As I have a lot of time on my hands in the evening, I thought that I’d play with the website. I missed my sub heading that I used to have, so I brought it back. It means a lot to me and is a good reminder:
Life. Stop and take a look!
So, I’ve started playing with the blog header. If you are not seeing a different image, perhaps a shift+refresh is in order. I know that IE will cache the old image, seemingly forever, if you don’t do that. For now, I started with 9 different images. No magic there, it’s just that I ran out of time and need to go to work. 
Eventually, I plan to have about 50+ different images; a different one will display each time that the page is entered/refreshed. I’m still working on the fonts, placement, etc.
It is, I think, a cool way to display more pictures. Also, the ‘letterbox’ format is interesting to play with. You get a lot different feeling based on the way that you crop. Not every photo is suitable, but it is fun to try.
Well, I should be in the car rolling on the way to work …
If you want to cycle through them, just keep clicking on the image or pressing your refresh button. I’ve looked at it with 3 browsers: Firefox, Safari, and IE … all, though, from Windoze. I’ve not seen this as viewed from a Mac.
Please provide feedback. BTW, I’ll be working on making the images smaller in size, just as long as I can maintain the quality. I want them to load faster. All suggestions are welcomed.
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16 Responses to “New header images”
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Hi Paul:
In FireFox I don’t see any images and your tittle has opacity to it.
Also in IE it looks like there might be an icon for and image but again no image and same with title.
I have been playing around with a new theme that lets you make all the changes in the admin control panel (26 theme layout functions). It has rotating images when you click.
take a look if you like
http://www.nielsp.ca/green
Niels
Hey, nice, I like the new headers look. Makes the whole site look more “lively.”
The one thing I noticed was the loading sequence is a little discerning. Initially your Site Title and sub-heading appear to overlay the upper most post until the background header image pops up at the very end. This occurred consistently on both Safari and Firefox browsers. This may not even be an issue but I thought I’d mention it.
Oh, my comment above was from observing your blog home page. The loading sequence appears to be a little different from an individual post page.
@Earl: I need to work on the loading sequence, but am not sure how to get the image to load first. I’m using “body onload=…”, but the bottom of the page always shows first.
@Neils: I’ve tried it on a couple of machines with all 3 browsers and I always get an image and title. In IE, I would suggest a shift + refresh, to make sure that it loads the current images instead of keeping what’s in the cache. It’s still a work in progress.
Hi Paul,
From the Mac & Firefox, got the bridge image when went to your site. Refreshing didn’t changed the image though.
Just some data for your debugging. Kate
@Kate: Thanks. Sometimes it will show the same image a couple of times in a row. It just depends on how the random number works. Try a few more times, if you don’t mind.
Just retried it now, and images are circulating fine. Saw 3 differtn ones…. all lovely.
I think it is great. Looks wonderful and I enjoy seeing the different photos each time. Seems to be working well.
That’s real cool Paul, works well on my PC with FireFox.
Hi Paul,
The images look great but on my 1920 x 1200 display it appears that the title text, contact and gallery links are set to variable width while the content area is fixed width (1100px). So when I view your home page the content and header are centered while the title text and links zoom off to opposite sides of the screen!
Cool effect though!
Paul,
I don’t know whether it was intentional, but the words “Paul”, “life” and “Gallery” are all displaying in the outer grey margins. I’m using Google Chrome.
This morning I got hung up (using IE), but evertything is working smoothly now. I like the new look. What I see is the title and subtitle of your site superimposed partly over the gray background and partly over the photos. Good choice.
On my Mac using Firefox – looks just fine Paul. I like the rotating images.
@All: Thanks for your comments. As you can see, I changed the header again … after I was able to get home and use my CSS tool, “Skybound Stylizer. It took me while, but it wasn’t so painful. Be sure to do a shift + refresh, especially if you are using IE!
Works absolutely fine for me (Firefox 3.0.5 on WinXP) – and I definately like the photos you use! Concerning the textbox: in my mind the background color is a tad too heavy – it’s “too different” from the rest of the site. Just my two cents of course…
Oh, btw., you can’t beat http://www.browsershots.org for checking compatibility across browsers – the site provides screenshots of your page in almost all conceivable browser/OS/screen combinations. Extremely helpful…
@Thomas: Thanks for the feedback and the link to Browser Shots. I found that, for some reason, my website doesn’t look correct with Safari 3.2.1, on a Windoze machine. The top image doesn’t fall in the right place. So either Safari is not doing something right with the CSS, or I’m not, and all of the other browsers are fixing it. It showed correctly on 51/53 browsers, with only Safari Windows and Mac not getting it right. Hmmm.