Big Dave gets a Face Lift

Welcome to the new look site

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

For the last two or three weeks I have been working on a new look for the website.  This new theme has a number of features – some more interesting than others!

1. The main reason for the change is to have a variable width instead of a fixed width.  On my own screen less than half of the width was being utilised by the old theme – the new one adjusts to the size of screen.  Try shrinking the screen horizontally and watch the text automatically move.

2. Comment replies now work properly – before they only worked if you had previously submitted an ordinary comment.  Comments made by the author of the post will have a slightly different background, so that they stand out.  [There appears to be a bug in this process insofar as replies to comments by the author of the post are also highlighted in this way.]

3. The reviewer’s avatar is now automatically generated – until now it was a cut-and-paste job which often took a while to get properly aligned.

4. The colour scheme changes five times a day! – The periods are 05:00 – 08:59; 09:00 – 12:59; 13:00 – 16:59; 17:00 – 20:59 and finally 21:00 – 04:59.  This is because I have used a theme known as Sandbox-10 together with a stylesheet called Diurnal as the basis for the new theme.  You can see the original version of this combination here on the sandbox demo site – just select Diurnal from the box in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

5. The theme header retains the old appearance – I didn’t want you to think you had come to the wrong site!

I have tested this out using Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8.  Those of you still using Internet Explorer will, by now, have become accustomed to things not working properly – especially if you are using IE6!  Should you have any problems, please let me know the details as quickly as possible – and don’t forget to mention the type and version of  browser you are using.

Update – 14:00 – In deference to those of you without wide-screen monitors, I have changed back to a two column layout.  I have also modified the morning colour scheme, and will be reviewing the “readability” of the others.

Update – Jun 6th – The final changes have now been made to the theme header.  This now spreads the full width of the page and features a narrower panorama of my home village.

Update – Sep 16th – The underlying software has now been upgraded to Sandbox version 1.6.1.  This has resolved the comment bug noted in point 2 above.  It did, however, require that some other changes be made, but these should be transparent.

Let me know what you think about the new theme by using the comments below: