Changelog
Archived list of updates about the development of this site. For now, really a reference for me to keep track of what I've done, when and what I had planned to do in the future here. All dates are presented in Day, Month, Year format.
13 . 11 . 2023:
The Terms of Service, written with the potential future in mind, is now pretty much finalised. Version 1.01 adds an undertaking that Trajecient will maintain an archive of all versions available on request when not available via a website, as well as putting in writing that Trajecient for obvious reasons cannot guarantee eternal and completely uninterrupted availability of what Trajecient offers.
Currently working on the Privacy Policy, which is actually in this state legally unnecessary for the foreseeable future, but this still really good to have as a courtesy.
Also in the midst of setting up a presence with the Artisans Cooperative so I can help them out by adding to the diversity of what is available there. Have done a really neat banner I may adapt at some point to be an alternate banner here, as well as having done a different version of the Trajecient logo to account for the contexts in which it is displayed there.
As part of doing work on the Terms of Service, Trajecient affirm in a contractually binding way that unlike the typical business entity (whether sole trader or a major company) that tries to wiggle out of as much responsibility as possible, Trajecient refuses to claim any limitation of liability in the event Trajecient is genuinely responsible for loss or harm. The only thing Trajecient asks is that such liabilities be paid at a sustainable pace for Trajecient and that there is good faith consideration of non-financial restitutions, which is more likely to be relevant in the case of small claims.
Furthermore, Trajecient affirms in a contractually binding way that it refuses to limit the rights of anyone to initiate a class action against Trajecient or equivalent legal action and refuses to bind others into having any legal cases being exclusively heard in a chosen legal jurisdiction.
Instead, Trajecient has the sensible but rarely held policy that cases should be heard based on international law about jurisdictional issues and that cases should be heard to maximise the capacities of all parties to participate in such a legal process as fairly and equitably as possible.
Of course, making such affirmations means Trajecient is particularly incentivised to get things right.
Partly such changes came from being really rather annoyed at seeing such Terms of Service out there, particularly as the language doesn't override consumer rights as it applies 'to the fullest extent of the law' but still can both give a misleading impression as to what consumer rights exist and does to some degree reduce rights given the deference paid to contractual terms even when, realistically, people don't have a choice but to say yes in a 'take it or leave it' binary fashion. This is especially the case with regards to social media platforms and products and services that need to be used for professional reasons, or in earlier stages of life are forced to be used in the context of schooling, or later in life are necessary to maintain one's mental health, as in the case of certain entertainment products and those related to socialisation and communication.
Anyway, Trajecient isn't offering any such services anytime soon, but departing from the nigh-automatic inclusion of such terms is still a nice thing.
Today any work I do is in-between Splatoon 3 as there is a golden Grizzco rotation.
The site has changed so that a TL;DR summary of the Terms of Service will be what is linked in the footer, to save time and avoid the quick summary potentially causing issues with the legally binding agreement by using casual language with greater scope for loopholes rather than legal wording. From that TL;DR version there will be the link to the full Terms of Service, as well links to TL;DR versions of the Privacy Policy and the EULA, (and both of those will link in turn to the actual legal documents).
Soon the Enuncial page will be updated to include a checklist of what needs to be done for a first release to be ready. This will help to make the status report currently on the page more meaningful.
1 . 11 . 2023:
Testing improved sidebar backgrounds. Have now remembered that the issue with there being this 'gap' visible when at some point the navbar stops being sticking is something that had been dealt with before. Has to do with the difference between the 'aside' and the sidebars proper and their grid areas. The 'part of the sidebar background' which I had thought needed adjustment was not part of the sidebar at all but rather the colour I had given to the aside to blend in. The reason it looked like a 'gap' was because it was just a single colour.
From testing, have found a way to get rid of that 'gap'. The cache may need to be refreshed with Ctrl + Shift + R if you have been here recently. On both this page and the Enuncial page and example of what it eventually look like is up. Basically, the sidebar area will have another image partially overlaying with it (well, technically it isn't in the sidebar proper but the 'aside' area outside of it). By setting the image to actually be a strip of multiple images, this will allow for an image slideshow to happen in the sidebar.
Access and leave the sidebar and the image will quickly scroll to where it was before for an animated effect.
In order to the sidebar tooltips to work, the aside needs to be able to scroll.
From testing, the added image overlay can only work for a single image if it is combined with something else so that the height equals the height of the actual page. This would be considerably more time-consuming than just letting it cycle between two images, so this will generally be done. Using a different option only shows part of the image and unless intended for a textured look, this doesn't work as well.
A nice bonus from this is that it completely hides the bullet points that were appearing in the sidebar, although if I want the bullets to actually appear will still need to fix this, but there really is no need to do this anytime soon.
Also fixed an issue caused by a missing div tag on a page.
Lastly, want to see if I can change how the footer appears so some of the transitions on the page are less abrupt.
30 . 10 . 2023:
Have just noticed that the link to the main page of the Resource Zone hadn't been working because of that time there was an error and it had to be renamed the Resource Zone. Didn't properly update the URL to link there! That is fixed on this Index but tomorrow will need to go and fix this site-wide.
The Enuncial page is now up-to-date with the progress done so far. The page itself looks a little messy, but this is mostly because of a need to explain what certain features and because of the long list of Unicode Ranges. This could be cleaned up, but that isn't a priority for right now, especially since the best way of doing that would be to render it as an image with appropriate alt text (because then I can use desktop publishing software instead of HTML and CSS to do something that looks fancier at a much faster speed). Quite simply, given the numbers will need to be frequently updated it isn't worth doing that kind of presentation until after at least one version of the font is ready for release.
At some point will update the sidebar backgrounds and begin to add new variants (which will be fun) and address a flaw of the current design. Hadn't realised that on longer pages the navbar will stop being sticky. That wasn't intended but am treating it as a feature as it leads to a less clustered look. Also need to add internal links to the Resource Zone to improve navigation and because that isn't hard to do … on a related note, until now have only wanted to add stuff to the Resource Zone if it was hard to find through search engines. Increasingly though, search engines are pivoting to greater usage of search results being served by AI chatbots with algorithms being supplemented by more personalised responses and use of large language models, although it is also too early to tell if this is more like a fad that will be reversed rather than a more permanent shift. Certainly, a lot of money had been put into the attempts to change the norms of search engines.
