Pharyngula::Scratching an itch, and I hope not breaking anything

Pharyngula has moved to http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Scratching an itch, and I hope not breaking anything

PZ Myers • 14 Comments

Whenever I see a site redesign, I start itching to take Pharyngula apart. Mostly I resist, but seeing Bitch, Ph.D's new layout made me want to play with CSS some more, so I've made a few minor changes. I've always disliked the clutter of all that techie stuff that's been scattered across the bottom of each entry, so to clean up the layout a little bit I've moved all of that into dropdown menus under the posting time (to the right, on the title bar for each article).

I like it, but so far I've only tested it in Safari (looks good), Firefox (looks the same), and Explorer (dropdowns don't work, and the layout gets a little weird, but it's readable…and I'm sorry, but I'm not going to worry about making things look pretty for POS MSIE). Let me know if there are horrible glitches.

Trackback url: http://pharyngula.org/index/trackback/2624/0WQgU0qz/

Comments:

#32724: Johnny Vector — 07/24 at 01:00 AM
Well it's cleaner, but having to scrub over unadorned text elements to find out that they're actually nav links fills me with rage. Grrr! Argh!

How about a little downward-pointing triangle to indicate there's a menu there?

And yes, this is my first post here. Now you know what it takes to un-lurk the likes of me.

#32725: bitchphd — 07/24 at 01:04 AM
I agree. It's clean and I like the pull down menus, but something needs to indicate that they're there.

#32729: — 07/24 at 04:58 AM
That is neat and tidy. And helped me rediscover pirate mode! ARRRR!

(Hm. After previewing I still have to click back to re-submit posts or I get an error about entering the word at the bottom. But I be in a jaunty mood and take it in one legged stride.)

-Schmitt.

#32731: decrepitoldfool — 07/24 at 05:04 AM
Clean=nice, but it's a little Mystery-Meat Navigation

#32735: Richard Carter — 07/24 at 06:40 AM
I don't like it: it's non-standard, not intuitive, confusing, and you are ignoring your IE readers.

...And I still haven't worked out how to get a permalink for a particular item.

It might be less confusing if you labelled it 'meta' or 'info' or something like that and included the time in the dropdown (along with an obvious permalink) - but that won't cure the IE problem.

#32737: PZ Myers — 07/24 at 07:15 AM
I was thinking myself of putting in a little triangle last night. It will magically appear sometime today.

Changing the name to "info" might work, too...I'm just playing on the strange convention that has developed in much blogware that the posting time is a link. The permalink is here: it's the post title.

And I'm not ignoring IE readers: I made sure everything was still legible to them. I just want to stop designing for the lowest common denominator when that denominator is so incredibly freaking low.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#32738: Johnny Vector — 07/24 at 07:53 AM
Gah! No! Triangle pointing wrong way! You've made it a disclosure triangle, but it's a popup menu. The triangle should be pointing downward, to indicate yummy yummy menuness.

In times like these, you have to ask yourself, WWJD?

(What Would Jakob Do?)

#32739: PZ Myers — 07/24 at 08:19 AM
OK, OK...I've also got a downward pointing triangle in stock. I'll fix it.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#32740: Kathleen Lowrey — 07/24 at 09:35 AM
do what you will but:
Keep the animal icons! Keep the animal icons! Keep the animal icons!
;)

#32741: — 07/24 at 09:57 AM
Myself, I loved the translucent blue embryoid backdrops, and mourned when they went away.

#32742: Mandos — 07/24 at 10:04 AM
But does it work in lynx?

...Actually, interestingly enough, it does. Good work.

#32746: — 07/24 at 10:47 AM
I'm using IE (firefox is bugged right now) and hte drop down does not work, unfortunate but within a few days I'll get firefox working again.

One suggestion, on the blog subject ahead of this one you have the box for tangled bank

move it within the grey bar you have above all your subjects. It might just help fill it up alittle better, because most of it is empty.

-----
"As with all of ID, the important thing is first to have the concept. Production can then follow as a matter of course.” -Dembski

#32752: Jaquandor — 07/24 at 12:39 PM
I like it. It's a lot easier to find your permalinks now that they've been liberated from this long line of icons and whatnot in miniscule type at the end of each post.

#32788: — 07/24 at 06:14 PM
FWIW, I usually use Explorer, due to having only OS9 at home, and some seemingly unresolvable firewall issues at work. Not that I look at Pharyngula while I'm supposed to be working, of course....

So... nah, I'm not that impressed with the redesign. Sorry.

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Saturday, July 23, 2005

Scratching an itch, and I hope not breaking anything

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