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+---
+layout: post
+title: Plaintext is Beautiful
+date: 2023-07-18T09:27:00Z
+tags: [webdev, text editor, development, gopher]
+---
+
+Alternative title: Why does this website look so different?
+
+You might notice that the site looks a lot different than it did before.<br> If
+you're new, this is how it looked:
+
+![A view of how the website previously looked](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/838048982873538572/1134865644014280856/image.png)
+
+For a lot of people, this may have been a lot more of a pleasing design than the
+current one. Shit, I still think that design has its merits, but it did have to
+change. I will explain why this was the case, and also why I went for this
+current design (which I hope isn't too bad!).
+
+### Performance issues
+
+So, Chromium-based browsers offer a feature in their dev panel called
+[Lighthouse](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview/). In effect,
+this is a tool that enables a developer to assess the quality of their website
+based on some important metrics (a11y, performance) and some not so important
+ones (like the dreaded SEO). I don't like using Google-related tools very much,
+but out of curiosity I did decide to check how my site was doing.
+
+Accessibility and (_shudder_) SEO were great, but to my surprise, the
+performance score was a disastrous 54 out of 100. To make matters worse,
+Lighthouse had calculated that my home page took on average **7 seconds** to
+load!
+
+This is really bad, especially since it was literally just a couple of pictures
+and some text, so I checked what its recommendations were and followed them. I
+managed to get the score up to around 70 or 80, but still the website felt
+really sluggish.
+
+It was at this point that I came to the realisation that my efforts to optimise
+the site in its current form were pointless, as the whole design was very
+bloated (with lots of images everywhere).
+
+Thankfully, I had come across some new communities at the time which helped
+provide inspiration for a new design!
+
+### Smolnet, gopher and tildes
+
+If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that I am a member of SDF, a
+public access Unix system. If you haven't, [do it now](/2023/07/11/enter-the-fediverse)!!!
+
+<!-- TODO: finish this article !-->
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