don't want the hassle of installing, maintaining and finding a host for your site you have probably made a good choice.
Thanks for the good wishes Wendy!
Leave a Comment