mirror of
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56 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
56 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
+++
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title = "New Design 2020"
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date = 2020-01-27T15:42:29+11:00
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# [extra]
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# updated = 2019-07-01T22:40:53+10:00
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+++
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It's been more than 10 years since I started working on [the previous design]
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for this website 😅. This feels like a good point to come up with a one!
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<!-- more -->
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The previous design served me well. The uncluttered design focussed on text was
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fast and responsive. It saw the introduction of new devices like iPad and a
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gradual increase in mobile display size without needing updating. The new
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design aims to retain these features while giving it a lighter, more modern
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feel.
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Inspired by [Chris Krycho] and [Shaun Inman] I've taken to versioning the
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website instead of attempting to port all the existing content over to the new
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technology. This makes the redesign more of a clean slate and leaves old posts
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appearing how the did when originally posted. The new site is hosted under the
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`/v2/` prefix. This allows all existing pages to stay where they are and
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retains the `www.wezm.net` domain. Compared to using a sub-domain it doesn't
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mess with DNS or search ranking. I have put redirects in place to direct the
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RSS feeds from the previous version to the new feed.
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The new design uses the [Manrope] variable font for all text. Variable fonts
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are a fairly recent addition to the web platform but they have good support
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from fairly recent versions of all modern browsers and operating systems. On
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older browsers/operating systems the layout will fall back to a sans-serif font.
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Webfonts generally come with a non-trivial download cost. However, Manrope is
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108kB and being a variable font that includes all weights between 200 and 800,
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as well as italic!
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Technology wise, the previous site was built with [Nanoc], a Ruby static site
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compiler. I've been very happy with Nanoc over the years but as my programming
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interests have shifted away from Ruby to Rust I've wanted to try a Rust static
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site compiler. I'm now using [Zola]. Zola is perhaps not quite as flexible as
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Nanoc but I've been able to achieve everything I wanted to with it. It's super
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fast and has nice conveniences like live-reload when editing content. Being a
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single file native binary also makes installation a breeze — no need to juggle
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Ruby versions or install gems.
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Finally, I've now made [the repository][repo] that the site is generated from
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public. This is to allow others to see how the site is built and permit
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corrections/fixes via issue or pull request.
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[Chris Krycho]: https://v4.chriskrycho.com/2019/my-final-round-of-url-rewrites-ever.html
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[Shaun Inman]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160422175043/http://shauninman.com/archive/2006/12/04/the_original_heap
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[Nanoc]: https://nanoc.ws/
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[the previous design]: https://www.wezm.net/technical/2010/07/new-design/
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[Manrope]: https://manropefont.com/
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[Zola]: https://www.getzola.org/
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[repo]: https://github.com/wezm/wezm.net
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