Let's talk front-end!

[clarklab]

Hello chefs!

We've got a sharpened design in the works (based on the current beta) and I'm planning on doing a full rewrite of the front-end. The goal is cleaner markup and a lighter pageweight. Doing this for a few reasons:

• I've tried running Chowdown on an Echo Show device and it really chugged
• I want the Chowdown theme to be easy to edit and style, even for beginners (which includes me, often)
• on that note, I'm thinking about going framework-free

For my day job, I run a little design/dev shop with my wife. One of our least favorite things is inheriting a complex build with a lot of build process and poor documentation. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm not really a fan of the command line. I know, I know, but I find simple builds easiest to share down the line (adding new devs of all skill sets over time).

Currently the site uses Basscss (my favorite, which I know most folks have never heard of). I'd compare it to Tailwind. Which looks great! And also a little scary. And maybe a bit heavy. I know with tooling it's a really efficient little kit, but like I said above, I'd love to avoid tooling if possible.

So, my question: are y'all cool with that?

In the absence of a framework, are there some simple things y'all want to suggest? A naming convention? A certain layout type (floats, flexbox, grid)?

[ironicbadger]

I prefer the original design at a first glance :/

Search should be permanently visible and not require an extra click which then steals full screen focus. The books concept is good though.

I found the original theme to be quite easy, even modifying it to perma show search on each page in 5 minutes. So all this to say, thanks for v1 it is great!

[clarklab]

Thanks!

The "beta" never quite got to where I was headed, which is a bit closer to this design:

I'm in the process of tightening that up and moving it into Figma, so we can do a bit more "open design" moving forward.

I think I've got the search covered, showing it by default in the main layout. Here it is in mobile:

How are those looking?

[carlyman]

+1 to the new design!

[JackSwett]

I'm new here, but looking to start using Chowdown and contributing. I think the search should be the focus of the main page. At the very least, require no scrolling or other menus to start typing on any platform.

[DrSpaldo]

Any update with this? I would be keen to have a menu in the main page...

or even if there is a way I can use your beta on my site?

[DrSpaldo]

hello @clarklab , has the development ceased?