Luz Cannon.com Relaunch

August 31, 2006

So, here it is, the new design. I’m pretty proud of it, I’d say it’s a big improvement from the last design. Well, if nothing else it’s more colorful…

I’m not going to say much about it, just that I think it’s a step in the right direction. I realize that there are probably some things about it that could be improved upon and some things that will probably change within the next little while. That being said, I’m going to put it live and see how it does.

It’s XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.0, both valid if you’re into that sort of thing. Probably the technical aspect I’m most proud of is the PHP driven delivery of CSS. If you visit the site regularly you’ll notice the site will change at various times of the day.

Right now there are three themes, dawn, noon and dusk. Even with the specific names it should probably be noted that they don’t change exactly at those times of day and they stay around longer than they should. I have a few ideas as to how the themes should be delivered but I’m not going to put that into action quite yet. Before I do anything else about them I need to get out and take more suitable photos.

The hardest decision, besides the photographical elements of the site, was how to deliver the transparent content. If you’ve been around web design for awhile and have dealt with PNG’s and GIF’s you probably know the issues behind transparency and browser compatibility.

To combat the ill browser effects of reading alpha transparency driven PNG’s I wrote some PHP that will determine browser type and drop in JPG’s and GIF’s as necessary. So, those of you using Firefox, Safari, IE 7, Camino, Opera or Shiira 2 should notice the transparency and drop shadowing. If you’re using IE 4, 5 or 6 you’ll hopefully not see much of a difference even though the graphics are being delivered in a different form and extension. (i.e.. JPG versus transparent PNG)

Now, some of you might be thinking that’s a weak way to deal with the problem of transparency since Microsoft has given us a filter to deliver PNG’s in transparent mode. That’s fine. I just didn’t like adding inline styles to the page and using a bunch of hacks, it makes my life more difficult in the long run if I ever decide to change things. Well, I guess it’s all in how you look at it in this particular case.

Also worth noting, A special thanks to my wife for enduring hours and hours of questions like “do you think the extra 2 pixel border makes my photos look fat?” and “Do you like #000000 or #111111?” She really helped push me in the right direction as far as design goes, probably more than I would have done on my own. In short, she wouldn’t let me settle, and that’s what I needed.

In any event, this is the site. Hope you enjoy it, any feedback would be appreciated.

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