On the February, 2012, Version of The Number Zero

Unless this is your first time visiting No. 0, you will have noticed a radical change in the look of this blog.  Long-time readers will know that, generally, when I make a change, it is more often than not an overhaul of everything from the colour scheme to widget selection.  The previous version, you will note, was the first version to have an imageless banner, while the version before that was the first to use a transparent banner over a high-resolution image background.  The idea behind the former was efficiency and simplicity, a detox from the bandwidth-heavy, flashy latter. 

Long-time readers will also know that changes are unannounced, swift, and without a definitive lifespan attached.  It is to my regret, then, that with all the different looks and feels of No. 0 (and, really, the feel of each version is what makes playing around with a new idea so much fun), I never had the foresight to take a screencap of the blog for posterity, or that when I did, it was only for an unrelated purpose that required me to delete it afterwards.  It would have been fortunate to be able to look back at the how this blog has developed, besides noting the rapidity of my transformational whims, as we make a change I very much hesitate to consider "final", and in which I will admit to having an equal lack of confidence.

There are many immediate differences: there is no sidebar, the title header stays in place when you scroll, and when you click a post, it pops up instead of loading a new page.  These things are what make me believe this is the most radical change yet, despite it not having any of my fingerprints on it.  This is part of a (relatively) new feature in Blogger, called Dynamic Views, which takes blogs into the hip, new world of hashchange events, or, unbloglike blogs, because how can something without a sidebar be called a blog?

That's the question I tackled when I mulled over the switch.  By abandoning the sidebar, I'd be losing a large part of No. 0's identity that has stuck through its entire existence, and my efforts in the last iteration to give readers greater navigation flexibility would have been a temporary fix, when, at the time, I thought of it as something that would be a permanent fixture through multiple versions.  Alas, to my dismay, Dynamic Views is woefully uncustomisable.  Even if I hoped for it, I would not be able to add a sidebar.  Nor can I edit the HTML to add the little bit of code I've been pasting for a long while now - title-centering and matching the colour of highlighted text to the rest of the theme - that, although superfluous, are the final wisps of cinnamon on my mascarpone of neurotic perfectionism.  Really, the customisation options are restrictive and basic.  But, then, detouring back to my original point, this is the balance I'm requesting of myself.

Is this radical a departure worth the temporary (I hope) restrictions?  Right now, I don't know.  When the decision to switch came to me, I thought, "Fuck it, just go all out and see what happens."  So, fuck it, I have.  No, I mean, go all out I have.  This is not the end.  There are more tweaks to come.  But when you visit next time, you will probably still not be seeing a sidebar and should not be expecting it.  I will have to find a way around that by getting creative with my pages, but I was already planning on creating a No. 0 database.

The way of the future is Dynamic Views, for all its current limitations.  Consider my reservations, but I feel it is best to get on the bandwagon before the inevitable influx of me-tooism.  Together, we will ride the haphazard wave of the cutting edge and take our wipeouts with us.  For now, you can experiment with seven different views of No. 0 by hovering over "Magazine", my default view.  Under Flipcard, you can still view the posts by label, while Timeslide's three-column perspective adds a hitherto unseen dynamism.  Losing the sidebar, we can be sure, will not be so bad.

UPDATE,  12.02.2012:

Might as well start now.  The Number Zero, Version 10.1.

Download larger size here.   Please note that the amount of gradient you see will depend on the size of your monitor.  Previously, I stretched the background to 100% of the user's screen, but this is not possible with this design, so after a certain point, the image will simply end.  Hopefully, your screen isn't so large as to ruin the effect of the gradient, but I'm playing the odds, here.