Such changes to search engines are not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. It can make it easier to ask follow-up questions and to guide more efficient targeting of results. Use of AI also has the potential to see improved understanding of search intention for more accurate results … if it isn't done in a way that sees sponsored results or other forms of advertising see this kind of search become untrustworthy and annoying.
Anyway though, there are both pros and cons. Increased personalisation can mean results may tend to reflect to a higher extent already established interests. As search results served by chatbots have so far tended to emphasise a few top answers instead of many pages of results (understandably so, as most people don't go past the first page of results and especially not more than a few pages) between these two design choices, this could make a lot of content harder to access. Writers who do not use adblockers already know that doing research for books really distorts the advertising one is given, because the underlying algorithms are really not designed with creative people in mind, who really are outliers when it comes to their motivations for searching for things. I have done work before on refining search engine algorithms so I know first-hand that search engine results heavily factor in the most likely search intent … this is often not the same as the intent of someone who is doing research for a book, or video game or other creative endeavour.
Again, changes to search engines may end up not being transformative at all, but right now nobody can say that it won't be transformative and if it is established to be transformative in a way that makes it harder to find results considered to be outliers (at least when factoring in prior search interest, location, sponsored ad campaigns and other factors used to influence the results), then well, by the time that happens it would be harder to update a list of resources to account for what is harder to find than before.
This is a rather a lot of explanation for the decision to begin to expand the Resource Zone to include stuff that might be relatively easy to find now but which may not inevitably be so into the future. Although my intent there remains that for such sites that continue to be easier to find, there will be some more of an explanation of what the site offers … so if nothing else there is value that shall be added by that.
Lastly, work continues on the anti-scraping guide, which has arisen from coming across quite a number of creative professionals who have reduced their creative input out of concerns about their rights not being sufficiently protected at the current time.
26 . 10 . 2023:
Have revamped the Enuncial page. The text will now actually be in the font and an updated version of Enuncial (as used in the footer, for example) has been rolled-out site-wide. Still need to add in the current details about what is in the typeface.
Have also prepared Terms of Service for the site. Why should a site have a Terms of Service? Basically, if you are against something like content being scraped without compensation and consent for AI services, a Terms of Service has a legal standing that could eventually be of help in a class action lawsuit. Participation in one of those is a lot more plausible for the typical independent creator. Feel free to adapt the language for your own site if you find it helpful. Part of it is in turn adapted from the Terms of Service used by the New York Times and which presumably was acceptable to their legal team.
The improved layout has now been rolled out site-wide. At the same time, have also fixed some typos left in that article about coding as an absolute beginner and figured out the technical issue I had before was a missing slash in the file path.
Have made other changes, having just learned that as of late last month, Google and Microsoft made some important changes. Blocking Google-Extended user-agent will stop Google from using data from use in Google's AI services while still allowing content to show up normally in Google Search, meaning this site can now allow Google to fully index this site (well, except for incomplete pages). Adding a 'noarchive' tag to the robots context tag of a site will stop Microsoft's AI services from using content while still allowing content to show up normally in non-AI Bing searches. Again, this change enables Bing to fully index this site. Google and Bing, in turn, are motivated against third-parties scraping their databases, mostly because they don't want rivals or potential rivals to have their data to fuel rival AI services.
The next things I want to do is to write an article about protection from scraping, as I have come numerous creatives who have stopped posting content or been looking for technical countermeasures and the like and have an simple 'all-in-one place' guide updated over time may help some people. Also, I want to update the sidebar backgrounds now that I now part of the sidebar will become visible on larger pages as the sticky navbar stops sticking (which I otherwise consider a feature as it leads to a less cluttered look). Finally, asdd in internal links for the Resource Zone to improve navigation.
Although NeoCities doesn't make it possible to implement a server-side solution to deter scraping from undeclared or unknown user-agents, there is an alternative that deters the vast majority of scraping and that will also in time be rolled out. It also will mean that this site will have a real-time offline archive.
10 . 8 . 2023:
Found a way to get the tooltips working for the images that functions as buttons via Javascript but aren't actually buttons. Still need to readjust the tab order, add keyboard navigation support and add these tooltips to the script that hides tooltips. Also, want to see if I can successfully use InnerHTML to change tooltip text to explains tooltips depending on whether they are active or not.
Being able to toggle on the tooltips will be helpful for those who use keyboard navigation as it streamlines the browsing experience. An exception will exist for the tooltips that explain these buttons. They will be on by default and only turn off if the tooltips are turned on and then off again.
Once those newer tooltips are added and the taborder has been finalised for all elements on this page, can start rolling out the layout change site-wise. Have improved positioning regardless of device used but will test if adding some padding or margin to the navbar can optimise this. Otherwise. may need to conditionally change position of controls (such as to appear on the header).
5 . 8 . 2023:
Hoorah! Was able to get the tooltips to properly appear on focus. Have a little more work to do there, though. The tooltips on the left sidebar are done but still need to put in the ones for the navbar. Furthermore, all of the tooltips are elements that are to the tab order but wouldn't always be wanted to be tabbed through. So there will be a mode added that will toggle whether these tooltips are in the taborder or not (when not, this means they will be skipped over). This will be helpful for streamlining keyboard navigation and to avoid repetition for screenreader users. Once this mode is added (and the taborder adjusted to add in the other tooltips), the layout changes will be fully rolled out across the site. Afterwards, content can really start to be added.
So far it looks like the upgraded Cabin *helps* but maybe not by enough to justify keeping it. Time will tell.
Have decided that the day/night toggle would still take too much time to implement to only roll out the other layout updates when this is done. So the rollout of updates will happen sooner. I just want to see if I can get the tooltips to appear first.
