After working feverishly at developing my own WordPress (child) Theme, I tracked an online “conversation” about development priorities. What’s important, to support the older version of a particular browser? Or not?
Specifically, the question was whether or not to support IE 8, the old Internet Exploder, as it was once deemed.
Trip back in time to this set of images, showing that 97% of my site’s bowsers were Mozilla (Netscrape) at that point. Back in the day.
- I used to track all of that, and in this day, when “metrics” are deemed so important, I’ve already done that, and I find most the stats to be boring, and quite useless, really.
What works? Solid code built on a stable foundation, and that way? No need to worry about what’s hitting this place with whatever kind of device. IOs (iPhone, iPad, etc.), Mac, Windows, Linux? Does it really matter to me? WebTV, anyone remember that?
One sales guru was busy telling me that the largest window for 90% of the world is 640 x 480…. Pixels.
Not anymore.
Rather than spend time bogged down with too many specifics, the solid foundation means the data, images and words, gets spread around in manner that is as accessible as possible, no matter what kind of machine is viewing the data. The default browser window is 1024 wide, or something like that. I had to go to an Apple Store to check, and that observation, at the Apple Store, resulted in one more adjustment.
Turns out that 90% of the web is now 900 pixels wide. Pitch that iPhone or Galaxy sideways.
Addendum: lessons learned
The WordPress Theme is a framework around the database-driven content. WordPress Themes are window dressings. With mine, I was shooting for simple, and I found many of the interchangeable parts could be dealt with as “widgets,” another “Lego-like” component of the WordPress ecosystem.
I kept toying with inserting slots for banners, then ditching the idea, in favor of simplicity. What I finally arrived at, backwards, was the idea that I should skip the banner idea.
It’s easy enough for me to hardwire (hand code) those banners into each horoscope, tuning the banner for the week’s missive. It wasn’t until I got to digging for an old horoscope, a reference I made 7 years ago, that I realized the answer to the question. Then, too, I recall those magic words, “Less is more.”
Always has been, always will be. Minimalist to the max.
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(It’s all about Communication.)