Unless you read this site entirely from the comfort of your RSS reader, you’ve probably noticed the changes to Sidearm. I decided it was time to clean up the visuals and adhere to a more consistent theme while increasing functionality and adding some much-needed features. This should probably be considered version 1.5 because it’s not optimized and I’m planning on doing a complete redesign in the next 6 months.

For the overall look, I wanted to create a sort of retro-futurist aesthetic, bringing in elements of modernism, art deco, and science fiction. The most obvious homage being the fading buttons in the sidebar which were directly inspired by Star Trek’s computer panels.

The sidebar has seen most of the changes. I’ve added a newsletter signup, an audio player for K9000 songs, and the new buttons that I’ve already mentioned. The sidebar is getting pretty lengthy and I know that it will get even longer, so I’m experimenting with space-saving ideas. It’s still experimental at this point but some of the section headers can be clicked to toggle that section on or off. Try clicking Categories for instance.

All of the new animation is being done with jQuery (not flash) so it should be cross browser compliant, but I have no idea what kind of performance hit it might be creating, especially on low-powered computers. Let me know if they’re causing major problems. I’ll be doing a write up on jQuery soon, but I would highly recommended checking it out now because it makes javascript about as easy as CSS (in fact, in some ways it’s even easier).