Cocoa Dev Central Redesign
The time has come for a Cocoa Dev Central redesign. It's a very "back-to-basics" look. In other words, it's all about easy access to content. I originally set out to do something a bit more radical, but this is what we have for now. The next one around will probably look at lot different.
First off, there are some obvious rough edges that I'm still smoothing over. For example, there's no feedback link on the home page, nor a direct link to the feed. These will probably be fixed sometime today.
I decided to go with a rollover-centric design to stuff a bunch of information in a relatively small amount of space. Not all of the article rollover graphics look how I want just yet, they're just placeholders.
At this time, only the home page has been revamped. I'll probably going in and tweak the article styles a bit as well, but they received a bit of a tune-up not too long ago. The very old articles will get an update, though.
Brian Christensen's two-part series on writing screen savers is now listed at the top of the page. I mentioned these tutorials earlier on Theocacao, but this is the first time they've been on the Cocoa Dev Central home page.
The home page now also features some Cocoa and Mac bloggers. I'm not sure if this is the final list of who will be here. I might add some, and I might remove some.
If you have any nominations, let me know. They don't necessarily have to be Cocoa jockeys, but they should focus on software in some way. Also, they do not have to work for Delicious or Panic or something. Little guys with big content are fine. Obviously, not all nominations will make it in.
I realize some people might find it just stupid that I list Theocacao first in the blog list. I actually considered listing it down at position five or so, but that looked even more bizarre. My final feeling was that site has no ads and takes a lot of time to keeping running, so having one link to the blog is a minor concession. :)
Cocoa Dev Central Redesign
Posted Feb 9, 2006 — 11 comments below
Posted Feb 9, 2006 — 11 comments below
Justin Williams — Feb 09, 06 752
Alastair Tse — Feb 09, 06 754
Great new design on the Cocoa Dev Central, still my favourite cocoa tutorials site. I like this one a lot, it is simple yet has that nice polished feel to it, just like the old Cocoa Dev Central design.
Anyway, I was attracted to comment because I saw my name on the list of Mac Cocoa Dev list, which is funny because I haven't released much Cocoa stuff, although I plan to when I finally get enough time to finish everything I want. I guess I do talk about Cocoa a bit more than usual because I just find it pretty fascinating.
However, I think instead of me, one of these guys is more worthy than me:
Jonathan Wight
Corbin Dunn
and possibly more, but i'm just checking my RSS reader just to make sure. I definitely read the guys from Panic, Shipley and Gruber's blog.
Scott Stevenson — Feb 09, 06 755
Ben Kazez — Feb 09, 06 756
Can I suggest underlining the links listed under "All Other Tutorials"? Even if this happens only on mouseover, it will make it much more obvious that those are clickable.
Also, the dark gray background on the internal content pages makes them seem almost like they're on a different site. You might want to try keeping the same gray (either the dark or the light from the front page).
Eric Czarny — Feb 10, 06 757
I am sure to be visiting Cocoa Dev Central on a much more regular basis. Especially with the list of Cocoa-related resources on the cover. Awesome.
Scott Stevenson — Feb 10, 06 758
Yup, that's one of the rough edges. :)
Also, the dark gray background on the internal content pages makes them seem almost like they're on a different site.
I'm probably going to tweak those pages a bit so they don't clash so much. Just haven't decided how yet.
Jorge — Feb 10, 06 759
I have to say I must be your biggest fan. I absolutely love everything you design.
To quote Outkast: "So fresh and so clean" :)
It's very rare to see a technologically inclined person with such good taste.
Thanks.
Dan Price — Feb 11, 06 760
This is a little off-topic but I was just looking at Drop Shadows tutorial and wondering where you got the cool-looking circular sliders from? These would be really useful in my project.
Also, the new design is missing a favorite icon. Minor thing but it looks a little odd in my favorites menu :-)
Scott Stevenson — Feb 11, 06 761
I should probably take that tutorial down. It's outdated since NSShadow came out. In any case, I think it comes from somewhere in the dev examples, but you could ask Brad too.
Also, the new design is missing a favorite icon.
Weird. It should be there. It's in the head tag and I see it in mine.
Byron Schlemmer — Feb 13, 06 764
Just want to say thanks for all the work and for providing the community with an excellent resource. The site looks great and I especially like the "Mac Bloggers" section.
It goes without saying that the tutorials are fantastic.
All the best.
Andy Matuschak — Mar 21, 06 944