----- 
permalink: h3rald-71
filters_pre: 
- redcloth
title: Introducing H3RALD.com v7.1
date: 2008-10-27 05:29:00 +01:00
tags: 
- website
- rails
type: article
-----
I finally decided to redesign my web site. About 2 years passed since last time and I think this was long overdue: a lot of people liked the black _Nitefall_ theme, but a lot of people found a bit too dark for their liking.

I decided to go for something more -boring- traditional this time: white background and only black header and footer. I think the new design improves the overall readability of the site, also because this time I kept thing simple:

* No more sidebars – Who needs them anyway? Who wants to see my "delicious bookmarks":http://www.delicious.com/h3rald on _every single page_? Who wants to see that annoying Web 2.0-ish tag cloud listing all the tags I've ever used from 2006 onwards? I suddently realized that the right column was nothing more than wasted space, so I removed it altogether.
* No more differentiation between _articles_ and _blog posts_ – As a matter of fact, I'm not posting little pointless tidbits everyday, it's more likely just once a week or even once a month. When I post though, I tend to make it worthwhile both for me and the readers by writing about something which may interest people, for a change. In short: this may not be a "traditional blog" anymore, just a publishing platform for my articles.
* No more "previews" – From now on, only the title of each articles is displayed in the home page, in the archives and even when searching. If you want to read an article, all you have to do is click on its title. No more "Read More" links.
* Just three main pages: "Home":/, "Archives":/archives, and "About":/about. Although there may be some more for special projects, at some point.
* Use the "Archives":/archives to find my articles. There you'll find a list of the 20 most used tags, a search form, and a timeline listing _all_ my articles from 2006 onwards.
* Use the tiny palette on the left side of each page to perform common actions like bookmarking, scroll up and down, etc. You can read more about it on the "About":/about page.

I hope you like the new design, or at least I hope it makes my articles more readable. However, I'm open to suggestions, as usual.

P.S.: I dropped with Internet Explorer 6 compatibility According to my stats, less than 5% of my visitors use it, so it's not worth the extra hassle.