Small design update, a new sidebar, and more to come 10th of April 2024

Here comes the first update of 2024! You may notice, if you're on desktop, that the classic navigation bar at the top of your screen has been replaced with a sidebar on the left.

What's New?

  • Sidebar: The top navigation bar has been replaced with a sidebar in order to make the space less cluttered, which will be crucial in the future*. The design and functionality have been inspired by those of the sidebar of this neat website called A Light In The Woods, but will change in the future.

  • Front-end changes:

    • Many elements now resize based on window size and resolution (although this is not yet fully implemented);
    • Changed the "Welcome" font on the home page;
    • The copyright notice in the footer of the website now updates the year automatically;
    • Updated the favicon;
    • Updated the logo;
    • Other front-end tweaks.

  • For the nerds:

    • Embeds now support thumbnails.

Plans for the future

*A major design update will come after the basic functions of the website are fully implemented, and the design will be less minimalistic/corporate-ish/downright soulless (Lackadaisy's website, for example, uses a lot of hand-drawn elements, and has a much more artistic vibe to it which I admire).

You may have noticed two additional greyed out options when opening the menu. I am working on character information pages and two art galleries (one for official art, and one for fan art). A big project is also nearing completion and will be uploaded on this website soon!

Now, for the more nerdy stuff: I will have to use a CMS (content management system) in the future, since manually cropping thumbnails and working with MD and JSON files is extremely tedious, and makes the website hard to update seamlessly, for the lack of a better term. I need to be able to set the website on maintenance mode when doing major updates, and I need to be able to upload articles without messing with the server files every time I do so. I may also need to add user accounts in the future and the possibility to upload comments on news articles, artworks, and comics (yes, I may also make some comic pages in the future!). I have messed around with Drupal for a bit, but I need to modify it quite a lot to suit my needs (I need to learn how to decouple it since I am more comfortable with the classic approach for the front end. I might also look into React for it), and I currently don't have enough time on my hands to do so.