The new Icarus Slash Fiction design! Tant-ta-ra!

[icarus]

I've now, a full year after I started working on this, redesigned Icarus Slash Fiction.

This the first site design I've ever done and yes, it's very, very simple. But I hope I've eliminated the problems with the frames and it's my hope that it's easy to navigate. I no longer have to squint at an 11 pt font either.

femmequixotic designed the multifandom banner with artwork kindly volunteered by lizardspots.

I'm taking suggestions for changes and recommendations. For example, the white background might seem a bit... white... for some. If you've an idea for a better color, please do comment. I'd like to hear from you.

In fact, if you have any complaints or things you'd like to see, now's the time to speak up, because I'm tinkering still. I've so many Harry Potter stories and drabbles that I worry about it being too complicated, yet I can't put 100 stories on one page.

Other than the look, what's changed?

The Award for "most changed" goes to the Translations page. Thanks to mousewrites I was able to locate AWOL translations in Thai and Chinese. I now upload a copy of each translation to my site along with providing an outside link, because that was a close call. It's best to read the translations on the outside links where they're available because you know I've dropped umlauts.

New translations have been uploaded:
- Ailine's completed six parts of the Beg Me For It series in Russian
- Veronika just translated Unintentional Voyeur in Czech
- Rachel has completed chapters one and two of Primer to the Dark Arts in Polish

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis now have their own pages. This is an admission that I'm not just dabbling in these fandoms.

The splash page has changed:
You can now click on the Manjusri splash banner to enter the site and you no longer need to choose your screen resolution. One size fits all. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Two new pages:
- The Harry Potter section has a new separate page with links to PG-13, R, and NC-17 stories. I'm iffy about this because I'm not sure it's a good idea to add complexity.
- The Recs section has a new separate page with links to the Harry Potter Starter Kit and Icarus' Stargate Recs. Again, I'm not sure about this move, for the same reasons as above.

Finally, I've uploaded In The Spotlight (the Unicorn Remix). NC-17. John/Rodney. Stargate Atlantis.
Ten-plus years of illustrious service in the U.S. Armed Forces -- okay, maybe not so illustrious that last part in Antarctica -- only to be outed by a damned horse.

Comments

[lillian78.livejournal.com]

Wonderful, great work. I had a question about the recs links however. I ran into a few that weren't good any longer. Do you already know about them? Or would you like me to let you know which ones aren't working? :-D

Thank you!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

If you could let me know, that would be great. I haven't reviewed the links on my recs pages for over a year (and silly me, I had no idea that I'd need to *rolls eyes at innocence*). I've been told that some of these are dead but you could save me a lot of time link-clicking.

Icarus

[thalia]

I like the black text on white background. Much easier to read than colors. If you think the background is too white, you might try a very slight off-white, like #F9F9F9. The navigation is terrific.

BTW, Ellen Fremedon's Snape/Black story's title is "Slowly, But Exceeding Fine."

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Great, when I get home tonight I'll change the background to the more subtle off-white. I have a dim screen on my old laptop so... all colors are subtle. Really subtle.

I'll fix the title to Ellen's fic when I do a sweep through my recs pages for dead links.

Icarus

[daneffew.livejournal.com]

I love the new look.

I personally dispise the frames look.
And the white background may be WHITE. But it is clean looking and
you can read everything easily. I have a real problem with color text on color background. Some sites have colors like red on black or red on dark maroon. Ugh.

Nice clean simple. As you can see I don't really like all gussied up and fancy sites. It seems to me doing that takes away from being able to read what you've up.

Wonderful.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly about frames. They never seem to work right.

I figure simple is best. One: I'm on a dial-up, so anything fancy drives me batty. Two: this isn't a marketing site, but one designed for convenience and ease of use.

Thank you very much. I'm so pleased that my first go at a design seems to work for people.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

I love the white background for the stories--very clean and crisp and easy to read. It looks a little stark on some of the nav pages, though. Maybe a very subtle off-white--a gold/tan might pick up some of the contrasts in the banner (which is awsome!). And I second whoever said the navigation is great.

