Big Updates to My Blog
3 Jul 2024
I’ve made some big changes to my blog! This post is just for me to document what I’ve done and why, as well as to test some of the new features I’ve added.
New fonts #
First off: new fonts! I am using Valkyrie for the body text and Concourse for the headings. I’ve increased the font size on larger displays for added legibility. I also made the background a little darker for better contrast.
Margin notes and sidenotes #
I stole the margin notes code from Tufte CSS. It’s still a little rough, but it’s getting there.
Next up: margin notes. I wanted to try adding margin notes to this blog for some time. Adding margin notes necessitated a whole host of changes; the biggest one is that the table of contents has moved from the right side of the page to the left column. This is to free up some space.
In the original version, I was using the currency sign “¤” to mark in the text where you could click to expand the margin note.
If you’re on mobile, the margin note will appear as an inline block. This is a departure from how Tufte CSS works; I’m copying how Matthew Butterick does margin notes, as you can see on Practical Typography.
The blog now has sidenotes This is a sidenote. The big difference between a sidenote and a margin note is that sidenotes have numbers. as well as margin notes. I’m not yet sure which one I’ll use primarily. I like how clean the margin notes look, but the numbers on the sidenotes make it a.) easier to figure out what note goes where, and b.) act more like a drop-in replacement for footnotes. I understand there’s a significant amount of trickery involved in getting these sidenotes and margin notes to line up properly: it has something to do with floats, negative margins, and exclusion zones. Go check out the Tufte CSS source if you’re curious. I might go through some recent posts Recent, as in, since I started using ox-hugo to write my blog posts. and convert footnotes to sidenotes.
Epigraphs #
Typical quotes look like this:
You have moved into a dark place. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Zork I by Infocom
If you have not played Zork, you really should.
That’s all fine and well. But sometimes we need more… elegance.
You have moved into a dark place. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
That will definitely add some pizzazz for when I want to quote something at the beginning or end of a post.
Overkill? #
Obviously. I’m liking how this is shaping up. It might be a little overkill for just my blog, but it makes me happy, so that’s a win!