Website update
Oct 09, 2011
It was pointed out to me that the links to PDF versions of my papers were not terribly obvious. Where are they? For each paper, the link to the PDF is below the abstract. These used to just be linked text. Worse, above each abstract, where there is a link to the category that the paper is filed in, there used to be an icon that looked like a file with a bright pink badge.
A couple of days ago I updated the design so that each PDF link is preceded by a little PDF icon, which stands out because it has a bright red badge. I also changed the category icon to look less like a file and more like a web page, with a blue color that doesn’t stand out as much. I hope this makes the website easier for everyone to use.Permalink
A couple of days ago I updated the design so that each PDF link is preceded by a little PDF icon, which stands out because it has a bright red badge. I also changed the category icon to look less like a file and more like a web page, with a blue color that doesn’t stand out as much. I hope this makes the website easier for everyone to use.Permalink
2011 Typography update
Jul 29, 2011
2009 Typography update
Jul 06, 2009
Today I updated this website to use the excellent Fontin Sans font from exljbris. To view the site properly, you should use the latest version of Safari, Firefox, or another modern browser. In less capable browsers (such as Internet Explorer) you will see a less pleasant font, such as Verdana or Arial.Permalink
How I made this site
Jun 22, 2008
I created this website using RapidWeaver 4, from Realmac Software, and CSSEdit, from MacRabbit software. I previously used GoLive, from Adobe, but had grown frustrated with it. I tried Dreamweaver, also from Adobe, but found its interface too complicated. Later on I tried iWeb, from Apple, but found it too limited. RapidWeaver offers a great combination of handholding and flexibility, and generates web pages automatically from individual blog entries. Although the blog format is not exactly what I want, it works well enough and offers lots of benefits. Most importantly, using CSSEdit I was able to modify the site template (included with RapidWeaver) to suit my own needs.
When I went on the econ job market in 2003-2004, I created my online resume website using Adobe GoLive. I wanted a simple design that looked professional without being slick or pretentious. It also had to be easy for people to find and download my papers. I had used GoLive for a few years at that time for some personal projects that were definitely more pretentious and hopefully more slick, but I found that GoLive didn’t work particularly well for my text-heavy resume. I ended up using the source code editor view almost exclusively, since the page layout view made it too difficult to move different pieces around without messing up the div tags.
I stuck with GoLive until recently just because I didn’t have any other good alternatives. About a year ago, Adobe announced that GoLive would be deprecated in favor of Dreamweaver. I tried Dreamweaver out, but found its interface completely impenetrable. What’s more, both GoLive and Dreamweaver are complicated development environments where the user is supposed to have a complete and detailed understanding of every aspect of web page design. I am not a real web designer, nor do I have the time to become one. I just want a website that looks nice and does what I need it to. (Real web designers may want to look at Coda, from Panic.)
Having given up on Dreamweaver, I took a look at Apple’s iWeb program. iWeb comes with lots of templates, and just needs you to fill in the blanks with your content. I thought the blog module was particularly nice, since all you need to do is write your blog posts and store them in iWeb’s database; iWeb will then generate the blog website for you. I began to realize that what I really need is a way to automatically generate a web site from a database of my papers. In this paradigm, I would design the website once, and then just add or update each paper as I progressed in my research. I created an entire website offline in iWeb in just a day; this was a revelation compared to GoLive.
Unfortunately, iWeb turned out to be far too limited for my purposes. The blog posts look ugly if the post title runs over to a second line, unless I retouch each post by hand. I also can’t edit the templates. There is no way to organize blog posts by category.
I started looking for an alternative, and found good reviews for RapidWeaver. Since version 4 would soon be released, I bided my time. When version 4 finally came out about a month ago, I downloaded it and got to work. RapidWeaver works a lot like iWeb, but with a lot more flexibility. Like iWeb, RapidWeaver comes with a variety of themes, but there are lots more options to play with. It handles both categories and tags, which I think will be really helpful when I have more papers. Even better, I can edit the themes directly (I already had to learn the rudiments of HTML and CSS when I used GoLive).
