You know that "to do" list we mentally keep of things to bang off as soon as other stuff dies down? I keep one, and it had a list of things to do to this web site as soon as other projects wrapped up. This weekend, I finally found the time to complete everything on my torontomike.com "to do" list.
One thing I've been meaning to do for a while is clean up the way navigation is handled once you're in the Archives. For example, if someone is viewing the entries from March 2004, I wanted it to be simple to visit the preceding or following months. Sure, the main menu has links for the home page and aforementioned Archives, but I've always envisioned a horizontal band along the bottom above the copyright information. I've now done just that.
When I recently edited the CSS to change his site from navy blue to this new greenish blue, I quickly realized that the "more" button I had beneath the entries shortcuts on the right hand side wouldn't change because it was an image. I made a note to myself to delete the image and replace it with something utilizing my CSS so when I change the colour scheme I also change that button. Done, and done!
At the top of all the archived news pages there was a heading indicating what month of archives you were looking at followed by a "To visit recent blog entries click here" statement. It was totally redundant and therefore unnecessary so I blew it away. I mean, c'mon... there's a link to the home page of the blog at the top of every single page.
Finally, I got rid of all back arrows that appeared on the bottom of every page. This was just an image of a blue arrow pointing to the left that, when clicked, invoked a javascript that read the previous page in your browser's history. It died for several reason. It was an image and therefore hard coded to be blue, it was a javascript and I'm simplifying the code wherever possible and it's unnecessary. If you want to go backwards in your browser, you've probably got an arrow in your browser's toolbar and if you don't you can click ALT + back arrow on your keyboard. It's your web and you're in control.
Otherwise, I just did some spring cleaning in September repairing broken links, ensuring each page validates, fixing typos and cleaning the source code. Exciting stuff like that.
Before you mutter to yourself that this was one boring entry, remember, these notes are really here for my benefit so I know what I changed and when I changed it. I learned long ago that the target audience for these notes and ramblings is yours truly. It certainly works as my recent note to self has reminded me that I have a new "Curb Your Enthusiasm" to enjoy tonight. Giddy-up!
