site musings 2: electric boogaloo
saturday, march 30, 2024
i've been thinking a little bit about various aspects of my site, and decided it would be good to write these thoughts down rather than let them float abstractly in my head, so here we go!
(i guess this counts as a very belated anniversary post? kind of a lame way to celebrate!!!)
design
now that i'm a little over a year into running this website, i've found myself steering away from design choices i used to make – not because they're bad, but because i want to make things more convenient for me, the bitch who visits my site the most.
some of the things i've started keeping in mind include:
- legibility. the monospace font i used to use for everything, Roboto Mono, has slowly been eclipsed by Rubik for most body text. Rubik isn't PERFECT by any means but more pleasing to my eyes!
- i try not to make the text too small or too big either. i don't like having to scroll too much or squint/zoom in...
- i haven't checked the color contrasts of my fonts/bgs, but i try to keep the pink-on-light to a minimum.
- element size. i'm limiting the number of elements i use that have a defined height and width, or at least making them larger/easier to scroll, and full size on mobile.
- linearity. more of my pages just have one content area instead of multiple little boxes. i just get overwhelmed when i have too many little things.
- navigability. i talk a LOT so it's important i can jump to sections i want to see!
- mobile. i don't really visit my site on mobile, but it just annoys me if i check a page i designed to look a certain way and it doesn't, so i started thinking ahead so as not to be annoyed. one of the first things i ask myself these days when i have a new page design idea is, "how would i make this work on a phone?"
- i'm still quite happy with my homepage, but i've yet to figure out how to recode it in such a way that it looks good on mobile. i imagine i'll have to replace it altogether once i get fed up enough lol
- convenience of updating – ESPECIALLY if it's a page i plan to revise regularly... i keep tearing my sketchbook back down bc i hate navigating the code LOL. i think i should just learn javascript.
- folders have become so annoying to me, but i'll get to that in "logistics."
- javascript. speaking of, lol. i know not every browser has it, and it annoys me to think about my pages not working on someone else's computer bc of how i designed it.
- i still have pages that use javascript.
- images. i'm no stranger to an art/image editing program, but i find formatting pictures so TEDIOUSSSSS... all the resizing and editing (colors/transparency) and god, the file sizes! i'd rather not have to think about it. i try to not save any new images or make image-heavy pages, for my sanity's sake.
this seems like the natural progression of things for me as an amateur coder. i'm someone who likes her things being "in order," at least to an extent or without sacrificing the look i want. (i still have lots of separate css files...)
but it's also a little regrettable, because i remember having fun fucking around with layouts when i just started out and didn't care about these things!!!
i still really love looking through sites with a variety of color schemes and designs, and lots of images/things to explore. they're visually very stimulating and fun to look through, and remind me of why i like the personal web – it's very cool to see all the different ways people personalize their spaces, and get a glimpse into how their mind works via their design choices.
there are lots of things i've yet to factor into my design sensibilities, like dark mode and alt text, but i'll admit i have no concrete plans of incorporating them just yet... i think that's best suited for another site project.
logistics
i got an ask about if i used a static site generator. it's something i consider occasionally but i always run into the same thought roadblock! on the one hand, i love love love the idea of having something push my site for me, and having everything easy to read and navigate. it looks clean and is straightforward!!
but i always worried having a "template" to work in would stifle the rare creative urge to put shit in random places... i know i just said all that up there about my design sensibilities, but i know i like to rebel against myself too. i think i've just yet to see a SSG site that has the kind of design variety i'm looking for? i'd probably like to use a static site generator for a professional website, where i don't feel as much of a drive to get cRaZy with my design.
still, i would like for my site updating experience to be less... manual, LOL.
for a long time i'd been keeping track of my pages via a notion database, which has served me well but is slowly becoming tedious to update.
my god.
mostly because notion is pretty slow.
i had a category called "to update," under which i'd mark the pages i edited on brackets/vscode and had yet to upload to neocities. then i'd go in and upload them to their respective folders, and unmark them from the notion. EXTREMELY ANNOYING.......
i overhauled my links recently and took many of them out of their folders (thank fuck) so these days i rely on finder's "sort by last modified" or my memory, and the drag-and-dropping is less tedious now that i don't have to navigate to a billion different folders.
i know there are lots of things i could use to automate this process, and i've seen people deploy via git, but i still don't even really understand github in general or APIs or things in that realm. it's just a matter of me sitting down to learn.
people
after working on this site for over a year, i'm pretty happy with it! i think working on it has made me... like myself a little more? if only because it reminded me that i haven't lost my ability to learn new things (coding) in the pursuit of something extremely self indulgent (making a me-catered site).
sharing my site with people from my personal life is really low priority, but i work on it a lot and end up talking about it anyway. i've shown pages to my family, and linked the site to some irl friends, but have yet to put it out there completely for obvious reasons LOL. even with my greatest indulgences password protected, this site is like a way too zoomed in picture of me. like pore-level close.
i've thought about building another, more presentable personal site for portfolio purposes. maybe i'll do that someday...
anyway, irl people are not the point of this site. i most enjoy it as a way to meet kind internet strangers, who like similar or adjacent things, or are some kind of like-minded – and thankfully, i've mostly succeeded in finding these people, or being found by them, so yippee + wahoo. i seriously think two of the best things i did for my site/personal web social life were 1) joining fujofans and 2) disabling my neocities profile.
plans
the biggest thing i have planned for the site in the near future is to move hosts!
there are some things i'd like to do with my site (self-host a guestbook, upload videos, have more storage) that i might be able to do as a neocities supporter, but maybe not all. if i'm going to pay for a host, i might as well try something with more options!
also, the main draw of neocities was the ease of interaction on the feed, but these days i rarely use it, other than to check on sites i follow that don't have their own update rss feed. my profile is disabled too, so it's not like leaving neocities is going to make a huge difference re: who visits my site – i've already made things difficult lol. (reader, if you're reading this following the link from my changelog, i can't express how appreciative i am that you care about my little site.)
123guestbook is closing formally in july, so i think i'll aim my move for then :) if i learn how to mirror a site (?) before then, i'll do it for a while, but otherwise i'll just completely move (and maybe leave a note here).
the site will still be called meixins i think! i'm not ready to let go of my button yet. just found out i have the working file for my button, so i can change my url. yes. yessss
other big sitely/webdevvy things i want to do besides moving include:
- learning SSGs
- learning github...
- building a less intense personal site, for sharing purposes
- building a professional site, for professional purposes?
- learning php or javascript or both
and of course, all the smaller things to do with this site – make more shrines, update old wonky code, write some stuff, be insane.
...and what about non-sitely?!!?
i'm recovering from a head cold that i've not been very good at trying to alleviate – i slept at 6am last night for no good reason. (reason: i was manually saving all my ducktales tweets for the archive.) i'd like to get my sleep in check, but i can't bring myself to stop doing things once i'm immersed in them, yanno?!
my program has been pushed back to september (lol and lmao), so i have a lot of time to kill before i must be a proper human person again. i decided to plan a solo trip for before then, to go see gianmarco soresi (a comedian i like) live. i'm excited!
besides that, what else... i'm finishing up my comic (just finished the inks... let's go colors!!!!) just before the deadline, researching jobs that are Not in the field i'm going to school for (planning for long-term, baby), and drawing a lot of ducks. ducktales is really good, you guys.
i have a trip with friends planned for this weekend, just outside the city. it's our first group-planned out of town trip, so i'm a little anxious about the prep (i'm going to be cooking for my friends...!) but i think it'll be fun. i hope i'm fully recovered by then!