I played around with the themes for a while, and settled on this one, which is my own modified version of “Caribou.” Based on the recommendation of Real Mac Software, I bought CSSEdit to make these modifications. It’s not that CSS code is hard to write; it’s just nice to have an editor that is aware of the syntax, as well as a user interface that makes all of the CSS properties available so I don’t have to look them up on the web.
In the end, RapidWeaver still isn’t quite ideal for what I want to do, but I think I’ve managed to fit most of what I wanted to do into RapidWeaver’s blog paradigm. I highly recommend RapidWeaver for anyone who can fit their web page into the paradigm of a blog, is willing to work with preformatted templates, and doesn’t want to spend a lot of time.
Summary
When I went on the econ job market in 2003-2004, I created my online resume website using Adobe GoLive. I wanted a simple design that looked professional without being slick or pretentious. It also had to be easy for people to find and download my papers. I had used GoLive for a few years at that time for some personal projects that were definitely more pretentious and hopefully more slick, but I found that GoLive didn’t work particularly well for my text-heavy resume. I ended up using the source code editor view almost exclusively, since the page layout view made it too difficult to move different pieces around without messing up the div tags.
I stuck with GoLive until recently just because I didn’t have any other good alternatives. About a year ago, Adobe announced that GoLive would be deprecated in favor of Dreamweaver. I tried Dreamweaver out, but found its interface completely impenetrable. What’s more, both GoLive and Dreamweaver are complicated development environments where the user is supposed to have a complete and detailed understanding of every aspect of web page design. I am not a real web designer, nor do I have the time to become one. I just want a website that looks nice and does what I need it to. (Real web designers may want to look at Coda, from Panic.)
Having given up on Dreamweaver, I took a look at Apple’s iWeb program. iWeb comes with lots of templates, and just needs you to fill in the blanks with your content. I thought the blog module was particularly nice, since all you need to do is write your blog posts and store them in iWeb’s database; iWeb will then generate the blog website for you. I began to realize that what I really need is a way to automatically generate a web site from a database of my papers. In this paradigm, I would design the website once, and then just add or update each paper as I progressed in my research. I created an entire website offline in iWeb in just a day; this was a revelation compared to GoLive.
Unfortunately, iWeb turned out to be far too limited for my purposes. The blog posts look ugly if the post title runs over to a second line, unless I retouch each post by hand. I also can’t edit the templates. There is no way to organize blog posts by category.
I started looking for an alternative, and found good reviews for RapidWeaver. Since version 4 would soon be released, I bided my time. When version 4 finally came out about a month ago, I downloaded it and got to work. RapidWeaver works a lot like iWeb, but with a lot more flexibility. Like iWeb, RapidWeaver comes with a variety of themes, but there are lots more options to play with. It handles both categories and tags, which I think will be really helpful when I have more papers. Even better, I can edit the themes directly (I already had to learn the rudiments of HTML and CSS when I used GoLive).
I played around with the themes for a while, and settled on this one, which is my own modified version of “Caribou.” Based on the recommendation of Real Mac Software, I bought CSSEdit to make these modifications. It’s not that CSS code is hard to write; it’s just nice to have an editor that is aware of the syntax, as well as a user interface that makes all of the CSS properties available so I don’t have to look them up on the web.
In the end, RapidWeaver still isn’t quite ideal for what I want to do, but I think I’ve managed to fit most of what I wanted to do into RapidWeaver’s blog paradigm. I highly recommend RapidWeaver for anyone who can fit their web page into the paradigm of a blog, is willing to work with preformatted templates, and doesn’t want to spend a lot of time.
Summary
- RapidWeaver 4 is a great way to generate a powerful, good looking website, especially in a blog format
- CSSEdit is a convenient way to modify RapidWeaver templates
- iWeb is fun but not very flexible
- GoLive is outdated, complicated to use, and makes it too easy to write bad code
- Dreamweaver is poorly designed and complicated to use