Now that the design of my site is finished (as of last month), I want to take a look at what I have actually changed and managed to construct, my achievements with the site and what I have learned.
New features
The new design
During version 1 of my site (circa April 2010 - Dec 2012) I had no real theme to my site. It became a cluttered collection of pages using a cheap template offered to me by my host.
In December 2012 I had a thought to redesign my page by the end of January 2013. By January 2013 version 2.0 was released. It had barely any real CSS involved in it, in fact most was included in the pages. In April 2013 I rebuilt my blog using Word Press and then added my community blog We Blog as well. By the end of May 2013 version 2.2 was released and there was new PHP and MySQL content powering the pages.
As much as it does not seem that long ago it was that bad, in June 2013 the redesign started again and by 4th of July 2013 version 3.0 was released. It now featured HTML5 and CSS3. The site was built with PHP and DHTML that made the site more dynamic. I made the site in to my own CMS (content management system) that made updating sections of it much easier. I was very impressed with how it turned out. Just last month, version 3.1 was released which featured so many new features over 3.0 such as the new menu which allows me to put many different sections and pages on my site without cluttering the menu and added a new fresh design to a few of the older designs using PHP. I no longer need to update the page when I add a new article, review or tutorial as it is all done by PHP. I now have my own liveblog, gallery and a special way of updating my site.
The gallery
Whilst I was building my site, I added a photo gallery for my photos. This one was attractive and was actually built by my host. But by version 3.0 I was thinking about replacing it with my own custom gallery and by version 3.1 when I released the new design I launched my new gallery as well. The gallery is constructed with the server side language PHP. PHP builds up the page using the images on the server already. I can create an album or section within an album which gives more detailed information about a photo. For instance, in the album Gismo and Petro, you can see there are two sections; namely Gismo and Petro, and they are divided automatically by the PHP which generates the site. Of course, this would be demanding on the server, so I developed JCATCH, which is my own caching system for PHP. It assesses the cached content to check if it needs updated and updates it or throws the user the cached version.
Liveblog
An easy to update blog that I can post like on Twitter. It will automatically update with the latest news when I post. I will be using this to cover live events, as I have been invited to a few events (Nintendo and a few other software companies in the past).
CMS
Content Management Systems are designed to make it easier to put information on a site. I have built my site to make it as flexible as possible. If I want to upload a new review, all I do is open my CMS application (I built it) and give it a HTML file and any images or other content and all the rest is done for me. The CMS is called BlackCat, to go alongside BlackRabbit.
What I have learned
JavaScript
I learned quite a lot of JavaScript when creating this website. In fact, I have made my own library on my site of JavaScript that allows me to easily reuse it for other sites. The JavaScript on my website is used for many things. One of the most important is the menu. I did not however, write the menu. The menu is by MenuCool.com. I did however write the code that maximizes the page and sorts the menu for different user agents. I also have managed many other smaller JavaScript uses through out the site that make the site the way it is.
CSS3
The site is full CSS3 and has many CSS3 features in it. This was something I learned to the full from no knowledge of CSS at all within about one week. Once I got the hang of CSS the site was just to be built (this was the starting point, after all).
HTML5
HTML5 is the new standard of HTML and it really is fantastic for producing sites. No more of the end tags for instance with images (that's XHTML only) but more focus on the requirements such as alt on images which means you never forget it. My site is now fully HTML5 which means that I can easily embed video into it without the need for making some crazy video plugin or using something like the QuickTime plugin.
What is still to be done
I have made a good design with some features I had only dreamed of before. This year I will be focusing on what matters on my site, content. On top of that, BlackRabbit will be getting a redesign and version 2 will be fully released by the end of the year. If you are unsure on what BlackRabbit is, I will be producing an article for my website that neatly describes its purpose and functions.
Some software pages are still not complete and will be undergoing work this month. I hope to have a preview of every piece of software by the start of November.
What I have achieved
I hope that you would agree with me in saying that I managed to achieve a nice website that looks smart and finished. If not, please do say what you do not like about my site and what you do like as a comment below. Feedback from my site has an average of 7/10 so somethings must be missing (I do realise that a few pages are inconsistent since they use the version 2.0 edition of my website).
If you want to quickly fill in the feedback survey, just click here. If you wish to contact me about my site and feel that you have interesting feedback, you can contact me using the sites contact form.
