If you're actually reading this post on the
JDLand home page rather than in your feeds or via e-mail, you're probably noticing that the home page looks a little different this afternoon. After many months (years!) of trying to figure out how to make it not quite so much of an assault on the senses, I finally decided that it's time to move the
big ole' development map off the home page.
It was important to have the map back when almost no one had a familiarity with this strange neighborhood known as Near Southeast, but now that the pace of change has slowed considerably, I think it's less necessary to be smacked with that graphic every time one visits the site. You can still reach the map and the tabs with the various projects broken out by type by clicking on the DC-with-an-arrow icon at right; and I've listed a few "Active Projects" to allow quick access to developments that are currently underway or of high interest.
Getting rid of the map also allowed me to make the blog part of the home page much wider, with bigger type, and I think everyone will agree it's now far easier to read. Plus, the Events Calendar is now "above the fold" (as we say in the newspaper biz). I was also able to enlarge the random before-and-after photos that appear at the top of the page, too, which I think is a nice change.
I know some people will be unhappy about the relegation of the map to inside-the-site status, but I do think that, for the next little while, this is a better way to go. As I'm nearing the end of my seventh year running this site, I've got to do *something* to make it fresh to my eyes every so often!
(And you guys even get a bigger box to type your comments in. Everyone's a winner.)