February 1, 2001

10:35 AM

Glassdog redesigns.Is this GD8 or GD9? I think I've lost count...
posted by annathea (14 comments total)

It's version 9, and it looks really nice. He's made subtle changes in the last 2 days.
posted by riffola at 11:17 AM on February 1, 2001

I just can't believe anyone would want to do cross-platform DHTML anymore. Lance is more of a masochist than I thought. It actually worked in every browser on my machine, and the powerbook behind me.

Insane.
posted by mathowie at 11:42 AM on February 1, 2001

Great redesign... Everyone was always raving about glassdog, but I didn't find their last few designs terribly compelling. Here, you have immediate access to a number of areas. Good job!
posted by silusGROK at 11:46 AM on February 1, 2001

Does anyone else find the lagging sidebar nav (it scrolls a little slower than the text) freaky? I know frames are ugly, but that seems like an odd solution.
posted by puppy kuddles at 11:59 AM on February 1, 2001

I prefer the slow, smooth-moving sidebar to the more common jumpy sidebars.
posted by harmful at 12:04 PM on February 1, 2001

I have to agree. The slow sidebar is definitely an improvement of glassdog's previous jumpy sidebar and watermark.
posted by rklawler at 12:11 PM on February 1, 2001

I miss the frames-within-frames-within-frames-within-frames-within-frames Glassdog. I used to use it to teach my web classes about frames.
posted by rodii at 12:34 PM on February 1, 2001

Well, the sidebar doesn't seem to scroll on Netscape 6 (at least, it doesn't on my computer, anyway). Lance is still on my worship-like-a-god list, though.
posted by mrbula at 1:47 PM on February 1, 2001

The sidebar is okay, but I'm suprised that no on else uses it. It's not copyright glassdog, is it? I know it isn't. Lance, nice redesign, and you have way too much time on your hand my friend.
posted by tranquileye at 1:48 PM on February 1, 2001

I've seen several sites that use that particular sidebar trick, including one art history site that's had that navigation since early '99, and was the first site that I saw that slowed down the animation in order to eliminate the jerkiness. But most other sites that I've seen use it didn't take the time to make it work as elegantly as Glassdog's version.
posted by annathea at 2:01 PM on February 1, 2001

As usual, there are many, many compromises in this design in an attempt to try to do cool things that most (but never, apparently, all) people can see. Additionally, as usual, by the time one manages to get everything working properly (after days and weeks of staring at code and screens and gritting one's teeth and banging one's head) one thinks the whole presentation stinks.

Mostly this was an iterative rather than evolutionary interface update. And also? Tired of the old look. And, no, the slidey sidey isn't © anyone. Probably the reason it isn't used is because it's a pain in the a-hole to get it to work on a majority (but never, apparently, all) browsers.

Mac/IE users are pretty much out in the cold until I fix it so Mac/IE5 users can see it. Netscape6 users are also, similarly, slidey-less because most of the code is to allow <6 Navigator to handle dynamic placement of screen elements. And blah blah blah. So, how about that Blogger thing, huh?
posted by honkzilla at 2:03 PM on February 1, 2001

In case you haven't tried it out yet, the new Glassdog looks horrible when viewed with Opera 5. Just to let you know. Other than that (I mean, when I view it with IE5), it's great.

By the way, the Blogger thing is here. And I'm still waiting for some comments from the 'ex'-Pyrites.
posted by kchristidis at 2:22 PM on February 1, 2001

Mmmmm... soft-slide nav.
posted by amanda at 3:17 PM on February 1, 2001

FWIW the sliding nav now works on IE5/Mac...
posted by iblog at 11:46 AM on February 2, 2001