Jan 23 2008
What do you think of the new look?
Finally, the new theme is setup and running. Whew! It took me a while to get this finalized.
What do you think about this new look? When it was delivered to me, it looked like this:
As I have a Nuffnang ad placed here in the header with an active campaign, I must keep it running. I thought it was easy to just paste the code into the header, just like the old butterfly theme, but it was not! This new theme is more difficult to handle coz it has a solid color background. It is also so neat that any changes can easily make it ugly! It actually looked VERY UGLY when I pasted my ad codes. Further to that, in the process of adjusting the sidebar, I screwed up the code. Both sidebars and footer were gone! As I didn’t have the time to study it, I converted back to the old butterfly theme, until I had the time to figure it out last night. 
In case you are new here, or forgot the old look, here is the old butterfly theme:
The process of getting a new look is not as easy as I thought, though I get professional’s help! As mentioned before, I won some design credits from Lara. I topped up with a small amount, and started engaging her for her service.
Due to time difference, every email exchange took 24 hours. It took us 2-3 days to finalize my requests and then Lara started her design. It took her further few days to find 5 images for me to choose, that’s because I was very specific in what I wanted – an Asian looking woman (of course I don’t want to look like angmo!), with 2 children, 1 boy 1 girl, with the boy looks older than the girl.
I like one of the images very much. The mother has a wavy hair (just like mine) and the 2 children just so matching that I fell in love with it immediately. However, the background color of the image makes thing very complicated. Gradient background is hard to manage. We can’t remove it, can’t change it. In fact, I dislike pink color!
Probably because it is pink, I find it hard to accept whatever color combinations Lara proposed. She was very patient with me. After a few adjustments, I finally got it on Sat.
Another challenge is really to customize it with my personalized stuff, like the sidebar elements and the additional headers ads. Bear in mind that I have some plugins that appear below the old footer – that screwed up the theme as well. There is no way I can make them appear nicely, so I’ve decided to disable them…
All these were not spotted during the design stage as the test site doesn’t have these elements. Actually when I engaged her, I thought the service includes incorporating my current stuffs into the new theme. No! Actually not! I have to do that myself. There are still a few things that I requested, but not included in the theme.
One very important aspect that I wanted is to have my archive list expandable. That is, ideally by default it should show yearly archive for previous years and monthly archive for current year in the sidebar, with arrow bullets. The bullets, when clicked, should be expandable to show monthly archives. Just like Blogspot’s default (see image below).
Lara said it is controlled in WP back office. I couldn’t find it. And then upon further study of the codes, I think it is not true. The HTML written, is specifically for ‘monthly’ archive! I am actually disappointed in this.
Apart from that, I am pretty happy with it, though I had to do quite a lot of adaptation. I am too perfectionist in this. I am still not quite happy with the colour, but will leave it for now. I’ve done too much of adjustments on the colours… LOL! Luckily I have some basic programming knowledge and an old ‘butterfly’ theme for reference - I could guess how to make those changes!
UPDATE: I’ve found the code to change the VERY LONG archive list into a dropdown box. Not ideal as I wanted it to be, but better than before. Imagine, if I don’t make this change, another year of blogging would send my archive list to 48 months/lines! No wonder I want to be crictical in this! 
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the new design looks gorgeous tho
good work!
ahaha u dislike pink color and here is pinksterz leaving you a comment xD haha jk!
i am also facing the same thing. changed to a new layout and my nuff leaderboard doesnt suit with this new theme. and unfortunately, there is a campaign this week
wrote to nuffnang about the removal of the ads because i dont mind not getting paid this week but still no reply haih
IcedNyior: Thanks!
Am I too picky? I still want to do some more touch up… 
pinksterz: Hey! NO WAY I would dislike a person like you!
Love to read your comments! LOL!
Hmm… you also face the same problem huh?! Looks like you prefer to maintain its look than earn the few cents from Nuffnang - considering your request to remove the ad unit.
Actually you don’t have to inform Nuffnang about removal of ad units though there is a campaign. You are paid by number of impressions. If you take it off early, the number of impressions will be less, and you will fall into lower bang - you will be paid for the number of impressions shown only. That’s why Nuffnang is always very fair.
congrats. Awesome. Like the header pic.
i like it! The banner pic makes this look more of a family-ish website.
Love your new template.
I would say that old theme was much more simpler version but ppl grow older rite so your site also must implies…. the maturity of suzette!
I like your header … symbol of you and the kids, so charm!
awesome!
Ya, the pic on the header look great, and the pink backgournd oso not bad… ocerall a good theme!!
Love the new theme. Nice clean look & feel.
Thank you, thank you. I’m glad you all like it. My sister doesn’t like it though. LOL!
When I was discussing with Lara on my requirements, I kept reminding myself that the theme is for ME, and I must be the one who is happy with it - as reminded by a comment in previous post.
I do love the mother+2 kids image. I might change the colour scheme a little to make it less 俗 - that’s what my sister’s comment on this theme. Hahaha!
Looks good. More important is the content. Keep up the good work
Great theme! A new look for 2008 huh?
I changed mine last October. Now a little tired of it.
But I guess I will hang on this one a little longer. 
EMYYL: Thanks! Glad you like it too!
Adrian: Hahaha, new look for 2008? Didn’t think of it, but it is true ya?! Wow, from Oct till now is only… 3+ months, and you are bored with it already? BTW, how’s your class setup in KL? I’m really looking forward to it!