SofieHofman.com has a new look. The new web design was ready about three weeks ago but I waited for the new year to upload the new WordPress theme. The whole site has been redesigned and it is now using WordPress 2.7. It used to be in simple PHP, and only the blog was using WordPress.
The new web design is actually based on the old web design of SofieHofmann.com and the new web design of Sehdi.com. I removed some of the sections but also added a few more sections which you will see once I finished writing the content and uploading the photos that I used to have at the website.
SofieHofmann was a sort of an album, and will still be like an album, plus the blog. I know the photo gallery capability of WordPress ever since WordPress 2.5 was introduced. I have tested many photo galleries but did not want too much complications in installing and upgrading the software. I just would like to have a simple photo gallery, and WordPress is the answer to it minus the automatic slide show.
Regarding the sections, I made use of the categories to act like pages to make the other sections more dynamic just like a blog. I wanted to omit the dates at the other sections except at the blog by entering some codes at the .htaccess but I always get an error. With that, I will just have to leave everything just like a blog with the dates on the URL.
I have done using categories to act like pages but dynamic in one of my web designs. Kindly view Philippine Seafarers Assistance Programme Website, click the pages, and you will see what I mean. I converted PSAP-PAROLA.org to CMS using WordPress. I am satisfied with that website considering that I did that design when WordPress 2.5 was released.
Regarding the layout, I’m using one layout for this site, a fluid three-column for the whole site, with the main content on the left and the two sidebars on the right. Having a fluid three-column layout is always critical so I made sure that it looks good on different browsers.
The site was tested at Safari 3, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Opera 8.5, Opera 9.2, Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 with screen resolutions like 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024 and even bigger than 1280×1024. As usual I also limited the width so as not to expand the main content if the screen resolution is bigger than 1440×900.
Regarding colors, I finally change the background color of the content from light blue to white, which made the website lighter, cooler and pleasant to look at.
The web design is maybe simple but I am quite happy with it. It remains uncluttered, easy to navigate, and that really matters to me.