3 . 8 . 2023:
Rolling out focus-visible styling more broadly for a more complete browsing experience when using keyboard navigation. This currently is only for this page, as with the rest of this batch of layout improvements. They still have to be rolled out site-wide. Pressing 'enter' now actually activates the scripts, in addition to a click, thanks to 'onkeypress'. Although this is deprecated, 'onkeydown' is unsuitable as this includes the TAB key, which is needed to move between elements for keyboard navigation. Will be seeing if I can implement a better alternate.
Have been using Cabin for some very basic privacy-focused analytics. It doesn't do any tracking, doesn't use any cookies and doesn't share data with anywhere that may use it in ways against your direct consent. It is among the most ethical choices for site analytics available. The free version is blocked by adblockers. As an experiment have upgraded just for this month to get access to a version that can be hosted directly on the site. Although Neocities is in a position to accurately know the requests made to this site, I am curious to see what level of traffic this upgraded version actually detects and how it compares to what Neocities tells me.
If this upgraded Cabin is showing traffic that corresponds to what Neocities is relating, then I will be in an actual position to develop content according to what you want and be in a better position to know how realistic it is to spend more time in creating stuff. Neocities only gives the most basic information, while Cabin anonymous details in a range of areas. This can really help. For example, if I find specific pages are a lot more accessed, this can see me prioritise related content. As the upgraded version is literally a part of this site and not anything external, in theory it should be treated like the rest of the Javascript code on a site.
If this upgraded Cabin doesn't detect much change in traffic, this suggests it rather than Neocities is wrong, as Neocities can directly count the number of server requests made. As Neocities has to answer these requests in order for the site to be accessed, it really is in a position to know the actual level of traffic. hope it works, but if not I guess I can at least save money by not paying for it again.
Have rolled out the change in analytics site-wide now. Cabin doesn't require any cookie consent pop-ups as it doesn't use cookies.
Have also done work on the tabindex so that keyboard navigation works better in relation to the sidebars. Have by this point made suitable changes so there is a suitable strong visual indication for both sidebars for keyboard navigation purposes. Getting the tooltips to appear is a trickier matter. May not be able to implement this until later. Alternatively, may be able to do a work-around using some conditionally appearing text if I can get that to work.
2 . 8 . 2023:
Huzzah! Navbar can now be hidden independently of the sidebars without layout issues. By learning more about Javascript I now know the difference between style display and style visibility. Also turns out that to smoothly hide the navbar, both need to be used. Also need to add to line breaks that are normally hidden and only appear when the navbar is hidden to keep it at the right height.
It is quite satisfying that I have also been able to make it so that the two reading modes so far done will work well together. If you remove the navbar on its own it is replaced with black. This is since otherwise, due to the grid-area layout of the page, the sidebars will not flow over and fill the empty space above. Leaving it at that just looks odd. The first reading mode sees the removal of the sidebars and the application of the same colour used for the background of the main section. If left as is, this would have meant that if you removed the navbar first, then removed the sidebars and then put the sidebars back on, the colour applied when removing the sidebars would now apply to the empty navbar area. That looks odd due to the gap between the sidebars and the header.
The first reading mode has been adjusted so that it is now programmed to detect if the navbar is absent and apply the black background colour accordingly. Will soon switch the order of the two reading modes around. This is since, right now, if you turn off the first mode and then the second, the empty areas will be black, while turning off the second mode and then the first adopts the colour of the main section. The black background is a good look, but it feels like the most intuitively selected appearance option should be where the sidebars and navbar appear to disappear instead ofbeing re-coloured.
One of the two icons is finalised (except perhaps in size). The image used toggles depending on whether it is active or not and the icon has changed to better show a visual example of what it does. The alt text has a clear explanation for those who need it and cannot just 'give it a try'. Will see if a tooltip explanation can be added, perhaps by a conditionally visible textbox.
There is still a little more work to go before rolling out these layout changes to all pages and then actually adding more content. In particular, there is consideration of a way to change the layout between the default 'day mode' and a 'night mode' in relation to backgrounds and perhaps something that would alter the margins and make visible a normally hidden class for optimise line breaks and spacing to accomodate how paragraphs look on smaller screens (or when displayed on part of a bigger screen), while also letting larger paragraphs (as per default) be otherwise used. That would address a particular pet peeve in relation to reflowable text.
The day/night mode would be easier to do. The alternate margins might be something done piecemeal, but I can at least put in the code for the icon and the script and roll that out across all pages of the site. Rolling out the format improvement may happen ahead of putting in the rest of the reading modes.
1 . 8 . 2023:
Eureka! Have found that focus-within can be used with tabindex to enable the submenu to appear when tabbed. There is conflicting advice about best practice. There are various sources that say that submenus should not appear when tabbed but instead only when activated, for increased ease-of-use. This avoids having to tab through all of the submenus in order to get through to the content. Other sources say there is a need for submenus to appear when tabbed because otherwise they are invisible to people who use keyboard-only navigation AND use screenreaders. This is since, apparently, if the submenu is not visible except if interacted with by keypress, it isn't visible enough to screenreaders.
Have decided it would be useful to have a 'shortcut' for people using screenreaders to skip straight to the main content instead of having to tab through unnecessary stuff. Could potentially be nice for screenreaders to avoid unnecessary repetition. Have been able to use a simple JavaScript to hide the sidebars. Need to map this to a suitable image. This also has a bonus in that this could lead to a preferred reading experience (at least for certain devices and pages). If I can implement a similar way to adjust font size or margins that can also be really handy.
31 . 7 . 2023:
Latest Update: Been busy today with other stuff, including signing up as part of the Artisans Cooperative. If you want an Etsy-alternative friendlier to creatives, check it out. Have been learning about Tab Index to improve accessibility for those only using keyboards. It seems simple to implement, but I am thinking about the tab order. I think it is better for the menus at the top to be tabbed first and then the main content and then the right sidebar last, to avoid there being too many tabs to get through to the main content. Also considering the styling for when such things are in focus.
