Sticky Ideas

[alaterdate]

So, I only planned to code the layout of my new main page style for this month, but I've gotten so into working on my website since I started. It's the single thing that's been dominating my free time. Thinking about my website, reading about websites, searching for cool websites, studying websites. I dreamt about coding my website the other night!

There's something interesting about being obsessed with one or two hobbies each month. And definitely a window into how my mind operates. Last month it was crochet and reading, and I did tons of that (to the detriment of other things I had on my list?). Now it's website time. (I'll have to factor this into my goals next month lol.)

I've made great progress so far on my website even if the going has been rough in some parts lol. Been doing a bit of complaining on tumblr lmao. The emotional disparity between the taxing annoyance of coding and the elation of seeing the finished page is criminal. It's downright abusive, toxic! Lol.

I do not like coding for mobile phone screens! I loathe the part where I go in and check the responsiveness, but am ecstatic when it actually works and looks the exact way I want it to on those little screens. There is a sacrifice to form over function for me because of it. I would not be so frustrated with flex boxes if I wasn't overthinking about the arrangement for mobile screens. It can certainly look good, but I hate having to compromise my design for that responsiveness. I put things a certain way and then I find that I just cannot get it to then look good to my standards on mobile. It could be a fault with my experience and skill level, but it's still annoying. I'm thinking about scroll boxes (don't like them on mobile), horizontal scrolling (that tiny little horizontal scroll you can get on pages? Hate it!), collapsible boxes, spacing so that you can easily click things, navigation (I LOVE sticky nav, but on mobile it's like "no"), flex direction (spreads are ruined. How do I want to order information?), links to content inside the page. Okay, I don't want hamburger menus, I just don't. I don't want to design my site for phones, but I do want it to work on phones. I'm most likely being very picky, but I want things the way I like them. And I just wanted to do a little venting about it lol.

So far I've got the main page's basic CSS frame done. I'm just tweaking colors and stylistic design (border radius 10px or 15px 🤔 etc.). I went in and pretty much recoded pages I told myself I wasn't going to recode. There was some egregious stuff in there! One page's entire navigation link set was just in a single list item tag. ???. I also did a lot more code commenting and marked delineation so I know easily where sections begin and why something is where it is. Went in and prettied up some pages too. You can never be too fussed with formatting.
Right now I'm designing a layout for my book reviews, I decided I am going to put them up on my website. I might even make them their own separate website because some irl people expressed interest in them and I am not linking them anywhere near my fanfic. I spent pretty much all day working on the layout and it took a long time, but it was FUN and I'm pretty happy with how the results are shaping up.

Comments

[kalloway]

I'm the same way. I go through blocks of a lot of reading or a lot of gaming or a lot of whatever.

I do not like coding for mobile phone screens!

Same. I'm aiming for usable, but there are just so many facets for mobile that I feel like nothing is going to work for everything, or at least nothing that I can personally do. Because if it looks good on desktop and good enough on my phone it might still do weird things on a tablet or some random connected device. Smart fridge? Wi-fi shower? I still remember the first time I saw my old website on PSP/DS and thinking well, it was usable that's good, whew, lol.

I'm gonna try to get some archiving done this week. We'll see if I actually manage. (It's cool and rainy and gloomy and I mostly just want to crawl in bed...)

[alaterdate]

Mobile users will just have to make do with a little scrolling and zooming. They have it too easy these days!
Omg I remember using the web on my PSP 😂 If I wanted to see something it was worth the hassle.

Speaking of those times, the website I used to read fic on was adult fanfiction dot net. Before they changed to dot org I had gone back there to look at it and I was amazed how we survived back then lmao.

I got content I gotta slap into some html pages too, Which can be daunting on its own cuz I hate the way the files look so cluttered. Hope you can get some archiving done!
The weather's still hot over here on the west coast for another couple weeks at least. Rainy days are the best to stay cozy in bed...~

[kalloway]

I also remember the first time I saw my website on a smartphone! A friend at a convention had one and I cautiously asked, lol. Again, good enough! But I also have been online long enough to remember the wave of advice aimed at making websites look good on WebTV because that was going to be the future. (I actually did meet someone with a WebTV once, at uni. That was pre-current-hobbies though.)

Basically, there's just no way to design for every possibility. ^^;;

I think we just knew that websites weren't always going to display right? And knew how to get around the jankiness? IDK. There's still something comforting about finding an old-web site and knowing I'll just have to keep returning to the home page, that's fine...

[anneapocalypse]

Sounds like fun! I knew some website coding in the long ago times but I can only imagine how out of date that knowledge is now, and the idea of building a site from scratch is intimidating. Especially the responsive design aspect! Glad it's going well overall, and wish you luck with the rest!

[alaterdate]

Thank you! Creating it from scratch has been very time consuming, but the more I started to understand Flexboxes the more fun I was having with it. I just started learning about the CSS Grid feature too. There's certainly a lot 😵‍💫
But it's been fun for sure 😊