I Present To You… AEN DIRECT V2!
After 2 months from my last announcement about V2, it is finally finished.
AEN DIRECT now runs on WordPress 2.2 “Getz”, the latest version and spots a new theme design. The code is now much cleaner and optimized for fast loading. The number of Javascript called is also reduced and their functionalities replaced by better alternatives or removed if it is unnecessary. Existing CSS and Javascript are compressed with Icey > CSS Compressor and JS Min respectively to bring down the overall document size.
Some new features you might like.
Site Navigation
The top navigation now allows you to do much more, with a customized suckerfish drop-down menu. Thanks to the original code from HTML Dog.
Search
It was not available in V1 but I guess it is important and should be available to users.
Creative Commons
Article texts are now licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. You can quote and reuse my text if you want as long as you credit me and allow others to copy your derivative work as well. More information regarding copyright here.
Cleanup
No more category listings. It’s all in the navigation now. No more tag cloud as well. It isn’t used much and it adds to the visual clutter without contributing much.
Improved Typography and Legibility
Text is now larger and links are now in a dark teal color so the site doesn’t strain your eyes. sIFR Headings in Kepler Std Medium Subhead font differentiates the headings from the rest of the text.
New permalinks structure
The permalink structure has been change from /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/ to /%category%/%postname%/. No more lengthy date-based URLs which isn’t search-engine friendly nor user-friendly. With the help of the Permalinks Migration Plugin, I was able to apply 301 Permanent Redirects to old urls so my old search engine listings will still be valid.
WP-Cache
WP-Cache is an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make your site much faster and responsive. It works by caching Worpress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests directly from the file rather than loading and compiling the whole PHP code and then building the page from the database. WP-Cache allows to serve hundred of times more pages per second, and to reduce the response time from several tenths of seconds to less than a millisecond.
Together with the improvements in WordPress 2.2, I hope this redesign and update will make browsing AEN DIRECT a better experience for you.
Do you like the new design?
old design (version 1)
new design (version 2)
UPDATE
AEN DIRECT is showing up on CSS Vault, one of the CSS Galleries I always wanted to get into.
Thanks to The Best Designs and CSS Based for showcasing my new design.
Posting comment, please wait…
Sicarii on Jun 18, 07 – 4:23 am
Very nice, mate.
Congratulations on the revamp!
Would be great if you release this as a Wordpress theme. :-)
Mark on Jun 18, 07 – 8:45 am
Hi there,
I’m getting a couple of javascript errors viewing this site using IE6 though so I think some debugging is in order.
Aen on Jun 18, 07 – 10:14 am
Seems like a problem with the Ajax Comments plugin. I’ve disabled the plugin while I find something better. Thanks for the heads up.
Aen on Jun 18, 07 – 12:00 pm
Fixed! Using code from another source http://zeo.unic.net.my/2005/12/25/wordpress-ajax-commenting-revisited/
No more javascript errors.
Aen on Jun 18, 07 – 1:02 pm
@Sicari: I’ll consider this possibility but like most custom themes, my theme depends heavily on plugins and hardcoding (e.g. the navigation), I doubt it will be release as a theme, unless it is reworked.
flukux on Jun 18, 07 – 11:16 pm
clap.. clap … clap…
Bravo !!
:)
Aen on Jun 18, 07 – 11:22 pm
Thanks flukux! *Bows*
Sicarii on Jun 23, 07 – 3:34 pm
No biggie, Aen.
It’d be great if you do; if not, it’s still a great design, hey!
Great work on Ver 2.0, though personally I prefer a white background.
Aen on Jun 23, 07 – 5:31 pm
I find the white background glaring especially on a Mac so based on personal experience I feel that dark grey text on light grey background is much easier to read than plain black and white. In version 1 it was #000000 on #FAFAFA. In version 2 I have tweaked it a little to #555555 on #F5F5F5, along with an increase in text size from 11px to 1.2em of 62.5% (12px) and more leading for more breathing space.
I’ve seen article about green text on yellow background = most readable, which I don’t really agree with. Nothing is readable when the color combination is annoying. Haha!
Sicarii on Jun 23, 07 – 5:51 pm
Most read-able doesn’t mean best colors, lol!
This is ok by me, just stating my own preference.
On PCs, the colors don’t stand out as much, but I think I’ll know what you mean when I view your blog on my new MacBook Pro in future. :)
Aen on Jun 23, 07 – 6:14 pm
Hey good choice on getting a MacBook and… reading my blog! heh.
I have the 1.83GHz white model I bring to meetings and do presentations with, so far so good. The best thing about an Apple notebook if you can hop into hotspots faster than those on Windows. Like in Macdonald’s, I can need 2 clicks to connect (1. Click on Airport icon, 2. click on SSID and connect!). On WindowsXP it’s 4 clicks (1. Right-click wireless connection in system tray, 2. Click “View available wireless networks”, 3. Wait for Dialog to load and click on SSID, 4. Click “Connect”).
Airport rocks.