Updated links in site templates to reflect new domain name. Huge thanks to the friend who unintentionally reminded me to do this!
Cleaned up CSS of a few site templates and improved commenting.
Added difficulty ratings to site templates to help people pick one that they can use comfortably.
Updated site buttons to use the new domain name. If you're linking me, then you may want to snag the new versions.
This is a major breaking change that affects anyone reading this: please read this entire changelog.
Update your bookmarks! Owlsroost.xyz is transitioning to www.beepbird.net. The site's original domain name is getting close to expiring (Jan 2026), which gave me a chance to consider whether I want to keep it or migrate. I decided that I'd like to transition domain names to www.beepbird.net. As much as I love owlsroost.xyz, the .xyz top-level domain (TLD) is blocked by a lot of networks, as its relatively low price has made it popular to register for malicious purposes. It's made it hard to get listed by some search engines and has left a few friends unable to view it in certain places. The .net TLD doesn't have these issues, hence the move. In all honesty, I also wanted an excuse to "rebrand" a little using what I've learned about webmastery in the last few years, so here we are. Welcome to www.beepbird.net!
If you're in the Focus First Webring, please update the URL on the widget.
Started the process of redirecting links, tweaking the site name's appearances on pages, and changing cross-domain references. I've got a little over a year to mop up anything I missed; feel free to email me if you spot a page that doesn't redirect correctly.
Updated the Kiss template dark mode to a more pleasant color scheme.
Also, hi! I'm alive! I've been writing a ton of essays on a subsite, so you're not seeing the updates on the changelog here, but they do exist. It's mostly a question of how/whether I want to bridge subsites to this main site, you know? I'm still figuring that out. It exists regardless.
Added CSS 101 Tutorials index page and the first three tutorials (the last of which might be moved to later in the series).
Added new pen reviews: Pilot Dr. Grip 4+1 (multi-pens have gotten better than I remember them being!).
Answered this week's muse prompt about absence. It's been a wild two weeks for me- I'm beginning to understand all the AO3 authors who say "hey I broke my leg and was in a coma for three days, anyway here's a chapter". Sometimes writing is all you can do to hang on.
Corrected link contrast issues in dark mode for Acid template.
Added a new template: Acid, a self-introduction page with a fun animation upon opening the page.
Added notes on small changes and finer points to check in the How to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly article. Thank you to solaria for reminding me that sometimes, accessibility is simple.
Added a new accessibility option to the settings: outlining elements that the mouse hovers over. Also thanks to solaria for the idea.
Answered the muse prompt about jellyfish. It came to mind last night and the moment was perfect to capture.
Chucked Eona onto its own subdomain. Expect some broken links until I finish cleaning loose ends.
Un-broke mobile issues caused by header changes. Apparently, the viewport meta actually needs to be in the HTML. Chucking it in .htaccess didn't have the same mechanical effect even though the header was still being passed. Good to know!
Continued refining secrets. I might have a hidden poetry project now. ;)
Answered the last week's muse prompt about undercurrents (I plan to voice this someday; for now, just imagine me whispering "one, two, three" underneath the whole thing).
Security header and dead page cleanup (thanks, e-commerce security class!).
Added another piece to the secret section. I'm working on filling out some of the major secret pages, so if you found one with a list of links on it? There are more links there now.
Major backend updates. Links are unaffected, but let me know if you see anything broken. I think I've fixed all the references that needed fixing, but you never know!
Behind-the-scenes work prepping for an art page. I want to do this in PHP in the future, but it's HTML for now.
Lots of behind-the-scenes work in general. There's not much change on the easily-found parts of the site, but there's a good amount going on in the background.
Opened up an existing secret so it serves its originally intended purpose. Have fun figuring out which one it is!
Fixed settings select box and form color weirdness when switching themes on iOS. It should now be legible regardless of what theme you've selected.
Added some pages on gods to the Eona section. That's an ongoing work in progress, as always.
Answered this week's muse prompt about silence. Sometimes, the thing left unsaid suggests more than what's actually said.
Added the Microns page for shorter music (and several unreleased and/or old songs to go with it). This took me about a day of work because it's all PHP!
Added an extremely professional Corporate Mode to the style switcher.
Improved automation workflow.
Answered this week's muse prompt about time. Ironically, I was short on time writing it.
Fixed the Latest page to show the newest poem on the correct page instead of a copied-over placeholder.
I will not do an April Fool's joke this year. Business as usual.
Added a few new pen reviews and cleaned up old ones now that I've used these pens for months.
Added Out of Sync (Pieces from a Journal) to the poetry stream. I decided to try copying over exact lines from my private journal and turning them into poetry; sometimes old words work better than new ones.
Fixed the guestbook not respecting color theme settings.
Added secrets.
Added a new site theme with a custom index image: mercury mode!
Completely overhauled the about page. It should have different content for different site themes now (and for those who can't change themes, there are links to each version in the sitemap).
I promise that I'm still alive! My brain's been kaput lately and I'm trying to get it to cooperate again, writing where I can. Muse is helping a lot with giving me the nudge I need right now.
Added the Latest page as an easy place to see the most recent assorted thought, poem, and article. (I spent three-ish hours writing code to automate this and it was a great time)
Added convenience links to the header of each assorted thought. It should be much easier to link specific thoughts now (no browser inspection needed!).
Improved the style settings selector; your currently selected style will be shown in the dropdown without switching the list order around. The list order should stay consistent now.
Finally added the missing pen photos in the pen reviews. I'm currently waiting on a Kaweco Sport, so expect that to be added in the near future!
Added a bits and pieces page to the Eona section to contain things written when chatting elsewhere.
Started working on a project article- this might take a while, but I promise I'm doing things. :P
Tweaked placement of secrets. No new secrets yet- I just hid a few of the existing ones a little better.
Adjusted stylesheet for the article directory; devices with wide enough screens should see two columns. Will likely continue tweaking in the future to make it easier to find specific articles.
Split some stylesheets so that unnecessary lines won't be loaded (and I can pull in those styles when needed). Fingers crossed that nothing breaks!
Moved a few directories to make it easier for me to manage the site in the long run (I did not plan well enough for this three years ago and it's long overdue). Hard refresh likely needed! I moved the script, stylesheet, fonts, and image directories. There will be breakage with this one because I moved all of the scripts and stylesheets; hopefully I'll have it cleaned up by the end of the day. I think I've fixed all of the issues caused by this. Email me if you spot anything that I missed!
For the Hypnotic and Panorama templates: fixed a bug in some mobile browsers where the height and width of certain elements would shift as the URL bar adjusted its position while scrolling.
Fixed a bug where the image visibility and background pattern settings wouldn't change to "hidden" if it was the user's first time clicking the corresponding button.
Added inline styling to the Focus First webring for predictable display on other websites (AKA: no weird text spacing and line break wonkiness). Also added pixel arrows for previous and next links.
Tweaked homepage navigation to make the webrings page easier to find.
Overhauled the index page layout. Things will probably break until I fix the bugs that magically appear when a layout goes live.