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Version 1.11: Only in Fairy Tales…

This is a long overdue site revamp. People have been bugging me for this. I actually conceptualised this layout months ago, but had been too busy (and lazy) to really get it up and running. But now I finally got around to doing it! This is version 11 of Sparklette — only in fairy tales…

I emphasise that this is still work in progress with lots more to be done. Therefore I call this the alpha release. With some more polishing here and there, throwing in a few finishing touches, we would be all set!

Of course, this layout is definitely less colourful and perhaps more gloomy than the previous. I kinda went for an ethereal feel in this fairy tale layout. Why fairy tale? Because only in fairy tales do good things last, and people live happily ever after. The good is rewarded, and evil doesn’t triumph. And since I would never have a fairy tale like existence, this would be the next best thing.

The featured castle is the world famous schloss neuschwanstein in Germany. Certainly one of the top ten places I wanna visit this lifetime. The Disneyland castles actually drew inspiration from this building! The image of the castle was taken from deviantART. Full credits to the artist!

Special thanks go out to chup for helping me with the flash parts that I needed done. The flash jukebox that you guys must be familiar by now was done by him. This time round he has helped me come up with the flying maple leaves, as well as another very subtle effect that I shan’t reveal here. Look out for it!

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done. I have switched my blogging engine to wordpress, which is a fantastic engine and a far cry from greymatter, the problematic engine that I used previously.

changes/improvements in version 11:

once arriving at Sparklette, visitors can immediately see whether the blog has been updated without having to scroll down.
visitors can change the font size or font alignment according to their own preference, by clicking on any of the five small buttons above.
blog entries are now placed under different categories such as food, life, etc.
a relatively less graphic-intensive layout for non-broadband users.
food reviews would be more detailed and comprehensive. They would be given their own dedicated blog entries in which I would label the food with my own rating and the restaurant with its address and contact number.
i built this layout in a 1024×768 screen resolution. In all my previous layouts, I always tried to accommodate the 800×600 users. But as more people are using bigger screens, I decided to make the layout look more visually balanced by designing it in a 1024×768 screen resolution. My apologies to the small screen users.

bugs/problems:

from this version onwards, I no longer use frames. This means that everytime you click on a link (to the blog entry page for example), you are brought to a new page as seen in the address bar. The jukebox doesn’t load the songs anymore. (can’t be fixed)
the flying leaves may cause lag in less powerful computers, laptops especially. Once you scroll down, the lag would be gone. (can’t be fixed)

what needs to be added:

brand new songs to jukebox
a more complete sidebar
past layouts page, portfolio, design services

what may be added:

moblog, also known as a mobile blog where I send in short blogs via sms.

Alright that’s all I can think of for now. Please feel free to leave your comments. Thank you, and I hope you like this layout.

Much love,
Veron

Tags: web layout

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About the Editor

Veron Ang is the Founder and Chief Editor of Sparklette, a Singapore restaurants guide, lifestyle and travel blog. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science from the National University of Singapore and runs a web design firm at Sparklette Studio. To get in touch, head on over to the contact page or follow @Sparklette and @VeronSG on Twitter.

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Responses Leave a comment

Chup
5 comments

Yeah! Finally it up =)
*throws lots of lots of lots of lots of confetti*
This is no doubt the nicest blog skin so far!
Good thing doesn’t only happen in fairy tales only; we gotta search for it in lifes and make effort to make it last. And how u know happily ever after really happen in fairy tales? I mean look at sherk la -_- hahaha. Even Cinderella has her owe share of problem lor, maybe the queen don’t like her, maybe the prince held party every month look for more princess etc…
Seriously I like the castle also, if that is one of the top 10 places you wanna visit, wanna share with us the other 9 places?
And if you can get moblog up and working with wordpress, let me know then I also switch blog engine :)
*throws lots of lots of lots of lots of confetti again*
p/s: free teddy bear for the first person who can spot the subtle effect =P
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 10:57 am
Manas

Hey!
Your blog looks awesome! Been visiting it off and on … seems that you are getting a good taste of “work life”
Hope to catch up with you sometime…
Manas
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Kyo

Chup – it’s the waterfall. =)
Nice touch! Love the new layout…
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Chup
5 comments

you won urself a teddy bear :)
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Veron
3439 comments

Chup: Wow you are serious about giving away a teddy bear?
Fairy tales always have happy endings. Cinderella and her prince lived happily ever after, and that means they didn’t have major problems and were happy together.
The list of top 10 places I wanna visit is quite dynamic and arbitrary. At the moment they are (not in order of preference):
1. Venice, Italy
2. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
3. New York City
4. Xi Tang Village near Shanghai, China
5. Schloss Neuschwanstein, Germany
6. Ancient Pyramids, Egypt
7. The Arctic (Or any place where I can see Northern Lights)
8. Mongolia
9. Barcelona, Spain
10. Tibet
For my mobile blog, actually I would be using phlogger. It definitely works because I have used it already.
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Veron
3439 comments

Manas: Dude! Are you even back in Singapore (or India)? It’s been ages since we last met!
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Veron
3439 comments

Kyo: Yep, you got that right! Glad you like this layout.
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 4:23 pm
angeline
1 comment

Refreshing layout. :)
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Chup
5 comments