Phew! General improvements made to visiblity of submenu elements for smaller devices. Alignment isn't perfect but cannot do more about that as there seem to be either device inconsistencies or it is due to limitations or other issues with the Responsive Design Mode available to Trajecient. It should be fully on-screen but the chances are good it won't be perfectly centred. WIll need to check to see if hover is correctly being substituted by taps on other devices. If so, although the best user experience is clearly on proper computers and laptops, it should be usable elsewhere.
The text being cut-off on certain devices is limited to specific devices if the Responsive Design Mode is correct. Those appear to be particularly old devices and to the extent they are still used this can be resolved by switching to landscape mode. Doing a more proper job to accomodate such devices in general in possible in future, but well, Trajecient needs to attain some level of success in order to justify the expense.
Sidebar images have been improved. Header images are now embedded within submenus to more clearly have a link to the main page for each section. Placeholders are mostly used but can easily delete and re-upload the image to update it site-wide. Unlike the sidebar images, as the link is always to the same page there are no issues there. This is on top of prior fixes on this page regarding the background colour of the submenus, collision detection of certain submenu items and a fix of a script which didn't break anything but resulted in warnings.
The right sidebar has been expanded and adjusted to make the interactive nature more apparent. Placeholder images to be used when a page is loaded have also been added.
The main layout issue to remain before rolling out the changes site-wide and then to really start properly adding content is to see what can be done in terms of keyboard functionality.
11 . 6 . 2023:
Almost got the expanded header done. Just need to see tomorrow if I want to add a bit of extra colour to it or not. Then can upload and hopefully it can seamlessly replace the original instead of having to only replace it when the screen is above a certain size.
Latest batch of layout improvements fully rolled out. Next up is to to work on improvements so the site is more accessible on smaller devices, as well as starting to improve individual pages on the site in terms of content and presentation. An exception is to replace the sidebar images with improved versions and to switch from having them as HTML images updated by Javascript to using background images defined with global CSS variables. I'd rather minimise the use of Javascript as far as possible and do as much with HTML and CSS as possible, in part because I find it easier to use and in part as I know there are users and browser extensions which block Javascript entirely, as a way to block as much unwanted tracking scripts as possible. Today will mostly be devoted however to the ongoing Big Run in Splatoon 3.
Today in terms of developing the site, it turns out what I have ended up doing next is an expanded header to improve the site's compatibility for larger screens. Still have to work out exactly what to put in for the extended header, but am getting there. Will be able, at least in theory, to replace the current header will this one and it will look the same as it currently does for smaller screens as the extension is basically turning the header into a triptych of sorts. But, on larger screens it is expected a lot of the header will still cut-out so this effects how it will be designed.
10 . 6 . 2023:
By the day's end, have rolled out the latest batch of layout improvements for most of the site. Still need to do these for the pages related to the 2022 National Survey of Australian Writers and the yWriter Review. But it is done for now on the rest.
For now, i have assigned a colour to fix the issue below. Later on may use background images but for now just went for something similar, although it took a while to match the colour because it turns out when the width changes, the colour needs changes as well. Have set a smooth transition from one colour to another and back as I began to properly learn to use before and after selectors in CSS. This likely will be helpful later for properly setting up sidebar background image transitions. Rolling out the current layout improvements will take a while, as I both have a Big Run in Splatoon 3 to do and am also getting things ready to apply for a new day job. (I still have the current one but this would be an upgrade).
When rolling out the layout improvements to the first selected page, one which had enough content that the page really does have to scroll, discovered there was a white gap between the sidebars and the navbar, which I had not seen before. It appears to arise from a part of a page that is needed so that the left and right sidebars really are sidebars. Changing the height, width or display settings of this area to be hopefully overridden by the sidebars themselves only broke the sidebars. Changing the layout settings also likely would be problematic.
Fortunately, found a solution that doesn't require me to actually solve the issue! All I need to do is slap on another background image to this area, or give it a colour and this will fill it in. Depending on the background settings, I can either have it really just fill this area or to partially overlap with the rest of the sidebar. If the background is higher than the height of this area, then as it scrolls the background dynamically changes. Or I can set it to a colour that matches the top of the sidebar. So I can fix the issue this way and even use it as a feature to improve how the sidebars look when they are properly acting as sidebars.
Also figured out that due to the layout changes made to the background, unused lines can simply be deleted without the sidebars getting too short. So that will make things look cleaner.
9 . 6 . 2023:
Now working on rolling out the layout improvements across the site. At a later point will need to swap out certain placeholder images for proper ones, but that has to come later. Today had been trying to do the roll-out at the same time of doing more of the sidebar text, which resulted in it taking longer. Too long, in fact. So tomorrow I will go back to just rolling out the layout ahead of doing the sidebar content.
Still, it isn't like this time has been wasted. The sidebars for the Games section is closing in on being ready, with the left sidebar featuring mini-reviews or thoughts about the various games I am currently playing or have played recently. This taught me something I wouldn't have know for sure until after I did it. I need to add a lot of line breaks at the end because otherwise, if a tooltip is to close to the edge of the screen it will be partly cut-off. Of course, even if I arrange it to look good on my monitor, that won't help people seeing it on monitors of smaller height.
Also, from the work done today this will lead into being able to add further content, because the mini-review of one of the titles is almost a full review, while it has also helped me to think about what else I would write in a longer commentary on certain games I did mini-reviews for. Oh, before I actually roll out the layout improvements, have realised that to accomodate scrollbars that actually scroll I cannot necessarily use the same background. When the sidebars are hovered on, I may need to switch to a different background (maybe using keyframes if needed for a smoother animation) or alternatively do something to change the text to ensure suitable contrast between the text and the background. Will need to experiment further.
Had earlier tried rolling out the layout improvements to a page and found that somehow the sidebar width altered in a way it should not have. Have now discovered what was happened. If the text of the main part of the layout was not a full line, the sidebars automatically increased in width because layout grid, which used auto to set the width of elements, interpreted the relatively disused part of the middle portion of the page as meaning that part of the page needed less width. Encountered this issue as the first page I tried rolling out layouts too had almost no text. So I can copy and paste the same code for most pages. I did, however, also find a way to resolve this for the pages with almost no text, which is to set a viewport width for the layout. Have to leave the sidebar parts at auto as otherwise the sidebar hover effect is neutralised. Had to set a viewport width that let the sidebars be somewhat wider as otherwise the right sidebar, when it expands, bumps into the body part and then moves offscreen to the right.
