Redesigning this blog

Finally, I took some time to redesign this blog template. My new theme is based on the yellow swirl from IBM Lotus Notes/Domino:

I made this theme in December last year, but only now I have time to implement it. This image has already inspired others, e.g.: My IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Buzz Kit. You should definitely check out this site.

Cleaning up the mess

Over time, the code behind my blog template has become such a mess, each time adding and changing things. Because I lacked a template to host the many code samples, most of the time they ended up as pages, forms and navigators in the application itself. I need a cleaner approach to handle the code samples. Each sample will be stored in a 'lab' document and additional images, CSS or JavaScript files will be served from documents as well.

Making room

I decided to convert my template from a simple blog to a complete site, so that I have more flexibility to add things. This implements adding a navigation. The top navigation will be horizontal tabs. Secundary navigation will become a tree structure in an additional left pane. I found the Ubuntu site very inspiring, especially the Ubuntu brainstorm.

As usual, I am doing the updates directly on the live site, probably blogging about it at the same time. So don't be surprised that during the next days, things will be broken from time to time. Everything will come together in the end.