the making of delineate

People often ask me details regarding the implementation of delineate. For the most part, delineate is just a custom theme (created from scratch) for the popular web log code base, b2/WordPress. It also contains some minor tweaks on the inside to make it easier to work with as a photo log tool.

It took a while for it to go from concept to fruition, and here are some of the stages it's been through.

  1. Recognizing need:

    Everyone knows it is easier to take a (substandard) photo than to write something interesting. At some point, I realized I was saturating my regular web log with many such photos. I then realized the only true way to avoid this was to clearly separate the picture content from the words—I needed a separate photo log.

  2. Identifying technology and elements:

    The next step involved looking into tools that would best serve this purpose. After a little research, I decided to stick with my trusty b2/Wordpress install since I've used it for a long time and was comfortable tweaking it. I then proceeded to look at other existing photo logs (Out of step and Ten years of my life amongst many others), to figure out what sorts of elements needed to be on the page—in order to make it both aesthetically pleasing and functional.

  3. Coming up with a presentation scheme:

    I then went through the process of "designing" the site. This process primarily involved drawing out several different ideas, using the ideas garnered from other sites, in the GIMP.

    Desktop screen shot of work on the template.

    Once things were looking somewhat functional (in my head), I showed it to other people, received comments and went about making changes. This resulted in several iterations, each slightly different from the previous.

    Here are some of them:

    Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 6 Iteration 7
  4. Coding things up:

    Once I'd settled on something I liked, I proceed to code it up in (X)HTML and CSS using GNU Emacs. The navigation images and buttons for the site were derived directly from the prototype drawings.

  5. Finishing up and further development:

    After solving some aggravating implementation issues, the site was up, but it has been in no way stagnant. I soon proceeded to document all what I wanted it to be able to do, and went about (and still am) implementing parts of those ideas as well.

And that has evolved to the site you see today.

Availability: I have made the source code and images for delineate (ver 0.0) available for download [tar.gz/zip]. This release is for WordPress version 1.2, though it won't take too much work to make it compatible with WordPress 1.5 or later.

Since I am happy with it the way it is, I will not do the port until I feel the need. You are free to make these changes if you so desire.

Addendum: Also, in the true spirit of all of this, other people have grabbed this code and made changes to it—either adding functionality they missed, or tweaking it to their liking. These changes include support for EXIF data, rudimentary support for different sized images, making delineate a full-fledged WordPress 1.5 theme, and the ability to display image archives as thumbnailed lists.

Some of these people have been in touch with me and shown me their changes. When I have the time, I will go through all these improvements, incorporate them into my current code base (which also contains some changes since ver 0.0 was released) and release another version of delineate. One that is far more functional and easy to use.