Reality and Rebirth
Website Restructuring
While struggling with the enormity of the task of "restructuring the entire website," I thought that maybe, having a public to-do list would help with accountability, and also that recreating the to-do list from my current document would help me realize what's needed and what can be put off for later.
The Problem: Why the Restructuring Needed to Happen
I manually edit everything on every page, with two exceptions:
- The comments use a third-party app.
- I wrote a short javascript program to randomly pick "Pages of Interest" from a list at the bottom of various pages.
Everything else? I update the date at the bottom of the page manually. And, crucially, I add new links to the menu at the top of every page manually, and have to update every single page the menu is on every time I add a new link to it. This is kind of stupid of me. I'm sticking with it for now, but I'll hopefully realize soon that this is too stupid to keep doing it this way.
Regardless, I wanted to change the site so that I have to update little details on multiple pages less often. Therefore, the restructuring.
Ideally, the links on the main menu should link to sections with their own menus, rather than every link be on every page. Most sections and "subsites" link back to the main page. This way, the number of pages I have to edit every time I add a new link to the menu should be less. Also, if a menu gets too many links on it, I should split it off into smaller sections with their own menus.
In addition to splitting the site menu into smaller sections on different pages, I also wrote a list of the pages I want on the website from the start, and began putting them together. Most notable is a "Music I Like" section, with, you guessed it, music I like.
Which brings us to another problem with the website.
Another Problem: Too Many Incomplete Pages
Incomplete pages don't really keep me up at night; this is a personal website, so like. I don't really feel Bad about it. But I do want my website to be interesting, and way too many of my incomplete pages were just not interesting.
One of the goals of the restructuring is not only to add new pages to a degree of completion I'm satisfied with, but also to work on existing pages until they're to my satisfaction. Of course they'll be edited and changed in the future, and may never reach "completion." But I want them to be interesting to read regardless.
So those are the problems I wanted to solve. What else does the restructuring accomplish?
I Get to Write an ARG Yay
It's not a true ARG, rather, it's a bunch of pages hidden throughout the website because I love that kind of thing. It's a secret story you gradually piece together by solving puzzles and mysteries, and it's taking a hell of a long time to write. Still, when the website is restructured, I want the first part of it to be up.
Miscellaneous
I'm changing the fanfic section to a broader "Creative" section that my fanfics are a part of. This also gives me an excuse to put my fuse beads and other art on there.
I want to have dedicated pages for my OCs, not just show all of them in a huge long list. The Meri / Peregrine page is an example of what you can look forward to!
I have ambitious plans for subsites I want to add, but those are put on the back burner until I can get the Cradily and Wojira Duo subsites up to my standards.
I will need help with moderation, but eventually I do want to have Some Sort of Community so people who frequent my website can chat with each other. This is far in the future though.
Maybe in 2030 I'll finish adding all my fanfiction.
Thanks 4 Reading!