Got a bug up my ass over the weekend and started work on a consistant navigation for the whole site, not just the weblog. The main inspiration came from this nifty CSS tabs implementation that does rounded corners purely with CSS and no images (if you’re using Firebird). There are some things I’m not sure about yet… the white box over the background is only as large as content, which means that on the weblog homepage when the right-side column ends the white box does, too. (I’m sure there’s a way to fix this.. I just need to delve a little bit into what Matt H. is doing on his site).

I’m also not super-keen on the way that the subtabs are implemented. Right now they’re assigned an explicit top/left position to make them fall under the main tabs (see here for an example of this), but that makes me feel dirty. What if a user adjusts their font sizes? Everything will get thrown out of whack then. I’m sure there’s a way to have the

    subnav positioned relative to the parent container, but I haven’t figured it out yet. So, if you see weirdness, kindly refresh and hopefully it’ll get cleared up.

    I’m also not quite sure why I’m bothering to bring in other sections of the site, since this is the only place that really has fresh content. According to my stats however, it’s the TiVo hacking and Building a Climbing Wall pages that get the bulk of search traffic. So, I guess prettying up those sections might make people want to click around a bit more. More updates as the redesign progresses.

    Update 2003.08.05:

    • Picked a more muted background image.
    • Pat made the fun little “branding” image for the top bar.
    • Made the homepage redirect right to the weblog
    • Matt H. is using a table to make the heights of his columns appear even. Booo!!!