Before I get to the main subject of this post, I should mention that It's All About the Rupees and my HTML FAQ have new URLs, so anyone with bookmarks should update them. Also of note, Alan hooked me up with a Gmail account not too long ago and I've dumped my Yahoo account. So anyone wishing to contact me by e-mail should send their messages to desbreko@gmail.com as I won't be checking my Yahoo account anymore.
Work on Rupees v2 is progressing nicely (for only having been working on it for two days), and it's now "officially" known as Rupee Shards. The main reason for the name change is that "It's All About the Rupees" is just too dang long, even though I love that quote. And I also figure that Rupee Shards is a more fitting name for a site that's going to house my various articles anyway, those figuratively being the shards, so I'm happy with the new name.
The layout has been finalized as well. It may end up needing some small tweaks in the future, to make it best accommodate the content, but the overall structure won't be changing from here on I don't think. And that means I get to talk about it.
Just looking at it, Rupee Shards' layout seems pretty simple -- header, two columns, footer -- until you take a look at the code and see that I'm not using any tables. Figuring out how to do a two column layout with CSS was a pain in the butt, and especially with the variations I'm using on the "standard formula" for two column layouts; there was much swearing over how CSS is sorely lacking in simple layout things such as vertically aligning elements, which can be done so easily with tables. Seriously, valign='bottom' in a table cell tag and you're good, but to achieve the same effect with CSS I had to use a funky arrangement of divs.
But I'll stop the ranting there, and give some details about how the layout actually looks. ... Though really, I think it would be easier to give an example. Coincidentally (well, okay, so maybe it's not entirely coincidental -- I may have been inspired by it a bit), Rupee Shards' layout is similar to that of OtakuBoards, though aligned on the left instead of centered on the page. If you look at the left column there on OB, the "Launch Jukebox" bar and everything above it is sort of like the left part of my header, with the right part being like the main OB banner and the "> OtakuBoards" bit. I've then got a left navigation column and right main content column below the left and right sections of the header. And if you look at the bottom of the OB page, the little bit with the drop-down menu for selecting a skin and the "Contact Us," "theOtaku.com," etc. links is situated in the same manner as the footer on my page, at the bottom of the content column but still beside the navigation column.
If you couldn't follow that. ... Well, a straight description of Rupee Shards' layout without OB as an example would only be more confusing. So you'll just have to wait till I get done with the site to see what I mean or until I decide to put up a screen shot of it or something.
With the layout done, I'm now working on the site's color scheme. I already know basically what colors I want to use, it's just getting those few, all-important details down. Like the header banner -- as of yet, I really have no idea what I'm going to use as a background behind the "Rupee Shards" text. And getting the right shade of color for the nav column's background, or maybe using a textured background.
The color scheme stuff kind of goes hand-in-hand with the site's graphics, which I've mainly been avoiding while working on the layout, though hopefully I'll get the first version of the main layout graphics done fairly soon. I say first version because I fully expect the header images and any background images I use to change several times throughout the development of the site. They did when I was working on Rupees v1, and I really have no reason to think it'll be different this time. I'm even sort of planning on it, in fact; I'm not going to bother spending a lot of time perfecting any graphics I make at this point, since they'll most likely just be tweaked and changed later, but instead make some sort of rough drafts with the ideas in my head. Later, when I've got more of the content layout finished and start working on the graphics for that, I'll make more of an effort to produce better graphics for the main layout. That way I'll be able to work on serious versions of both the main layout and content layout images at the same time, which will make things easier in the way of keeping the same theme and style and just generally matching them better.
And that's it for now. I'll leave you with the start of a Rupee Shards completion checklist. Because everyone loves lists.
Rupee Shards Completion Status
Site Layout: Tentatively Complete
Color Scheme: Work in Progress
Site Graphics: Work in Progress