This was useful to go through as I can offer a solution in future to people using a layout grid that face similar issues. Also, having a somewhat larger sidebar for such pages at full-width is probably a better choice anyway as it increases the visibility of what is the only real content to see on those pages. Even for the image gallery pages I will be having some text to explain the context of the images.
Before the next round of layout improvements, will try to focus on adding more content first, except possibly for doing some interim improvements to improve browsing on smaller devices, or layout improvements which integrate in social media icons.
To come: Layout improvements rolled out site-wide, Improved sidebar images, proper support for browsing on smaller devices.
Still looking to start uploading some worldbuilding material soon. Excerpts are also on the to-do list. Main delay with both of those have been due to getting caught up with other work. Also looking to commission an artist to do some promotional art for certain book characters. So if you clicked because of the boys above, that's coming your way as well. Have been getting body references together. Also need to do a proper front page at some point, but that can wait since it isn't really like the site has a heap of content here yet.
I'm also at Mastodon. This is here until I figure out if there's a better way to get the Mastodon validation to work.
Dream goal is to be able to eventually develop Trajecient into a kind of artists-for-artists publisher/organisation, to be fairer to creative folks and the wider public. But that's a long-term goal as I need to succeed in my own right first. Here I will share resources, do reviews and analysis (usually video games or other media) and showcase my work.
8 . 6 . 2023:
Have not yet had time to upload the updated right sidebar images and hopefully shift from use of Javascript to CSS but that is upcoming. Did some testing on a much smaller device than the desktop I use to get an idea of what needs to change to be optimised for other devices. Although it may depend on the operating system, on some devices a tap + drag sees the navbar work perfectly fine, but in general. Tapping also works perfectly fine, taking over from hover (again, perhaps depending on the operating system of other devices) if there isn't a URL. Am thinking through the ways of handling this, especially as there has to be an indication of what can be interacted with. Potentially, the way to do this is to use media queries so that not only are things activated by hover substituted for something else, but that graphically, other elements have something to indicate they are clickable. Furthermore, I noticed that the dropdown arrow may not necessarily display correctly. I will also need to consider what can be done about that. It might have to do with fontface difficulties, or even though 'serif' is a fallback option more may need to be done. Worst case scenario is to insert an image instead.
The reading experience of the body was actually pretty good though. I do also want to make some of the sidebar elements bigger on particularly small screens as there the default size is too small. This testing was done on a screen with width of 320px and a height of 468px.
But really though, this site is really best viewed on desktops and laptops for the forseeable future. Now that I know in greater detail what needs to done to adapt the site for other devices and that this is more than just adding an alternate substitute command for hover, I will be looking to roll out the other layout improvements to the rest of the site very soon. This may happen late tomorrow after other work I have to do, or may happen after seeing if I can convert the right sidebar images to be done by divs and variables via the CSS background property, so as to make it easier for them to dynamically swapped.
Earlier today, was able to fix a mistake in that I had until now forgotten to turn the sidebars, after the layout change at smaller sizes, to static from sticky. This change now sees the sidebars at such sizes be properly the same height without a possibility of desyncing if one scrolls and the other doesn't. Feeling like I want the header and footer to also respond to a hover seeing as pretty everything else does and it is getting increasingly fun to just mouse over different parts of this page.
Realised something I didn't realise before as I didn't know enough about coding to know how simple it was a solution. Have been using Javascript to define images to be enable a more dynamic way of changing images across the whole page, but the :root can be used to define variables, such as those accepted by CSS for background images. Until now I have had an empty CSS, but by placing the :root in the external CSS file I can define variables to substitute the images used across the site, at least for background images. As divs can have background images and invisible borders I may be able to use this method as an improved substitute to the current Javascript method, If it can work the way I am thinking, this may be an easier way to set up animated images.
7 . 6 . 2023:
Latest Update: Good news! Further layout improvements seem to be working well. (As with a lot of the recent layout changes, they are only present on this page for now). For a start, expanding the sidebars when hovering on them helps to make apparent that they are scrollable and for the right sidebar in particular, helps to increase accessibility for people with lower vision. Until the improve right sidebar images are done and uploaded, they look a little fuzzy for now due to being scaled up. Furthermore, through use of keyframes have worked out how to do simple image slideshows and can make them appear only when hovering on the sidebar. Later, through use of InnerHTML I would be able to use part of the left sidebar to promote an upcoming release but making it so that the promotion is passive and unobtrusive unless hovered over, in which case it can present further details.
Although I cannot directly crossfade images using keyframes, because I can move images around in the box, I could get a smooth transition effect by basically designing the images to achieve this by panning the images to an adjacent part with a suitable background then switching images, with the next image initially in the offset position with a matching background and then panning back to centre. This will take time to achieve, but it is eminently doable. For now these is a test slideshow with Carif and Zeren but in time I may replace this with some other placeholder.
Another layout change has been to change the z-index so that when hovering over a sidebar, it now goes over the navbar. Before, if text was partially cut-off it could look weird and now this is minimised. Although the z-index transition is abrupt (this is unavoidable), I think I can eventually improve this by having an overlaying image cover the relevant part of the navbar during this time, perhaps by using a keyframe animation triggered when hovering either over the sidebar (for the fade-in animation) or when hovering over the body (for the fade-out animation)... which could double as a kind of intro animation. This is a lower priority however.
I am particularly pleased with the change made for the sidebars at smaller sizes after the layout switches. This allows for the image part to accordingly grow when it is a focus and the more dynamic nature of the layout helps make better use of the smaller space. Additionally, the change to the images on the right sidebar makes for improved visibility and it allowed me to use a new technique I hadn't used before in creating a div class with the specific intent of making it visible only at certain sizes. It is not rendered when the sidebars appear at the side but is rendered when the sidebars appear next to each other below the body of the web page. This way I have been able to create extra space on the page when desired. Will soon be able to use this technique to enable the second kind of tooltips to conditionally appear at smaller sizes as needed, as the other tooltip does not allow for reflowable width (but is needed to appear over a scrollbar.
