Business has been good. Unfortunately, it has been so busy that the smelly old Slingshot Solutions website stuck around way too long.
When I say smelly, think:
- IE-only (in 2002, IE was 95%+, and Firefox was still a glimmer)
- IE6-only — IE7 often crashes (why can browsers still be crashed by web code these days?)
- Outdated in various ways (6.5yrs)
- Kinda ugly
- Over-complicated
- Wordy — can there be too little horn-tooting?
- Did I mention IE-only?
So my goals for a new site were focused on simplicity and compatibility. I started designing building it when I started back to Slingshot Solutions full-time, and have been alternating between false starts, second-guessing, and neglect ever since.
It’s finally done now, though. Please meet the slim and trim new “slingfive.com 2.0“:
It works on any modern browser, plus IE6 (kicking and screaming). Some other geeky goodness:
- It’s Javascript-heavy, but it’s all non-obtrusive and progressively-enhanced, so it still works with Javascript disabled.
- JQuery greatly helped simplify the visuals by hiding less important stuff until it’s needed. Rather than a second page just for a contact form, Contact Us is just a popup. Similarly, I built a hide/show toggle for less-important content details.
- FONTS! Every web designer hates the fact that you have to choose fonts based on lowest-common denominators (not everyone has your font on their system). Alternatively, you can use images or Flash to get around this (carefully!). I certainly wanted automatic as possible, so I tried SIFR (implementation stinks), then settled on DotIR. Unfortunately v3 only outputs non-transparent GIFs, but with the wonders of open source, I’ve improved it to output anti-aliased transparent PNGs (including IE6 compatibility), and made it medium-trust compatible (for web hosts). Hopefully my changes will reach the next version.
Weaknesses / to-do:
- Still way too wordy, this time with TLAs (“acronymy”?).
- I pulled over my old code section for developers. I’ve tested none of it though, and will surely need to fix several server-side settings.
- The layout wrecks at less than 1024×768. Stats say that covers 90% of the world, but that’s hollow comfort.
For now I’m just happy it’s out and not killing anyone. Hurrah!