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Better Guitar: The Next Generation
Welcome to the “next generation” of Better Guitar. I guess you could call it Version 2.0. Let me explain (this will get a little geeky so bear with me.)
The Old Web Is Not The New Web
Better Guitar got its start back in the early days of the Web’s popularity. And like most people designing websites back then I used standard “killer websites” practices of HTML tables for layout, font tags everywhere, JavaScript rollovers, and images for titles. These worked fine for a small website starting out, but Better Guitar didn’t stay small. In fact it grew to nearly 1000 pages. All of that non-standard markup made updating and maintaining Better Guitar a nightmare, and locked me into the same design for years because converting it to Web standard practices of XHTML and CSS was just too daunting a task.
Just Do It
Last year I decided to bite the bullet and began stripping all of that ugly HTML from every page to find the content hiding in there. Over the next six months I discovered that given my available free time, I might never get the task done. So I came to the realization that I needed to basically “start over.”
The Foundation
What I have decided to do is strip Better Guitar down to its “foundational” articles and reviews, and then gradually replace the rest of the missing content. The bulk of which is “Player Opinion” reviews. I realize these are very popular, but they number in the high hundreds, and if I had waited until I had done them all before posting the new design I probably would have given up altogether.
The Good News
There is some good news (really.) This has given me a chance to update a lot of content and correct some old mistakes. Plus I has the chance to reorganize the whole website so it will be easier to find things and make more sense. And without all the excess HTML, images, and JavaScript, the pages will load a lot faster, I’ll be able to make changes easier and adding new content won’t be such a chore (so I’ll probably do it more often.)
The New Look
I couldn’t very well put a new engine in a rusty old heap, so I designed a new look. I kind of like it, what do you think? Email me with your comments.
Browser Notes
Those using modern browsers with good Web standards support, such as Safari (Mac) and FireFox (everyone), will see Better Guitar as it was meant to be. I used the fonts Century Gothic for titles and main body text and Verdana for smaller text. You should also have these installed on your system for best results. If you must use IE, and there is no law that says you must, IE 7 does an acceptable job.
Tip Of The Iceberg
This is just the beginning. I will be adding lots of new stuff eventually so stay tuned. Next time I will talk about guitar stuff. I promise!