The big layout change needed to be done before rolling out the layout changes site-wide (although I may start doing this soon regardless) is to put in the alternative to hover as an input method for devices which do not support hover.
6 . 6 . 2023:
The sidebar tooltips has been updated for this page. There doesn't appear to be a way to directly control the width but this can be indirectly done via line breaks. From doing more testing, realised that I only need to make the tooltips look right for widths before the layout shifts and the sidebars move below to non-sticky versions. That is because then I can switch back to the tooltips I previously did, which also has the advantage of letting me define the width. Might be easier to convert the relevant part of code to two different classes to make toggling visibility easier. For those older tooltips, might make them look closer to the newer tooltips.
Resolved other related issues that had come up. One related to the first entry appearing one dot point down. Shifting it with a translateY, for some reason, broke the tooltips altogether. The issue was linked to the first entry having a URL link as removing this fixed the issue. There was a better, more complete fix, though, which was to change the lists to remove the bullet points and then add a manual line break between each entry (otherwise they took up the same space). The bullet point was then manually reinserted as a character. There was also issues related to multiple copies appearing which were fixed by removing sensitivity to pointer events when this wasn't needed.
The only remaining issue is to set up a suitable delay so that the Javascript rules aren't deleted too early in the operation, but even without this it works well enough to make the change until this is fixed. The rules are to be deleted to enable the position of the tooltips to be updated between activations, but if they are deleted to soon it can see the tooltips briefly appear in the wrong position to suddenly disappear instead of fading away. There is a way of getting this to work in Javascript. I just need to learn a bit more about how the scripts work.
As with the sidebars, eventually the tooltips will likely eventually have different appearances for different parts of the site.
Otherwise, an important layout change still needed is putting in place click/tap as an alternative to hover and in combination with this a substitute for the link to the main pages on the navbar, so that the site can be properly used by devices that cannot hover. First need to read up on the best way to approach this.
3 . 6 . 2023:
Layout issues will be resolved very soon now. Have figured out how to get the submenus working right without causing space to appear on the right side of the screen and similarly how to get rid of the potential issue with at least Mozilla Firefox on some devices where once the layout shifts to move the sidebars to the bottom, part of the navbar is cut-off. In the case of the former, having the html in CSS hide overflow-x does this without interfering with tooltips or anything. In the case of the latter. somehow, hiding the scrollbar fixes it. These fixes are not currently live on this page but will be relatively soon.
Given that the scrollbar has limited customisation in Firefox and that it is better for navigation to use internal HTML links to make it easy to navigate between parts of longer pages, I prefer to hide the scrollbar anyway. Hiding the scrollbar can mean that resizing the window on certain devices, at least in Firefox, will initially see some white on the right size of the screen (interestingly enough, not just for the web page, but at times also ABOVE it including in the Firefox UI). So it has to be some Firefox bug of some kind. Fortunately, in regular web browsing it won't even appear, as it does not appear when the page first loads in the default size or when snapping a window, i.e. to go from full-width to half-width.
In the test page have got the submenus working perfectly in terms of fixing the overlapping issue when transitions are played. This fix will also work at smaller screens.
There are still a couple of sidebar issues to work out (basically reconfiguring the height at smaller sizes so it is both equal but also not too stretched out) and at all sizes to see if a better solution can be put in place for the sidebar tooltips. The big one though is putting in place click/tap as an alternative to hover and in combination with this a substitute for the link to the main pages on the navbar, so that the site can be properly used by devices that cannot hover.
31 . 5 . 2023:
Layout now feels like it is really starting to come together. Soon will hopefully be able to roll it out across the site. There is improved Safari browser compatibility! Previously didn't realise certain properties required a different line of code to work in the Safari browser. The size of the left sidebar is now equal to the right sidebar as had been intended. The margins are adjusted so more content can fit in. The sidebar tooltips are now properly vertically centred and locked to the right horizontal position (as the two preceding entries were of equal length, it seemed like this was the case when it was not). Well, they except for currently being invisible, but am on the lead of a resolution and had already found a workaround, although the problem with it is that while the tooltips do appear they will no longer also appear connected to what they reference. Still, that is left as the interim solution as it may be a while before I can implement a proper solution. Speaking of Endorsement entries, was able to find a nice one to add today.
The sidebar image issues seems to be well and truly resolved. Also have worked out the sidebar scrolling issue. At present, an invisible scrollbar is used, but am exploring what can be done to have some more visible indicator that scrolling is possible, but without messing up the sidebars. Maybe it isn't needed though... The cause of the sidebar scrolling issue was actually really simple: as a sticky vertical element, it was designed with a specific size in mind. If the height of the monitor changed, only part of the sidebar is visible and so when the sidebars hit the footers, there is simply more of the sidebar to bump up. I could have changed the height, but then depending on the monitor things could look squished.
So, now the sidebars and body will suitably expand if needed to cover the available space, so they work better for larger monitors. May also seek to change the font size and image sizes to scale up on larger devices but that is a lower priority. Also still need to make sure the navbar submenus work properly in smaller sizes (and to adjust the transition for one of them so it doesn't overlap with another). Also, further testing made clear the text margins still need some work as bumping into the sidebars is still possible. But still, the formatting is definitely progressing.
24 . 5 . 2023:
Eureka! Hiding the overflow on the x-axis specifically for the aside section did the trick! No more white empty space. The height of the sidebars has also been fixed! Also found the remaining CSS Parsing Error (a missing curly bracket for the Media Query section).
Only a few issues are remaining: to see if I can get the placeholder UI images to smoothly transition to the ones set by the external Javascript file (although I can live with the snapping); and to alter certain elements at particularly small sizes where at the moment some of the sidebar elements are too big and collide together. (For this, I have gotten the box part working and almost have the boxes done). Appears a new issue with the z-index has emerged so will have to deal with that.
