Site History

Here I'm discussing this site's upgrade materials and how, why, and when I added them. You are welcome to make constructive criticism and suggestions for this site. Make your opinions in the comment section.

It is worth noting that, this history is written backward. If you are fan of start-to-end tails, jump to the start. (website creation arc)

{getToc} $title={Choose Your Arc}

Open-Source Store Arc

Well, this is not quite a feature, but a notice for HTML developer mode viewers. All source files for Lottie animations are now gathered within my GitHub account. You are free to use any .tgs files as long as they remain public on the Telegram platform.

Responsive Web Arc

In most cases, more responsiveness for more devices means more users are going to engage with that site. As for me, this Blogger theme is already responsive for medium and wide displays. However, for devices with low aspect ratios, it tells a different story.

So you know what has to be done. I just slightly changed the CSS style for Web and Wohla. Now almost every device on earth can have a responsive reaction to my web site.

Hidden Content Arc

With my writing style and my choices of cover photos for stories and articles, I might end up being a pornography abuser. The ones who know me better know what I'm talking about.

As a result of my pervy mind, I decided to create a best-hidden or spoiler effect for texts and images. Because then users don't have to watch everything unintentionally. Here is a little demonstrate of the workround I made.

Smooth Search Arc

The search widget is a highly necessary block for almost every website. So there is no exception for this site. Blogger's pre-search engine is good enough. But I wanted more. Because when users search in Sinhala, traditional search engines aren't capable of working at maximum energy.

But this is too much for me to handle alone. So I used following JS libraries to create a more flexible search engine.

https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@afosto/instant-search-widget@latest/dist/afosto-instant-search-widget.min.js
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@afosto/instant-search-widget@latest/dist/i18n/en.js
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@afosto/instant-search-widget@latest/dist/i18n/nl.js {codeBox}

Speed Performance Arc

I've been experimenting with the webp image format for a while now. Why? because WebP is a damn good alternative for any image format. At first, all images on this website were png or jpg. I converted all those images into WebP format manually. Sincerely, it is a pain in the ass.

And that's why I created a tiny JS script to automate it. Simply put, it converts png or jpg files into webp format automatically. But only on the homepage. Webp is too good; however, I'm not fully satisfied with its color range.

By doing this, the web home page will be much easier to load, and data costs will be reduced rapidly. It's a win-win for me and for my readers.

Heavy Load Arc

This is not actually a feature. It's more like an adjustment for the site. Let's dive into the "Heavy Load" thing.

If a website must load tons of JS scripts, load time and performance speed for that site will decrease, unsurprisingly. Because more workarounds mean more activities going on behind the scenes, Just like a mobile device. (More background apps mean slower performance. )

At first, this site went very smoothly. But because of my "dark" experiments, the site's performance has gone low. You won't notice it because I've already fixed it. This adjustment includes the removal of the snow effect, read mode, and click counter JS, the reduction of animation time, the removal of auto-play animations, and finally the reducing of loop count of each animation.

Contact Form Arc

To this day, I have always relied on social contact methods to interact with my readers and others. But when I found out that most websites have their own contact form or any other contact method, I thought about adding one for my own site.

If you've already encountered it, you know this website also has one now. (If you didn't find it, Please go to the contact form page or click here.)

Animated Profile Arc

Every blogger theme (pre-themes and external ones) already has blogger's own comment platform. Which is cool enough to tolerate Blogger users. However, there is still one piece missing from it. I think you've already guessed it correctly.

Blogger takes any format of image or gif as its profile picture. But when we comment with our gif or any other format outside the png or JPG, Blogger's comment sections won't show us our original Profile picture. Instead of showing our original moving Profile pic, it only shows an image. For example, If I upload a gif as my Profile picture and comment with it, the site's comment section will show it as a 'stay still' image. Which is a very poor loophole, in my opinion.

Lucky for me, I found a solution to that exact loophole. And you can test it by setting a gif as your profile picture and commenting on this site. Or simply look at this page's comment section. (Comment from Drg No.)

Web Modifier Arc

The website had to be completely rebuilt in May this year(2023). Reason for that is because the speed and efficiency of the website is not what I expected. So I installed the blogger theme called amazen on the site. And That's the website you're looking at right now.

There are many advantages that I get because of this website theme. including a more user-friendly interface, More customizable widgets, and some additional modifiable internal settings. You can get the exact same Blogger theme on my GitHub.

Domain Suppression Arc

Blogger offers you a free blogging site with a free domain name. (ends with blogspot.com). Honestly, that name is too much for users. And that is why I needed my own easy-peasy domain name for this site. Gladly, I found the best free domain name provider that is valid for lifetime.

I got my domain from eu.org. You can visit their site, and all the instructions are gathered there. Also note that it is not associated with the European government or anything. If you are looking for a lifetime domain for your own name and can't afford the premium domain name price, you must try this one out. It is a life saver.

Website Creation Arc

I needed a website for the first time, because there were not many features in telegraph. So I finished learning HTML5, CSS3, Xpath and a little bit of JS some time ago and made a website in blogger platform.

The original version of that blogger theme was not mine. But I changed it a lot. The other thing is that the previous web design is completely different than current one. Key points of this time frame are;

New web design specially customized for writing side
Popular widgets, Night/Day themes and descriptions
Downsides : No comments, Load time was high, Didn't response correctly between mobile and dekstop

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