Today I’ve uploaded a few changes I’ve made to my website, both on the front end and back. I’ve been using this design since July 2011, and whilst continuously trying to think of ways to improve it, I decide to implement it on the basis of it helping my progress into a career of web development. So, here are the changes:
- More tabs for homepage.
The homepage has retained much of its style since this design was implemented, with three tabs being the only options for visitors: Portfolio, Experience and Contact. These were the three items that I felt were most important for visitors to find out more about me. Now though, I’ve released two more tabs, Social and Previews.
Social is one I’ve been thinking of for months and stalled on implementing, but have finally got around to developing. Right now it only consists of a Blog feed from my WordPress blog, and a feed from my Twitter account @JoeDevelops, but I have more plans in store for this. Previews has been a separate part of my site where I include links to projects or experiments I’m working on for testing, debugging and public advice. Today I’ve decided to implement it into my homepage, as it’s being visited and used more often, and has gained a bit of traffic. I felt adding it to the homepage was important for new visitors, so that they can get a taste of what I’m practicing with right now. - Sprite icons.
Using sprite images has also been on my agenda for months now, but thanks to the fantastic SpriteRight app recently released, it’s made the task of creating a sprite image faster and easier than I could’ve possibly ignored. This is only implemented on the homepage for now for a few icons, but will gradually be rolled out across all of my pages and as many of my images as possible. - Behind the scenes.
On coding terms, I’ve been integrating new coding technologies and methods I’ve recently learnt to make my website faster. The tabs on the homepage now use new code built from the ground up, and is so good that I’m considering creating a jQuery plugin from it for others to use. I’ve also improved the iPhone slideshow slightly, but have big plans for that coming soon.
One thing I desperately want to start doing is give back to the community. I’m aiming to start developing tutorials and plugins once I get good ideas and free time, but I want to make sure my website is in fit working order before I get started on making myself very public. My coding skills and knowledge have been hugely improving recently, so I’m not far off. Plus, due to my new Social tab, I have to start blogging more often now ;]
