2022-11-30
Upcoming December Changes to the KTracy.com Web Design
Once again, I wish to congratulate my team in the Ministry of Information Technology on a job well done. We reversed course by eliminating manual sitemaps and creating a simplified version of the Kevin Tracy Archives to function as the sitemap. We also changed the design of the sidebars a little bit to make things easier to read. Most significantly, last week we managed to update the KTracy.com mobile user interface by adjusting the position of the logo, shortening the site navigation bar, and just making everything feel a bit closer to the PC experience on a mobile device. We're quite content with where we're at.
Despite working diligently on the 2009 archives and the unique censorship directives we've received from Kevin Tracy himself, we managed to stay on schedule and complete everything we set out to do to the web design in November.
So, what changes are planned for December? As we warned last month, not much.
We Take It Easy During Advent
Advent is a time of reflection, prayer, and preparation for Christmas. Kevin Tracy encourages the staff to take it easy during this time of year to enrich their spiritual lives.
With that said, I am setting no web design goals for the team in December. Instead, we're going to try to get the 2009 archives published and let everyone work on their personal pet projects. Some of them may benefit the KTracy.com web design or enhance the functionality of the website. Others will be completely useless, but that's fine, too. The staff in the Ministry of Information Technology have really busted their butts in 2022 and they deserve some time to do whatever they want on the company dime.
A Tease of the Pet Projects
To get an idea of what some of the staff here will be up to, I've compiled a list. This list does not mean anything will be added in December. It just means ongoing research and development is happening in the topic.
- A Living Logo
- Webmention Support
- Mobile Micropub Support for Kevin Tracy and the Staff
- Automatically updated gallery of Recent Photos
- Sharing Kevin Tracy's hilarious Student Government campaign signs
- Adding h-feed tag to Archives and h-entry tags to Archives and all articles for Indieweb Readers
- Make Easter Egg pages with nothing more than GIFs dancing to mid-90s MIDI music
- Share Kevin Tracy's Cell Phone Battery Level and Plugged In/Unplugged Status
- This is a personal request from Kevin's fiancée, Katie, as Kevin Tracy is notorious about leaving his phone uncharged and unplugged.
- We first saw this done by Aaron Parecki on his personal website, so credit to where it is due.
- Redo the backend blocks format in archives since we're pretty sure we're abusing the Article tag instead of using the "note" class
When I got everyone's pet projects, I was pretty happy to see so many of them have to do with implementing the IndieWeb standards on KTracy.com.
We don't anticipate any of these projects being implemented in December. Instead, the progress made on these projects will hopefully enable some of them to be implemented sometime in 2023 or 2024.
