In Lieu of a Colophon | Retrorocket Design

A few notes about the latest redesign.

Still XHTML 1.0. It won’t be hard to convert the site to HTML5, but I adjusted the markup only minimally this time around. I do want to improve the site’s semantics, though.
See if you can find where I’m using an ARTICLE element in the markup, though!
Future plans include custom styling for code examples. I want to dive into more technical topics in the future.

Reasonably restrained use of CSS3 properties, such as text-shadow and RGBA colour (for semi-tranparent panel backgrounds, etc)
Fewer gradients!
For the first time on one of my own sites, I’ve constructed the CSS with SASS, the Syntactically Awesome Stylesheet Language, and Compass, the SASS CSS3 framework. Together, these tools make it easier to write well-structured, scalable, cross-browser-friendly stylesheets. It’s the future, man.
I’m also experimenting with what’s called a “semi-fluid” layout. Fixed width over 900px wide, narrowing dynamically as you resize your browser window. A Compass plugin called Susy made that possible without me going mad at the maths.
Next step will be to make it even more dynamic and resize to a mobile-friendly view where appropriate.
I’m basically not worrying about IE support right now. Feel free to let me know how the site works in your browser of choice, however.

Still with Textpattern, though I’ve finally upgraded to TXP 4.4.1. Still does everything I want it to. Still easier to use than any other option.
I do need to spruce up some of the plugins I use, though.

I count this as a work-in-progress, but I’m pretty pleased with the outcome so far.