March 2011 Site Update: Now With Three Columns!

As you can see the layout of Augoeides has changed. I put some thought into changing over the theme to something completely new, but then came across a three-column version of Thisaway Rose which was what I was already using. It turned out to be pretty easy to make the same modifications to the new version as I had done with the old one, so that's what you're seeing now. I haven't completely closed the book on a full theme change, but this new version serves my purposes for now.

I've been wanting a three-columm layout for awhile, for three main reasons:

1. As monitors have gotten bigger the old theme had started looking too narrow with its 760 pixel width. The new theme is 900 pixels wide, which still looks okay on a 1024x768 monitor but nonetheless uses more of the screen real estate. I'd like to go a little bit wider because the sidebars have shrunk a bit and feel a little cramped, but after some experimentation this morning it looks like that will require more work than I have time for at the moment.
2. With the new gadgets and feeds that I've added recently the sidebar was getting ridiculously long, especially if you just followed a link to a single post. The extra column fixes that problem and lets me have two shorter sidebars instead of one long one.
3. Finally, I wanted to be able to add a "Recent Comments" gadget since I've been noticing lately that I completely miss comments on older posts on a regular basis, but that would have made the sidebar even longer. It looks fine with the extra room.

I'm still kind of getting used to the three-column look. The old theme is essentially the standard one I started using when I first set the site up on blogger minus the bright pink background that I eventually changed over to dark blue. Hey, "Clear Pink Rose" is the King Scale color for Tiphareth - but even though I saw the pink that way most readers didn't and just found it annoying. It certainly is true that the blue is much gentler on the eye.

Enjoy the new site! I've made it a personal goal to continue blogging at the current rate in the months to come. This has already been my best month ever for pageviews and I plan on keeping the articles and commentary coming.