I'm thinking of changing the layout of my blog just a touch. I want to remove one of the rails along the sides, so that I can post slightly larger photos. (That, and with the two rails, part of the right side of many of my photos get covered up.)
I'm keeping the manufacturer links, the search bar, members (followers) list, and the archive (though I wish my Archive bar would display post titles like it is supposed to.)
But how often do you all use the other links in the rails? I'm wanting to delete the links to specific posts (ie "54mm Waiteri," "Ghostbusters" and "Shipbuilding articles" for example.) But if folks use them to quickly navigate to their favorite genres, I may simply move them over to one side (which will require a lot of scrolling down to get where you want.)
If no one has an opinion- that's all right; I can make my own decision- I just wanted input from readers to help better your experience.
Thanks for any input you might have! And if you have none, thanks still for reading my blog!
(Oh shit- sometime in the past week or two, I hit 150,000 hits. I think I'll celebrate with a Guiness.)
Why post big photos? When you click them they open up in a slideshow type format, so having them 'big' on your blog isn't a necessity.
ReplyDeleteBlogger have also made some changes, so if you go into 'design' you can customise the width of your blog... on my screen you have about a third of the page as empty space, so you should be able to adjust the widths of each page and the sidebars to your whim.
Have a play around...
You can try a top menu bar for important categories
ReplyDeleteMight be worth shortening the output of the widgets and merging them all into one sidebar.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the quick responses!
ReplyDeleteJim- I widened the blog a bit, per your advice. If I go too wide, it goes off my screen- but you're right; there is a lot of unused space along the sides. I'll toy with it until I find a good width.
Besides the photos, my other goal is simply to clean up the look of the blog. I would like only one rail along with the main block of posts. If I can get my archive gadget to actually display post titles (like it's supposed to), then I'll delete all of the categories.
I'm aiming for simplicity, but I still want folks to be able to find their favorite stuff.
Scott- just got your comment when I posted mine- but yes- you're on the money on what I'd like to do (while keeping the site easily navigatable. It may all just boil down to getting a good archive gadget.)
ReplyDeleteI think you can get pages on the blog (with tabs at the top) if you fiddle with the settings, then if you want you can have a current blog page and a page for each of your major projects with photos or links or whatever so people can navigate them easily. That'll get rid of the clutter but keep the content easily navigable.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I love this site. I discovered this site just a couple months ago and check back daily. The number of pieces you accomplish astounds me. I constantly wonder how you do it.
ReplyDeleteI think removing one of the links on one side or another is a good idea. I seldom go to them. They’re taking up a lot of real estate. It would be great if there was a way to group them up and have them as drop downs (widgets) somehow.
And even though the pictures get larger when you click on them, I gotta admit, I like larger photos. I like seeing the detail so that I can learn from what you did. The sharper and closer the shots, the better. I am a complete painting nube and your site is really valuable for showing off different types of sculpts and how they’re painted up.
Side note: would love to read an article on how you’ve been priming your plastic figs, if at all. Have you painted any of Reaper’s new Bones figs? I am gun shy on starting those.
That’s my 2 cents. Love the site. Love you work. I’m a complete lurker, and I bet there are thousands of others just like me out there.
Welcome to the blog- Priming the plastic figures was actually quite easy (and cheap.) The "primer" I use is just a couple coats of black acrylic paint (I use craft paint) directly on to the plastic. The paint right over that.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to try the Reaper Bones figures to see if they'd take a spray primer (though, they advertise that they don't need any primer at all- that's something I'd also like to see.)
Got the archive figured out!
ReplyDeleteYou still have to click an arrow or two, but the blog posts are now listed (and linked) by post title.
I'll hold off on deleting the long list of links just yet in case someone really loves to browse through them.
As suggested above, if you open a few pages, titled '54mm Gladiators' etc, you can then c+p the links to that page as a list. It's just an extra click, but it saves a long menu on your side bar. You could replace them on here with a 'Popular posts' gadget maybe?
ReplyDeleteI'd move my counter to the top to show people how popular I am and move my followers to the top too, it looks like they are important to you then.
Good stuff though! :)
Wider posting space is good I think, but on my (large) screen, you have 3+ inches wasted on the left. Recovering that space would be useful. And agree that having pages with links for specific categories could be helpful.
ReplyDeleteAgree with others, a Page bar in the upper side will resolve the problem :D
ReplyDeleteSaid so, you're contents are so beautiful that I don't really care about the layout :P
Thanks for all the input! I'm gonna stick with this for now- I like the idea of tabs along the top, but I'm limited with what Blogger can do. I'll leave the long list along the rail for now until I've explored more.
ReplyDeleteLasgun- I'll see what I can do. I hate wasted space too.