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

[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! :-)