News: More Responsive

It has been a little over a year since this site has had a redesign, save for some minor font tweaks and changing our advertising service. We soft-launched the new version this weekend, which features much of the same in terms of content, but is a complete rewrite from the past version.

Ever since we started using WordPress back in 2006, we wanted to tailor the site to take advantage of the current trends of the Web, while making sure we weren’t adding frivolous features and distractions. That version gave way to a simpler and cleaner layout in May 2007. We kept that version the longest, keeping it through many site changes, the addition of podcasts, and widening the content area. That version morphed into the prior version, which launched in August 2011.

Although that layout was great for our needs, it only looked good on a desktop browser or highly-zoomed mobile browser. There were a few minor annoyances, such as a double-tap cutting off the edges of paragraphs, or headlines being smaller than the body text. Quite a bit of these issues were fixed as they were discovered, but we wanted to completely redesign the site to look the best it can on any screen.

Now, the site features a responsive design, based simply on the width of your browser. Most desktop and landscape iPad visitors will see a two-column design, while portrait iPad, landscape iPhone, and the rest of desktop visitors will see a one-column view with navigation across the top. Finally, those viewing the site on portrait iPhones and other mobile decides should see the same one-column layout with the navigation stacked. Some extra navigation goes away depending on the size of the screen, like the list of recent posts and featured posts. We tried to avoid things that we hate when browsing the Web on an iPhone, such as special mobile addresses (terrible for sharing links) and extremely dumbed-down design (we have a full-blown Safari rendering engine for a reason). Instead, we simply made the content more viewable on a tall, narrow display and save you the trouble of zooming.

Just as Apple billed Mac OS X Snow Leopard as having no new features, but full of under-the-hood improvements, this update features the same content you’re used to, with only slight tweaks to its actual presentation. The rest is behind-the-scenes, making the user experience better.

We’ve tried to check everything we can, but there inevitably will be some bugs to work out. If you come across anything that seems especially weird, let us know!