found_drama

As [tag]Firefox[/tag], [tag]Camino[/tag], and [tag]Mozilla[/tag] basically use the same HTML rendering engine, that means IE is only 6% more of the audience. PNGs stay.

• Creating Themes (WordPress Codex)
  (tags: webdev wordpress)
• Theme Development « WordPress Codex
  (tags: webdev wordpress reference)
• WordPress cheat sheet (PNG)
  (tags: wordpress reference)
• Cascading Style Cheatsheet
  (tags: CSS reference)
• Ultimate Tag Warrior
  by/via Neato: robust and thorough tagging plug-in for your WordPress folksonomy needs…
  (tags: wordpress blog tags tagging reference)
• Extended Live Archive
  by/via Sons Of Skadi: super cool AJAX method for browsing WordPress archives
  (tags: blog ajax wordpress)
• SparkStats
  by/via SeanMcb.com: neat recent post visualization plug-in for WordPress (decorate your sidebar)
  (tags: blog wordpress visualization)
• WpLicense
  WordPress plug-in for adding CC license(s) to your blog
  (tags: wordpress blog CreativeCommons)
• Find a Park
  via National Park Service website (suite!)
  (tags: outdoors travel kayaking hiking camping reference)

Earlier today we embarked on a little upgrade here at F_D. We ditched our old [tag]Kubrick[/tag] bastardization (ne “Mario”) and upgraded the front-end to use the next-gen, deliciously [tag]AJAX[/tag]-y [tag]K2[/tag] framework. From there, we installed a slew of supporting plug-ins and tweaked the look-and-feel until we had achieved an approximation of our wireframe from yesterday. We have dubbed this skin “[tag]Pemulis[/tag]“. (Bonus points if you know where that comes from.)

So what’s the pay-off?

• Improved sidebar. From the admin side, it’s more easily maintainable/customizable through the SBM plug-in. On the user/front-end of things: better search, better highlighting of recent content, and more.
• More compatible styles. The del.icio.us link dumps should look right on the first hit now (for example). A wider content region gives us a little more wiggle room, too.
• Better tagging. We discovered Ultimate Tag Warrior (nice) which happens to be compatible with my old/existing tagging from SimpleTags (very very nice).
• Improved archives. We now have a dedicated Archives page that takes advantage of the Extended Live Archive plug-in for Chronology (time-based archives), Taxonomy (category-based archives), and Folksonomy (tags baby! - - but these still seem to work a little strangely). And the “rolling archives” feature built right onto the homepage gives instant, “no refresh required” access to all prior posts.
• Refreshed look. Our Pemulis skin on top of the K2 framework gives us a cleaner, more fluid look-and-feel with enhanced features.

So why now? Because I was sick this weekend. And it was raining anyway. And IE7 came out so (in theory) all of my old [tag]PNG[/tag] woes should be a thing of the past anyway. And I tipped over 1,000 photos in Flickr. And our 1 year anniversary of switching to [tag]WordPress[/tag] was coming up anyway. And/but we’ll be busy with NaNoWriMo next month. And what do you care “why now” anyway?

Enjoy. (And chime in if you see anything broken or if you like and/or hate the new look!)

currently playing: Portishead “Only You”

Considering a few things (i.e., IE7’s release, tipping over 1000 pictures on Flickr, the approaching anniversary of our original WordPress switch), we’ve decided to give the site a new look and feel. We’re going to be basing it on the K2 theme framework and we’ve got the wireframe done (now for the graphics, CSS, and code…) Why not tie in the new look with the one year anniversary? Because we’ll be in the midst of NaNoWriMo, baby…

Anyway, don’t mind the dust (read: “frequently changing themes and layouts”), we’ll be back in full shortly.