New TI-BASIC Page (Or, A Eulogy For /thricasoft/)
A new TI-BASIC index is up, on the new site design. Incidentally, that was also the last holdout from the old Thrica Software site that I hadn’t bothered until now to move over, so I was obligated to keep the old design until I got the new one done.
I don’t know why it took me so long. It took me about 10 minutes to do, and it turned out rather nicely. No, none of the programs’ pages are actually up yet (tsk, tsk. I’ll try to have those up before July).
For the newcomers to this site, the design before this sunset one was Thrica Software. After I converted it to The Thrica Network, I moved the old design to /thricasoft/, and began systematically moving pages from that directory to the root. /thricasoft/ served me well, though it later became cumbersome: It came right after the OS X-themed site made entirely in tables, and was originally done in all absolutely-positioned CSS. I had drawn up the design for a merger between Thrica Software and another Mac site by a friend of mine, microkernel.tk. It didn’t quite work out, but I kept the design for my own.
The site also adapted as I learned more dynamic CSS: Instead of absolutely positioning the content boxes above and below each other, I was able to have them flow in line. The JavaScript also began to shrink, until I consolidated to the point where it was hardly necessary. Yet even through these changes, it badly lagged since it was never quite finished (darn TI-BASIC programs). It had 3 updates in the span of 6 months, since each change and the height of the page had to be hardwired into the code, due to poor structuring (it was divided into 9 sections: the 4 curved corners, the 4 sides, and the content). And when a bug introduced to Safari around version 2 messed up the background PNG to the point of wild discoloration, I decided that that design wasn’t worth keeping anymore.
I had been tossing around an idea in my head for a design with a Lake Waccamaw sunset at the top and the lake at the bottom with black in the middle for the Spring Retreat gallery, since the photos would be locationally appropriate. Lucky me, this thought came at around the same time as the demise of Thrica Software: I drew up this design, and moved the old design into /thricasoft/ for archive purposes.
Now, after the last bit of useful content has been moved off it, that design exists only in memory and the caches of search engines. In retrospect, it was a rather boring design, though not bad by any means (visually; structurally, it’s a different story). Yet as of now, it was the most primitive of all the sites in the portfolio. It served its time, but its time has gone. As nostalgic as I am about it, I’m glad to see it go.
I know, not exactly the most heartwarming eulogy (good riddance, ya geezer). Oh well.
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