Sunday, July 06, 2008

Blog Tune Up

As you can probably tell, we've been tinkering under the hood a little bit during this long holiday weekend.

There... Already needed a face lift, so we're in the process of experimenting with a few designs and layouts over the next few weeks. The idea is to brighten things up, and organize our information a little bit better to make the site easier to use and more visually appealing for all of our fine readers.


It's a work in progress, but please let us know what you think. Even if you hate it.

We've saved the old template, just in case.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

well you know I love it, but your not working hard enough Dp, work harder!
just joking I know you'll get me back for that, have a great wk

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

looks good so far

Anonymous said...

TGB - You're a slave driver, but glad you like the site so far.

Torrance - thanks for the feedback. Please keep it coming as we progress with this redesign. I'm finding myself doing a lot of code hacking to get Blogger to work like I want it, but we'll get there.

Anonymous said...

Format and pictures can make a big difference. Work at it until you find what works for you. This is nice and bright. Maybe other ideas will work as well. Though it is your ongoing solid content that will matter most.

Unknown said...

I like your new redesign. Well done! Is this a paid template or one that is readily available on blogspot?

DP said...

Texas Liberal - Thanks for the feedback. It's definitely a work in progress, and I'm trying to keep the content at a quality level, which sometimes means not posting!

Villager - Thanks for your feedback too, I'm glad you like it. The template is not a blogger template but a wordpress one modified for blogger. I found the basic design at www.eblogtemplates.com and did the additional code hacks myself (with some help from various sites on the web).

Anonymous said...

I like the change, Sugar. I might get to missing the old format if you get much fancier, but that's just being selfish on my part. I used to love hitting your site first thing of a morning because unlike my old site with all the bells and whistles and flashing lights, your place was calm and serene and without a lot of distractions for the eyes.

I think Corey went overboard with adding widgets and plug-ins for us. He was having so much fun learning to do all that for the site that I couldn't bring myself to tell him that it was getting to be toooo much. heh.

But, in the end... it's all about content and I'd still visit this site no matter what extras you add.

Mick

DP said...

Hey Mick - Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate your take on this. I think I understand how Corey got caught up in widget-mania. The more you learn the more you want to do!

This is a work in progress, and I definitely don't won't the content to get lost among the clutter.

SjP said...

Really like the new design! Didn't know you could hack wordpress for blogspot. Cause you can do so much more it seems with wp. Looks great!

DP said...

Hey SjP! Thanks for the feedback. I didn't really know there were so many modified templates out there either, but there are. I have a wordpress site for this blog that I use as a backup. I was going to make the switch completely until I started the redesign and figured out it wasn't really necessary. Yet.

msladyDeborah said...

It looks good. I am trying to learn how to create a better looking site myself.

I have a blog on WP. It is my mental playground. In due time I will have to work towards this type of effort.

Anonymous said...

Love the new layout!

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