New Look, U Like?
If you've visited 23GT.net in the past you've probably noticed the new look it has starting today. For about three years now I've used Blogger's Dynamic Views template but it left me wanting. There were several shortcomings with it that you may or may not have noticed.
One pet peeve of mine was that you couldn't customize post width and that meant images looked small no matter how big your screen was. Since I'd been working to improve my photography this kind of irritated me.
A bigger irritation with images was that if you clicked on an image it would only display one enlarged image and not let you scroll to the next one or back to a previous one. This meant that you had to waste time clicking on individual images to see them in a bigger format if you wanted to.
Dynamic Views also greatly limited the gadgets you could have which meant you couldn't have useful stuff on the main page such as "Featured Post" display, a "Popular Posts" listing, or even an obvious "Subscribe" button to be notified of new posts.
I kept the old format for a long time despite the shortcomings because I couldn't find a layout that pleased my aesthetic sensibilities of keeping the blog looking clean and presentable while at the same time not having the default blog format of endless scrolling posts. Today though I had some time to kill while taking a sick day from work so I experimented with different layouts until I have this new one you're seeing.
I hope the new format is as pleasing to the eye as it is more user friendly. After a post you'll now see some suggested popular posts and on top there's now a "Subscribe" button to keep you updated. It's still a work in progress and there's still a few niggles I have to work out like the "Older Posts" only showing a few entries at a time but I'll be working on those issues in the future. If you have any comments about the new format please feel free to leave them below but I hope you find it presentable enough to keep coming back for new content!
One pet peeve of mine was that you couldn't customize post width and that meant images looked small no matter how big your screen was. Since I'd been working to improve my photography this kind of irritated me.
A bigger irritation with images was that if you clicked on an image it would only display one enlarged image and not let you scroll to the next one or back to a previous one. This meant that you had to waste time clicking on individual images to see them in a bigger format if you wanted to.
Dynamic Views also greatly limited the gadgets you could have which meant you couldn't have useful stuff on the main page such as "Featured Post" display, a "Popular Posts" listing, or even an obvious "Subscribe" button to be notified of new posts.
I kept the old format for a long time despite the shortcomings because I couldn't find a layout that pleased my aesthetic sensibilities of keeping the blog looking clean and presentable while at the same time not having the default blog format of endless scrolling posts. Today though I had some time to kill while taking a sick day from work so I experimented with different layouts until I have this new one you're seeing.
I hope the new format is as pleasing to the eye as it is more user friendly. After a post you'll now see some suggested popular posts and on top there's now a "Subscribe" button to keep you updated. It's still a work in progress and there's still a few niggles I have to work out like the "Older Posts" only showing a few entries at a time but I'll be working on those issues in the future. If you have any comments about the new format please feel free to leave them below but I hope you find it presentable enough to keep coming back for new content!
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