I am in housekeeping mode. “Out with the old and in with the new,” I say.
I decided to change my WordPress theme from TwentyTen (yes, that missing blank was intended) to the Scherzo theme. Both are “responsive” themes, TwentyTen being so by way of Todd Halfpenny’s brilliant plugin, “Responsive TwentyTen” and Scherzo having its responsiveness built into the theme itself.
Thank you Leon Paternoster. I think that your clean, minimalist Scherzo design is beautiful.
Unfortunately, Scherzo is a little schizo if you’re running Internet Explorer 8 or less and Leon is the first to point this out. I think Leon probably has a different sort of audience than me. Currently, I have 21 percent of my readers using IE8 or older versions. Thanks to one of my kids’ laptops, I saw first-hand how wacky things could look around here with IE8.
After quite a bit of fiddling around with what would have been my new blog header, I still was not sure whether to ignore the 21% and forge ahead, so I took a peek at the Scherzo-fied Android version of this site. That was the moment I accepted defeat and humbly reverted back to the safety and security of good ol’ TwentyTen.
But not before I tried the responsively designed, Twenty Eleven (space in between intended here). You might think that one year older, wiser, and technically advanced in the software development world would result in a better theme in Twenty Eleven, but not if “responsive” and appealing design is a top priority and I will admit, responsiveness is kind of important to me. So is the appealing part.
So what’s going on with my obsession with website responsiveness?
Maybe it’s my old person’s eyes. You know, larger print and all.
Maybe it’s those picky little bits that leave me just short of having a warm and fuzzy experience.
Maybe I just despise sliding the little phone screen back and forth, in and out, back and forth, in and out, back and forth, until I lose all control, throw the phone against a wall, and collapse in a heap. Urgh!
What exactly is a responsive web application, you eagerly ask? Why, here is an introduction that will answer all your wonderful inquisitiveness!
I’ll wait patiently while you take it all in.
Are you basking in the glory of knowing that a website should look cool and act cool no matter what device it’s running on? Great! Now, that you’re up on all that responsiveness, let’s celebrate with a bagel and tea! Or a croissant and coffee! Or a kolache and hot cocoa! Or a BPA-free bottle of spring water and…uh…nothing!
In the mean time…
..I am still trying to figure what to do about my photography site, kdironside.com. I have run into one teensy glitch and a few pixel-sized glitches which appear to be imbedded a little too deeply into the WordPress design template for me to want to deal with them, so I’m going to fiddle with it a bit longer and then a la Scherzo, probably ditch it entirely for a better set of tools. Or maybe a different (and responsive!) design.
But I haven’t given up yet. I think my 50+ year track record of being a glutton for punishment entitles me to see this sordid little saga string itself out just a smidgen longer.
In the mean time, I have chosen the advice of Sir Winston Churchill to accompany me into battle:
If you are going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill
