New site design unveiled
See, I knew you were quick! You noticed the new site design right away, didn’t you?
So I busted my butt the last couple of nights to get the design finished up and polished off a few browser quirks, and everything is now live.
The site is best viewed using Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome. If you are using Internet Explorer, I had to dummy down some of the design since various versions of IE didn’t support certain things (even the latest version of IE still doesn’t). The biggest difference you might notice is the calendar badge used by the blog entries is completely different and boring in IE 6.
If you’re still using Microsoft Internet Explorer, you really should switch to Firefox. It’s a better, more secure, less buggy, and just plain faster browser. You’ll notice the speed differences almost immediately. Ask anyone who uses it if you don’t trust your commish.
A few things I learned along the way:
- Firefox is still by far the best browser available in 2008. Safari and Chrome come in a close second. (Not too surprising since they are based on the same engine.) If you’re still using Internet Explorer, you’re still stuck in 1999. There’s a good reason that IE’s market share is dwindling.
- Firefox, Safari and Chrome all supported the latest technologies that I utilized, including alpha transparency in PNGs (think transparent GIFs x 1000). IE 7 kinda supports them but not fully, and IE 6 just sucks at it. That’s why I had to dummy down the fancy calendar badge. I also had to dummy down the schedule pop-ups cuz IE 7 has a PNG bug in it, but that’s not as noticeable.
- Firefox, Safari and Chrome all have fast javascript engines, which means all of my jQuery code runs fast. IE any version certainly does not, especially the easing animation in my navigation bar—it appears to jump and stutter. I also used jQuery for the hide/show option of eliminated players on the front page (new feature).
- IE 6 has a bug in it, where background images aren’t cached. Since I heavily used background images to make the site pretty, it would download the same image hundreds of times. Bad IE. I found a clunky fix for it, but it still may not work for everyone.
- CSS sprites are fun and are heavily utilized to reduce the number of images that needed to be downloaded. Haven’t used sprites since the early ’90s in the days of ANSI being pretty. Old is new again.
If you encounter any issues, let me know. I wasn’t able to test the design with every possible browser scenario.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Props to Hans, the first to notice I messed something up. I accidentally switched the Saints and Patriots logos. I’ll fix that when I get home tonight.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Where do you get all of the schedule data? Does NFL have an open API or do you need to type it in every week? Just curious.
November 15th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Like the new site Nice job bill. Only complaint is white background washes some of the content out.
November 17th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Matt,
No, I haven’t found a reliable API to get schedules and scores yet, so it’s still a manual process for me. Unless you know of anything.
Bob,
Yeah, but moving to a white background was one of the goals of the redesign. The black background was a little harsh for some people.
I assume you were referring to the green/red win/loss boxes being a little washed out. I couldn’t make the background too dark or else some of the logos where red is prominent get lost. I added a deeply saturated border to the boxes, hoping they’ll help them stand out more.