Fairy tales always have happy ending because the story stop at “happily ever after”. God know what happen next?
If you can change item 9 into Nepal, our top 10 will more or less match. Oh yah, i wanna go sahara also, not forgetting Taj Mahal, the greatest structure on earth that was made in the name of Love. Bhutan, greatwall, Nigara Waterfall (read LOST) also
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 5:30 pm
harrison

I’m speechless! It feels so fragile, delicate, wispy, dreamy…I’m still reveling in the wunderland of it all.
Reminds me of Hogwarts (and for the non-Potter-initiated, that isn’t some skin disorder clinic for pigs).
Also LOTR – you can’t miss the valleys and plains.
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Mandy
42 comments

Oh my. Wanting, this is a beautiful layout! I love the change and I’ve missed your little effects, like the leaves. Those remind me of a past purple layout of yours, with “Evidence of my exsistance” written down the side, I think it was? I loved that one, and I absolutely love this layout! Great job!
The Recent Posts thingy at the top is a nice addition, too. I’m not sure why, maybe it was my browser, but your site wouldn’t update right away and there’d be up to 3 posts that’d suddenly show up, and all the scrolling to make sure I hadn’t missed any was a bit tiring on the finger. ^_^ So much post. But that’ll definitely help if it continues.
Plus, you look so lovely in that picture of you. Calm looking. ^_^
Congrats on revamp!
Reply
Posted May 17, 2006 at 10:44 pm
VoeD

hey babe…
About the no-frames thing, forcing u to open a new page, you can either:
1. wrap your blog entries as DIVs and append its innerHTML whenever the comments link is clicked (u can generate the static content dynamically on the server side); or
2. use ActiveX object and/or XML to pass the content over – essentially using AJAX methods to populate ure content column.
About your flyig leaves, i reckon its generated on the fly (i think) so a solution would be to have a movie loop (it doesnt need to be an obvious obvious and yet can still look very nice) instead of the client having to calculate all the leaf positions.
About your jukebox problem, perhaps using a non-flash one would solve the stopping problem. To prevent it from playing again in the new window, you can try using cookies.
Thats just my nerdy attempt at addressing the bugs u listed. As for my comments, i guess I only have 1: the part where the leaves transition into the castle, the colours seem to be a bit off-sync. Maybe having a softer gradient from all the purple leaves to the green bushes would be sth to try. Other than that, its all thumbs up babe =)
Rgds =)
Reply
Posted May 18, 2006 at 1:16 am
VoeD

oh and another thing… u can get a cookie written for which text size and paragraph allignment the client wants so no need to adjust everytime hehehe =)
Reply
Posted May 18, 2006 at 1:17 am
VoeD

and i found a bug (ill stop commenting after this one, promise >.
Reply
Posted May 18, 2006 at 1:22 am
VoeD

sheesh. i cant type the “less than equal sign” apparently. Anyway, the bug is that if i go to http://www.sparklette.net instead of sparklette.net, the jukebox doesnt work. A simple way to solve this is to just change the http header for every connection to ure blog and redirect it to sparklette.net instead of http://www.sparklette.net =)
sorry for the multiple comments. =)
Reply
Posted May 18, 2006 at 1:24 am
xx

nice one!!! keep it up!
Reply
Posted May 18, 2006 at 7:55 am
alwyn

ting ting… its beautiful as always… you really do have artistic vision and talent in this area… its like… you just see beauty in everything – even as you say it, gloom.
indeed, this is one of the most famous castles in european history – no surprise that the inspiration for many fairy tales came from this one. although they say that fairy tales are lies – its just the same as our dreams, things that we desire so strong to become a reality
time really flies, look forwards to the next time we can sit down to something classy (of your choice, of course) and then sip coffee, catch up and talk about life… i think you have much to say…
well, take care and be happy beautiful girl – don’t fret too much about them archives, focus on the future, the next layout – which I look forward to superseeding this one… take care girl!
Reply
Posted May 18, 2006 at 12:05 pm
ry

wow, really nice and etheral layout. makes you imageine living in such an era..
Reply
Posted May 19, 2006 at 9:30 am
xkc

hey wanting,
i’ve been following your blog for a long while and you always surprise with small details that make ur blog very interesting! Like the close & open inverted commas, the pink feather for the email, simulated building construction for projects….i love every single cute icon you use! VERY nice. Not to mention, i absolutely LOVE this new dreamy look of floating maple leaves and fairyland castle.
Excellent job. :)
xkc
Reply
Posted May 20, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Veron
3439 comments

gee, so many wonderful and constructive comments!
harrison: Your remark about Hogwarts cracked me up! Surely most people know about Hogwarts! I love how you drew the connection between this layout and the Harry Potter and LOTR series. Those are my two all-time favourite trilogies!
Mandy: Finally! Someone who really pays attention to the fine details! I find that people rarely care about these, especially if they serve only aesthetic purposes.
If you are referring to the purple layout I did with all the similar leaves, then it should be version 2. My, that’s 3 years ago!
I haven’t really experienced the same problem you have with the page loading/scrolling. Hopefully the problem somewhat fixes itself overtime, because for now I don’t really know how to fix it.
alwyn: thanks for the comments! you are definitely one of my most loyal blog followers, having seen probably all my past layouts. we have been talking about meeting up for the longest time – when are you coming home?
xkc: always good to hear from a long-time blog reader. it’s great that you notice and appreciate all the tiny details as well! i put much effort into this, so when someone points it out to me, it really makes my day =)
angeline, xx, ry: thanks for the comments!
Reply
Posted May 20, 2006 at 1:24 pm