Version 6
I released a major update of my website, v6 (version 6). There are 4 new features; a new color theme, related articles, pinned sharing buttons, and Disqus. I'm going to explain all those features and why I need them.
Exactly, I've been blogging since 2009. You can whois my domain here, https://whois.domaintools.com/aristorinjuang.com. It has been a lot of fun. The first moment when I bought the domain, deployed the WordPress site on the shared hosting using cPanel, learned using WordPress, learned HTML/CSS/PHP while creating a child theme of WordPress, got defaced, wrote random posts in my local language then got hate comments. It was a great experience.
It has been a long journey. In about 2013, I revamped my website from a weblog to an ordinary personal website/resume. I set English as the primary language. I didn't use jQuery anymore since that moment and coded the pure JavaScript / VanillaJS instead because of the performance and exclusivity. I didn't use WordPress anymore and I achieved a perfect score on Google PageSpeed.
In 2016, I wanted to become a blogger again. So I added a blog feature to my website. The goal was to make people believe that website is important. Having a blog or website is about personal branding. I saw that was still limited in many instances.
Instead of writing about my daily, I wrote about my research and tips in technology, programming, or web development. The goal is to simplify it, make it compact and easy to understand for 3-5 minutes to read. The topic may expand as well as features.
I tried many layouts, color themes, fonts, and other technology. Until today, I brought major updates to my website. I even didn't take snapshots/screenshots of those previous beautiful designs of my website. But they will be histories in Git.
I crafted almost everything. HTML tags, CSS with Sass, and even the backend. The goal is to bring high performance to the content, reach global audiences and all devices. All devices included mobiles. Today, I set the desktop as my primary target because about 80% of the audience of my website is from desktops based on Google Analytics. I make sure the content is good on smartphones and tablets too. This website also has the AMP version.
Color Theme
I made two themes for my website before, light and dark. You can read my article called Dark Theme. Today, the theme is only one, and that is dark. But not very dark. I combined it with blue. So, it is called dark blue. I believe that a dark color scheme can make us able to read for a long time. The current color scheme is also minimalist. That is a good one.
Maybe you notice that there is a red color. That is #c0392b. My brand color. You can find it on every link that relates to my brands such as the footer link or an email link on the header.
Related Articles
You can scroll the page to the bottom. There are Related Articles. So you can read another article after finishing one. Related articles are related to the same topic and language.
Pinned Sharing Buttons
On the desktop, there are pinned sharing buttons on the left bottom. They are not always on the bottom anymore. So, users can easily share the article even they are still on the top of the page. In mobiles, they stay on the bottom because of limited screen sizes.
Disqus
Finally, the last feature I brought. Disqus. In 2016, I used it then I took it out. Because I got no comment and my website became slow. Exactly, it was a hard decision for me to bring Disqus here. I came out with an idea to make a discussion platform for the performance's sake. But maybe it will make my life a little more complicated. Today, I put it again, only for desktops. Because I already have enough articles and visitors today. I hope great people are coming with great comments.