Have found a means to expand the submenus, but in testing it may be too cumbersome to access other parts of the menu... so considering the potential options, such as having the submenu appear further away from the navbar. Will be too busy for the next two days local time to work on the site, at least for any more than a brief period.
23 . 5 . 2023:
Working on putting in the tooltips for the submenus. Know how to get it just right at larger sizes, but at smaller sizes have to do more work to get it to work properly. The submenus progressively get decentred the smaller the screen is, but I have made adjustments so it stays centred for longer. I either need to do a different Media Query to adjust the 'Books' for a specific range where it needs to be pushed further to the right or more likely, make a change so for the existing Media Query it takes up a whole line, as that is the only way to ensure there is enough space at smaller sizes for the submenu tooltips. What I have is at least workable for now for most sizes.
The bigger issue is that at certain very specific sizes I am getting an issue related to the right sidebar. I think the issue is caused by the images shrinking to the point that the sidebar itself gets to small, creating white space. Getting the right vw values to prevent this may be tricky (it isn't just about width but about height to avoid the sidebar getting too high for the other sidebar). Alternatively, below a certain size when the issue crops up, I could do another media query and do a layout change. It will take some time to sort out. I likely will not fix this completely for a while, as I would rather make some more meaningful progress elsewhere.
Have set the layout so that now there are separate sidebar images that can be applied at different sizes using media query. Additionally, would be able to go further by changing the image when the sidebar is hovered over, for example. Before this can be implemented will need to actually create such images. This may be a lower priority than actually rolling out the other layout improvements across all pages of the site and putting in more of the sidebar links.
Have made a fix so made so at smaller screens the images used for the right sidebar will display at an appropriate size and alignment. Pleasingly, I did not have to look up anything. Increasingly, I know enough about code that it is a matter of remembering the various properties that exist and trying stuff that sounds like it could work. In this case, using media queries to alter the properties of the relevant div, so that the width and alignment changes. Also fixed it so the two sidebars are now of equal height at small sizes. The size of the box of the left sidebar is adjusted for this together with hiding one of the images of the right sidebar.
Been working on the formatting for tooltips to help improve navigability and aesthetics. Formatting for the main pages of the navbar and blogroll are done. Soon can apply to other parts of the site after checking the wording.
Further changes have been made. Noticed that in smaller window sizes, the tooltips had an issue due to the way the z-index was set up. It has now been changed so that the z-index will auto-adjust depending on what you hover over. So not only will the tooltips remain visible, even if they were added on both sides, but the text shadow effect will always be visible.
Finally, adjusted the line spacing for the blogroll stuff to be more visible and had to make other adjustments to fit things in. The number of possible recommendations is reduced to 15, but that is ample enough and in any case, if more are needed, that can always be done on specific pages.
22 . 5 . 2023:
Decided how to handle the blogroll or equivalent thereof on Neocities is to limit it to one page (because as links and/or the recommendations changes, it isn't feasible to change the links for every page one-by-one as the site expands). There is a way of doing this if I use images instead, but I think it makes for a better site anyway to change it up.
The recommendations will only be for the main pages accessible by the navbar. So one each for: Home Page, About, Type Foundry, Video Games, Books, Gallery, Resource Zone and Musings. Each recommendation will have a tooltip separate to the alt text. The tooltip will provide explanation for the recommendation.
The use of social media links makes sense for the Contact Trajecient page, while for the Changelog it isn't relevant (and at this point is more for internal use than anything else, although in time it might shift to being a chronicle or timeline of Trajecient's development).
The recommendations for each page that has them will be relevant and I may have to change one of the headings on the sidebar to be a proper fit. The Home Page will have bigger recommendations for software, products and services.
The About Page will have music recommendations as there otherwise isn't a part of the site for that (at least at present) The ones for the Type Foundry, Video Games and Books sections are self-explanatory. The Gallery section will have art-related recommendations. Musings will have recommendations in relation to podcasts. The Resource Zone will have recommendations for specific non-fiction books or other reference works of a more commercial nature that aren't included as resources because the focus there is on stuff that is free-to-access.
In time I may have blogs or other personal websites to specifically recommend, but I think that is more likely to be in specific articles written in the Musings section rather than in a sidebar.
21 . 5 . 2023:
Closing in on putting together the initial blogroll. Likely going to be a mix of links to websites or social media profiles of interesting writers, musicians and so forth, rather than insisting on them all specifically being blogs. Think I can drop the Captcha for the Contact Form, as I think I was misunderstanding what an exact match means in relation to word boundaries. Will at least give it a go after making a couple adjustments.
20 . 5 . 2023:
Had not wanted to use a Captcha for the Contact Form, but it looks like that may be needed as an anti-spam measure, seeing as currently Trajecient does not have server-level control to implement a corresponding blacklist there. The Contact Form has been improved. The form now has validation features! Now won't let empty fields be submitted. It will also make sure the email is in a proper email format.
27 . 4 . 2023:
Have found the ID combined with InnerHTML lets me define text in a single place, so this will allow me to use external Javascript files to replace text strings en masse across the whole site. Has numerous applications! Able to replace links for a blogroll really easily now without needing to change every page. Same for different sidebar variants for different sections of the site. Will eventually need to see if a script can be done to insert text via Javascript. Would make it MUCH easier to update the navbar submenus.
25 . 4 . 2023:
As I am still a beginner with coding, came to a realisation others will find basic. Such is the quest for knowledge! Mistake identified: in following code that answered the question I had, was following it too closely. Was assigning properties to the wrong ID. Had an ID for a URL. Could easily change the URL via Javascript. Couldn't change other properties. Reason now obvious. This was because the code wasn't pointing to the image – only back to the URL. Have fixed the situation. Tried removing URL ID to do everything with the Div ID. Failure! Put back in and added an IMG ID. Success! So the sidebar improvements are now definitely coming. Also found more graceful way to write the code.
