Your Website Year in Review - how have things changed? - ✁ ∙ Web Crafting - MelonLand Forum-
Its coming to the end of 2022, so its a great time to look back and think about all the work you've done this year! How has your site changed since this time last year? And what plans might you have for the future!
To start things off, Iv captured some pictures from my site Dec 2021 and from my unreleased Dec 2022 update! For fun Iv also included some images from the earliest backup of the site in 2017! (Open images in a tab to see em bigger!
INDEX PAGE:
2022:
2021:
2017:
HOME PAGE:
2022:
2021:
2017:
Sometimes it shocks me how much work goes into making it look so similar
, but at the same time so much has happened! Oooph, I look forward to seeing what next year will bring! -
I got a lot of work done this year! I actually got started on my site in late 2020 but never really got much further than this:
Isn't this just the epitome of descriptiveness? In July of this year I went on a multiple day binge to finally get something presentable out there. This is the December 2022 of the site, it basically looks the same as the July version except for the essential Surf Club widget and more minor details:
I'm really happy with what I've got so far! The next thing on the list is to find a way to easily add things on a whim, which is pretty important to me: right now if I want to add a new "subject" so to speak I need to make a whole new page for it and figure out the design etc. which I will just never get around to. (Also the code for the welcome page is cursed it's gonna take a week long expedition to figure that mess out (don't tell anybody))
It's not perfect but that's kind of the point: I'm trying to work on it and get things out there, even if it's not Perfect Right Now.
At least the SIGMATIC SITE already won a prestigious award!
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I started my site this year ^^ I have an archive on my site of the first layout (in all its crusty glory)
https://1337nightbug.neocities.org/main.html?page=/old-layout/home-old.html
My site then looked like this for a while, but it was a pain in the butt to work on and maintain so i switched to the current iteration of the site
https://web.archive.org/web/20220610012203/https://1337nightbug.neocities.org/
you do NOT want to know what the css for this thing looked like take my word for it
my site is easier to work on and looks a lot better, to say the least -
Oh man. I actually started on my page pretty early this year, with a totally different layout and vibe at the time. This is what it looked like in I think... March or April? I heavily relied on sadgrl's layout maker for it.
I didn't touch it for a long time because I felt really dissatisfied, but couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until late last month I sat down and drew out a new layout and rebuilt it completely. I dunno if I can say I made it from scratch since I still referenced the last one a bit and had used the layout maker for it, buttt it's from scratch enough that I'm really proud?
A little bonus too: a gallery I made on the original version too, vs my new one - the new one is so much more simple and nicer looking! The last one felt really bloated imo and cropped funny.
Old:
Current:
my site still isn't done but its come a really long way :3 -
So i only made my website in early 2022... i sat down and learned html/css just for it, and im quite proud of what i got done this year! even if the end of the year slowed down i still got a solid finished look for my website and im quite pleased with it.Early April 2022:
May 2022:
August 2022 onward:
Aside I made a landing page after a while, along with TWO new sub domains, Coffini Outlet and my Projects website. Neither have changed in terms of design through the year though. -
My website has changed rather radically because I wasn't happy with its fundamental concept.
When I first started out building Libre.Town, I wanted it to be just that: a town, a virtual world to explore in a similar manner to old text adventures. Things I would want to share would be found in places they logically would be in: my writing in the library, photos in a gallery, music in a radio tower. I planned NPC interactions, and even an ARG for the site.
Unfortunately, I found that this was a wayy too ambitious project. Every avenue opening up would require me to build an exponentially larger amount of additional "rooms" adjacent to it, and with my habit of writing static sites per hand, this grew impossible quickly. The site was littered with 404s and eventually I burnt out. This was also due to many technical issues, like keeping the CSS per-site for the lack of external style sheets. Additionally, I grew tired of its inconsistent design.
So I reworked it last Christmas, to be more visually and technically consistent. It also did not aspire to be an explorable text adventure anymore, instead I settled for content rich sites without exorbitant fluff. That way, I could actually work on content for the site instead of scrambling to fill in decorative blanks.
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It's actually intense how much changes all of my sites went through this year.
I remember getting back into my website a year ago, roughly. It was basically barren for over a year until then. I finally fixed some mistakes in it and fleshed it out - an about me page, an updates page, links to my other stuff, showcasing some of my art.
At the same time, I still had a carrd! I didn't want that anymore in February 2023. So I created another Neocities site, and made something carrd-esque in it. I knoooow, the audacity to do this on Neocities of all places
I soon realized that a carrd-like site is boring to me, and I could make something cooler. I was conflicted between what site to use for what; retrospectively, I should have just deleted the side-one and returned to main. I didn't. Back then, I still thought that maybe one site should remain for more retro, glitchy, old-web vibe stuff, and the other something official to show people. Oof!
Then I started making the art for a big overhaul on that carrd-like site of mine. It looked like this.
It made me learn a lot about pixel art; I had never done it before.
It had some animations too, and it was my first contact with .apngs to make animations without relying on limited GIF color palette, and image maps to make areas of the website clickable. Took me over 100 hours.
Created a lot of pages for it, and also reworked them a ton. I then created more separate sites, and bought my first domains.
I am now on another overhaul, after that it will probably be fine.
To think everything only ever lasted a couple months - it doesn't feel like it at all. The progress of my skills, goals, the content on it etc. was very rapid. I think this year was the full commitment to web creation, over and over again; of branching out, trying stuff out, creating just to scrap it again soon after. No matter if pages or entire websites or their urls/names and purposes. My stuff was all over the place, but for good reasons. I think it was helpful. I am now ready to commit to something more stable <3 -
My website year in review (even though its a few months off from being a year old...)
My website was created thr day after Valentines, and I used it to host some of my pre existing fanworks and dabble in all the interesting things a website can do. One of my first unique projects was a really rudimentary "personality quiz" called the Dungeon. Once it was about a month old I started on my first big shrine project, which ballooned into a mini-wiki for my favorite video game. I kept adding smaller things and updating my blog throughout the year, including a games page and a digital garden, as well as adding another (smaller) shrine centered around wolves. Kept up business as usual, decided to start doing seasonal events and such, added my latest huge project (an interactive shrine for horse based virtual worlds of my youth) which is by far my most ambitious project, I'm quite pleased with it. And now we're here. My site went from a sparse homepage and empty blog page to a sprawling but cozy home of my own invention, all within the span of about 9 months. Now I'm working on my next big seasonal event which should be on my site come December, and I have no inclination to stop working on my site.
So, overall, I'm quite pleased. -
I know this thread was made last year, but I already typed this post out and I can't read.
I try to archive my website pretty well, and 2023 is the first Full Calendar Year my main site's actually been up. The January 2023 version of the site had no landing page, just went straight to the changelog, apparently. The sections of the site weren't as well-defined, and I only really had two of my three sections up. I was also changing the site's color palette for accessibility for the first time.
Now it's November, I've got a proper landing, have organized front and backend to hell and back, and I... just changed the color palette again. To accommodate light mode. Some things never change.
(landing page, april 23rd -> november 11)
, but at the same time so much has happened! Oooph, I look forward to seeing what next year will bring!