Great!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The navigation and readability were my primary concern.

I think a more subtle background color on the navigation pages would help a lot, thanks. Thank god I don't have to change the stories... *whimpers at the thought.*

Icarus

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

Nice! I like the design; it's easy to navigate and easy for me to read (and with my crappy vision, that can a major consideration in whether I actually read, much less enjoy, an author's work). I like the dark text on light background, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate being able to resize fonts without it screwing up the page layout. Yay! :-)

However, the SG-1 and Atlantis links on the Home page both take me to the LotR page, where I have to click another link to get to the SG fic. This may be deliberate (?), but I found it confusing.

Another wee bit of concrit: On your splash page, I can't read the two links in the credit line at the bottom of the page. The dark font on dark background defeats me. Again, my eyesight is poor, but maybe others will have similar issues, so I thought I'd mention it.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Aha! It's not supposed to do that.

I've fixed the Home page links (that was an old version) and I've now increased the font size on the splash page. It's not exactly subtle or appealing now, but the splash page is there for a reason: to notify people of slash and explicit NC-17 content.

How's that now?

Icarus

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

The larger font is nice (and always welcome), but I still can't read the purple link text against the black background.

In order to be able to read the "If this offends you" link and the two linked names "Lizard" and "Femme" at the bottom, I have to highlight them.

After they've been clicked, the previously-visited olive green link color is at least readable, if not ideal.

Again, my eyesight is not good, and I need considerable contrast between text and background. I prefer dark on light, but light on dark is also manageable as long as there's a lot of contrast between them. Dark on dark, like this, is the thing I have the hardest time seeing.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Understood, my eyesight's not that great either. My links were all visited so I didn't notice the disappearing purple. (I had to keep a black background because of the graphic. It looked terrible on white.)

I've changed the link colors now. The unvisited link is white, the visited khaki (as before), and the hover is a nice bright yellow.

That should work now.

Icarus

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

That did it! :-)

Love it!

[tjstein.livejournal.com]

I like the white background. Makes it much easier to read. Love the banner and everything else!

Re: Love it!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Femme did such a great job on that banner. I bet she's been wondering when the heck I'd get around to actually using it.

Icarus

[thalia]

I just noticed, the banner is narrower on ficrecs.html than on the index page or the SG recs page. You might have typed the width wrong.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ooo. Good eye. You're right, I've an older versions width on those two pages.

I'm thinking that I should make it possible to navigate between the PG-13, R, and NC-17 pages in the Harry Potter section. Also, maybe have the "Type" or "Theme" section apply to more than just HP.

Eventually. I should probably do that eventually.

Also, WG hates the black splash page -- though he loves Femme's banner. I agree, it's not professional and is out of keeping with the rest of the site.

I think I'm going to put a out a plea for someone with Photoshop to make a version of that Manjusri picture with the same colors as the HP banner. Possibly in a .gif file since when open that .jpeg picture -- wow, it looks bad.

Icarus

[thalia]

If you need Photoshop help, feel free to e-mail me. (thalia@vidweasels.com) I'm happy to help. I do have a PC, though, so no help there. I've also found that graphics vary a lot depending on monitor style--colors look totally different on my husband's laptop vs. my flat screen.

Addendum...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

...wow, it looks bad.

That should have read "looks bad when the site's viewed on a Mac." On PCs the .jpeg is fine.

Icarus

[tealin.livejournal.com]

I tend to browse with all the 'accessibility' options checked, so that I can actually read the websites I'm visiting, many of which have 'pretty' colors and micro fonts. :) That being said, I loaded the site with and without the options enabled and really like the clean layout. Very nice job; thank you for trying to make it more user-friendly! Oh, and I love that you included the header information on the actual story pages.

My only suggestions are more of a personal preference/wish list nature-- story sizes indicated in some fashion on the story index pages would be great, as would the date you initially wrote or posted the story, even if it were only the year. Also, spawning windows are evil. Really, they are. :) But I'm sure more than a few people think they're the niftiest thing since sliced bread. That's it.