Also able to do more fancy transition effects, so the new sidebar will be quite responsive to input. When hovering over a section, it will have an animated effect, while hovering over the sidebar itself also has a box shadow effect. Will need to fine-tune this later, but first need to roll-out the initial sidebar. May happen after improving the left side first now that the right side is ready. Or the right sidebar improvement will roll out first, after I put in the proper Alt Text and URLs.
23 . 3 . 2023:
Latest Update: Making a note here, huge success! Have found way to achieve exactly what I wanted. Neocities doesn't have a content management system and CSS cannot be used to define URLs, so while say, a sidebar can be easily defined in CSS, it is not directly possible to write text or place images (or other content) with URL links and have them update across all pages where they appear, instead of copying and pasting across all pages. Neocities itself recommends the way to manage such content is to use a static site generator and then reupload the pages.
Have been able to get it to work using external .JS files. The problem I had been having was not correctly calling the function in the proper place, which I've figured out having discovered a post about the body onload command. In theory I could use this method to substitute text, instead of using images of text. but as doing it that way makes it quicker to have text and images with the kind of graphics harder or impossible to achieve as swiftly in CSS alone, will be sticking to using images. Will take some time to set this up before being rolled out, especially given being busy with other stuff tomorrow.
Cannot overstate my satisfaction!
20 . 3 . 2023:
Have improved the Contact Trajecient page. Proper working contact form (have checked). Social media links with more accurate description. Also new: the initial Gallery is open. Leads nowhere but at least the entrance is ready. (Progress!)
Well, actually, now you can advance if you pick the right part of the entrance. Initial Artwork section is ready. Tried using Figure Caption but it caused issues, preventing the sidebars from moving to a different layout at smaller sizes (to protect the text being squeezed into too narrow columns). Found workaround using in-text paragraph styling. For some reason something on the Gallery and Artwork pages has causes the right sidebar to shift, but a translateX fix is working, pushing it back without needing to pinpoint what the actual cause is (as I couldn't locate it).
12 . 3 . 2023:
After a delay, now actually setting up the sidebars more properly. Afterwards have to go back and add in the links and other content has to be done, but the basic structure will be in place.
19 . 2 . 2023:
Font issue fixed. The site now actually displays the proper typeface. Finding the proper settings to readjust margins proved easier than expected.
16 . 2 . 2023:
Another batch of layout improvements complete. Very exciting! Sticky navbar makes navigation a breeze (remember to look into tooltips for extra enhancements).
Sidebars now stick and no longer require load-bearing sentences on emptier pages. Will also PROPERLY reposition at smaller sizes. Satisfying result! Unable to stop sidebars scrolling over the header when it hits the bottom of a page. No matter! Redid sidebar design so it becomes a neat sliding transition effect! Like a glassy bookmark. Will have more design variations for different pages in future.
8 . 2 . 2023:
Forced to abandon icon experiment. Don't know enough to get proper size and positioning without making navbar too big.
8 . 2 . 2023:
Research For Creators section is now up under the Resources section. To start with, there is an analysis/review there of a 2022 National Survey of Australian Book Authors. Includes original graphs designed with colour blindness in mind. Neat!
Improved URL formatting. Underline better with more distance from the words. Started test on having social media icons as links on the navbar for easier access. Initial tests promising! Still seeing if I can improve size and positioning.
6 . 2 . 2023:
Found a fix for the number issue. Needed to switch to 'tallfig' variations. License, thankfully, allows for font modification. Big time saver! Working on a write-up about a survey of Australian writers, including graphs. Part of developing a section of the site into a useful place for analysis and review of research useful for creators. Also getting ready to do some more development on the Resources and book-related pages, so there's actually more stuff to see there. Have improved site organisation by moving where the Fonts are located. Resolves an issue with fonts not working for pages in subfolders.
2 . 2 . 2023:
Have had time to redo the Favicons and add a set of maskable icons. Too busy tomorrow to really work on the site. Afterwards will be able to add more actual stuff.
29 . 1 . 2023:
Favicons are finished! They appear as icons in tabs, bookmarks and home screen shortcuts. Trajecient favicons look great regardless of what theme your browser/device has.
Same cannot be said of all Favicons. Various Favicons will practically disappear depending on the background – not these ones! Can be used on home screens purely for the decorative value.
Design actually on a par with those used for web browsers and other major sites. Can work as a conversation piece as a result of seeming to appear to an interesting new web browser or app. Confuse your friends!
28 . 1 . 2023:
Navbar now has proper fadeouts. Nifty design! Fun to play around with. URL links have superior formatting. Some loss of sensation for the visited links transition effect due to browser-wide bug, but with current setting loss not really noticeable.
New Musings page with an article on what is like to just dive into web design without any experience (or patience for tutorials). Has some tips on what to watch for if you want to try picking it up as you go along. Plus a reflection on benefits of coding sites. TL;DR – easier than you may think! ( ... Well maybe not you, if you're a Neocities ... Neocitizen?). Changelog also introduced, to archive these 'mad scientist' scribblings for posterity.
26 . 1 . 2023:
Initial pages done for the Books page and Stellar Drifts: Self-Gravitation.
25 . 1 . 2023:
Need to fill in pages for what was put into the navbar. Did pages for Frightlighter: First True Superhero and Type Foundry.
24 . 1 . 2023:
Huzzah! Have fixed formatting issues. Now the header doesn't break at smaller widths AND remains centred. Navbar better in every respect. In smaller sizes sidebars now neatly fit side-by-side at the bottom. Very nice! Also figured out text indentation and margins. Can soon start actually filling the site in.
23 . 1 . 2023:
Links page. Header issues evident. Made a mini-comic which could fit into header to stop resizing issue, but unneeded. Alternate solution found!
21 . 1 . 2023:
Had wanted to code from scratch. Forced to resort to layout generator for temporary layout. Initial About page.
19 . 1 . 2023:
Security Certificate War ends. Casualty: One Wayback Machine crawler, maybe more. Unexpected surge in traffic. Rush to actually start making the site worth looking at.
18 . 1 . 2023:
Site begins. Caught off-guard by non-zero number of visitors. Not used to visitors. Security Certificate War caused by inconsistent DNS entries. Site often offline.