Lots of progress in the past few days!
Each section of the site is slowly being built out, but the main priority has been working on optimizing how I add things. For example, previously all the navigation buttons at the top of the site, as well as the buttons for each blog entry, were actually created individually every time. This would mean that if I wanted to make a new button for, say, this post, I would have to go into Photoshop, create two individual images for hovering over the button with your mouse and NOT hovering over the button with your mouse, as well as write out the title of the post, and then export and upload them to the site and add them to the blog page. This is obviously a huge pain in the ass. With the changes I've made, I simply use the blank versions of each button and add the necessary text right in the HTML of that page. I had the foresight to know that having as many reusable elements as possible would make my life much easier down the road.
I've also implemented a way to load static page elements like the nav bar and backgrounds to each page I make from a single, separate file. This means that if I make a change to how they look or function, I won't have to go into every page that they exist in and add those changes. I can simply edit the file where they live and those changes will be reflected site-wide. Pretty cool. This is currently the first and only instance of JavaScript used in the site, and I more or less understand how this specific thing works, but other than that I know nothing about JavaScript and don't plan on touching it for a while until I get a bit more comfortable with HTML and CSS.
Additionally, each section of the site now also has a unique background to differentiate it. These are all backgrounds from Melee. The blog section has the background from the Break the Targets stages, and the newly added Music page has the background from the Tournament Mode menu.
Speaking of the Music page, right now there's not a whole lot to it, but the plan is to throw in some albums that I like and possibly review them? It's sort of up in the air for now, but I do know that I want it to be a prominent part of the site.
As far as what the end user sees, that's basically all the changes that have been made. The vast majority of the time I've spent working on the site the past few days has gone all into furthering the backbone of the site to make it easier for me to work on in the future. I suppose there are probably better ways that I could go about actually learning web dev, since I'm definitely jumping all over the place in terms of the concepts I'm learning and implementing into the site, but it's been gratifying all the same. As much as I hate to say it, ChatGPT has been a godsend in helping me get things set up. TO BE CLEAR, I'm not using it to build the site for me. Instead I am asking it questions about how to make the changes that I want, and having it explain how things work to me in a way that I can then add to my skills so that I don't have to rely on it forever. GenAI fucking sucks and I hate it, but using an AI assistant for the purposes that I have is, in my opinion, just utilizing another tool. It is much easier and faster to ask it very specific questions that pertain exactly to what I'm doing than dig through billions of Reddit and StackExchange posts for topics that are vaguely similar to mine and hope whatever solutions I find apply to me. Being able to feed it my HTML and CSS to ask it what I'm doing wrong is amazing too. Again, FUCK GenAI and frankly fuck AI in general, but I take solace in knowing that I would rather use it to hone a new skill instead of using it to replace that skill altogether.
It's been a blur and I didn't quite document all of the minute changes I've made, but that's basically the gist of it. I think I more or less have things set up the way that I want. Moving into March I will most likely be focusing on actually adding content to the site, which I will explain more as they're implemented. That's all for now, see you in March!