PBD v5.2
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Well, here it is - the final template for Pete Bailey Design. I tried to have a bit of fun with this design even though getting everything to line up in multiple browsers was a pain in the neck. The idea I had in mind was to merge the best features of the five versions into one template. I lost the battle in the end because the things that made the previous designs look good would just look tacky. I have used some elements from past designs though and I am proud of the result.

Features/Changes:

Ok, so the first thing you would notice is that the Search Box is gone. I did a quick case study of 43 portfolio websites and found that only 4 of the websites have search functionality built into them. I also removed it so that I could add a new feature.

The Alert Bar is said new feature. Any time something important comes up, I just need to add the info to the top of the page. This feature will become very helpful in the future. Hopefully it is easy for people to read.

Feature number three is... Support for IE6. I didn't intend to support IE6 because it is a useless browser but I figured that if I was going to work on IE7 and IE8, I'll see what I can do for IE6. It is mostly just conversion from transparent PNG images to GIF but it doesn't look too bad. Read below for more info on browser support.

I have fixed a small bug that had been annoying me as well. That bug was the width of the main content box that contains the content of the page. On the front page the three boxes below it would look wider when in fact the content box contained a set width. Thanks Firebug.

I have also worked on reducing the file sizes. Using the template images on the front page, v5.1 was 174KB. This version comes to 107KB. Quite a reduction! I am hoping that the pages load much faster now.

Minimum browser requirements:

Opera

Old Requirement: 8 New Requirement: 10

Based on the tests that I ran, it is possible to use Opera 9.5 and higher for optimum results. I wasn't expecting the layout to move Opera's minimum requirement up two complete versions but there isn't much I can do. The site will still function in Opera 8 however it will not look the way I had intended it to look.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Old Requirement: 7 New Requirement: 6

Yes, you read that correctly! Out of all the browsers I try to support, IE6 is now on the list... sort of. I am aware of some bugs but I'd rather not put any more effort into fixing them. The only reason why I decided to try and support IE6 is because I was trying to get IE7 and IE8 to work properly and it just so happened that the CSS that I was using was being nice to IE6. It also let me play with Conditional CSS - something that will help later on.

Mozilla Firefox

Old Requirement: 2 New Requirement: 3

Once again, I did not plan for Firefox to require an upgrade. I design for Firefox first and I use Fx 3.5. I went to find an old version of Firefox to test the site and it just didn't look right. Firefox 3.0 should be fine though.

Apple Safari

Old Requirement: 4 New Requirement: 4

No change here. It's good that there is one browser that doesn't require an upgrade. I guess we can say that Apple got something right for once. :P

Google Chrome

Old Requirement: 1 New Requirement: 3

Sorry to users who might still be using Chrome 1 but Chrome 3 is the new minimum. I downloaded an old version of Chrome but it automatically downloaded the latest version on install.

Posted by Administrator (zardos_demon) on Jan 01 2010

Last changed: Dec 31 2009 at 11:45 PM