Introducing Version 8
First off I hope you all had a great Christmas. I had a wonderfully festive week (yes a full week, almost) away from the computer screen, hence why everything's been quiet around here recently. I didn't miss checking my mailbox for spam one bit!
That said I'd like to introduce you to the newest version of this site, version #8. It has been in development for a couple of months now - in typical obsessive fashion I started work on it shortly after version 7 came out. The changes aren't drastic, but I reckon they give the site more character.
Speech Bubble
First off the most obvious addition - the speech bubble. This welcomes first-time visitors to the site and also makes a decidedly nifty alternative to the standard tooltip. It provides information on links, abbreviations, acronyms and images. Novelty perhaps, but it's just a blog, so what the hell!
Comment Preview
After version 3 or 4 or whichever version it was I removed the live comment preview. At that point I simply didn't have the time to rebuild it how I wanted. Looking back at it now this was an error in judgement on my behalf because comment previews are an important feature that I often utilise when I read and comment on other folk's blogs. Anyway, it's rebuilt now so that's another weight off my shoulders.
More Polished
Version #7 was the first outing for the sunflower design and while at the time I saw small room for improvements here and there I didn't act on it simply because I knew the predictable post-production tweaking would pick them up (what's the fun in a website with no imperfections, eh?). It's likely you will not spot immediate differences unless you compare the two versions back to back.
Faster Loading
No longer do my titles render using sIFR. The decision to remove the technique was not made because of my dislike for the finished product (which I was very happy with), but because the loading times were more than I'd have liked. This is not the fault of sIFR, but a combination of factors relating to the heavy usage of Javascript on this site already. Instead I have returned back to standard image replacement techniques. I will be discussing this decision in greater detail shortly after I recover from my New Year's Day hangover.
And that's it. As always feel free to leave comments, hate mail, whatever takes you're fancy. So I understand Simon Kitson and Stu Hall will soon be releasing their new blog redesigns too, which I'm looking forwards to. And if you haven't checked them out already then take a look at the fine redesigns made by Rik, Jen, Lorissa and Elessar.
Happy new year, folks! :)
02/04/2007 
8 Comment(s)
On 29/12/2006 Andrew said:
I am just about to start using SIFR, so I am slightly concerned about your note on loading speed. How much too slow was it for your liking?
On 29/12/2006 Andrew said:
I have just moused over a few things a noticed the full power of the speech bubble. That's nice.
Have you found anyone thinking they need to click on it to access the link?
On 29/12/2006 Owen said:
Happy New Year Steve!
I love the speech bubble, it really adds a nice personal touch to the site. Looking good mate, I may start thinking about a redesign myself. Just got to find some time...
On 29/12/2006 Jen said:
Nice job on the bubbles, very nice indeed.
On 29/12/2006 Steve Tucker said:
@Andrew: I dont see why anyone would feel they have to click on the speech bubble. But then again its an original idea so who knows! Did you?
Regarding the loading times the headings generally took about a second (after the rest of the site had loaded) so it's nothing all that bad by any means. I've just been looking into alternate techniques. Take a look at the previous version:
version7.stevetucker.co.uk
to see sIFR in action, and dont let me put you off using it - it's a fantastic tool. I'm just painfully neurotic!
@Owen: Cheers mate - The personal touch was my goal. I'll look forwards to that redesign of yours!
@Jen: Again thanks, it's nice to hear positive feedback about new iteas :)
On 29/12/2006 Steve Tucker said:
@Andrew: Further to my last comment I use a lot of javascript on this site. It all has to be loaded and sIFR simply has to wait in the queue, so to speak. On a site like yours, without much, if any other javascript sIFR would load much faster than here.
On 29/12/2006 Elessar said:
Looks great! Its the little touches such as the speech bubble and live preview that makes blogs stand out.
Also, thanks for the mentioning at the bottom of the post, but i simply take any wordpress theme and make any modifications needed to fit my needs/wants :)
On 29/12/2006 kitsimons said:
The speech bubble is very nice - a practical novelty is rare these days ;-)
Good job Mr T.
On 30/12/2006 Steve Tucker said:
Thanks guys. Good to recieve the feedback :)