Preliminary redesign feedback

Hey, I really like the old site (except for the lack of contrast between backgrounds and text). Other than that tweak, I’d give a thumbs up to the existing theme/style.
That being said, the new style “non-front-blue-color-scheme.jpg” and “front.jpg” are equally attractive. Your new style ‘is’ easier to read … and I think the navigation improvements are terrific. You do have solid text/background contrast now, so I’m a lover of the site(s)/pages.
Adding the actionscript is a cool move, too. BenSaunders.com loads very fast on broadband (since you’re not getting the whole thing) … tailoring the images to the content per page/post keeps the flash aspect from being simple eye candy – and, that’s impressive … don’t know if actionscript has an effect on dialup (probably does?) but I have no idea of the kb size of the images being called/loaded. That’s the only worry I’d have – but, you already know ’bout that, don’t you. ;o)
Nice designs. Very clean, attractive and enjoyable for your visitors.

by the way, I’ll ask what I always ask … will you zip up the old theme/style (and even the new) and share with the community?
no biggie, just asking :o) all the best and take care!

Plainsman: Thanks so much for your very thoughtful help! I appretiate it very much.
As far as ziping and uploading, I would be more than willing to share my work (I did put it under a Creative Commons anyways); however, the way it is set up is hacked up more than the tuna they serve in cans. It is not simply a CSS file and a folder of images, they would have to use my index.php file as well and modify quite a bit of HTML (not to mention the CSS bugs that I never took the time to fix.)
Should I still make it available this way? Would it be worth my time to fix it all and make it more standard?

I guess most folks would like a standarized site to just upload and use.
However, I’d take either one. I’m just guessing that most of the people in these forums would be thankful and able to adapt what you offer. (Some of the more seasoned members would have to make that judgement. Anyone?) I imagine that it just depends upon level of comfort in editing the files – CSS/index.php, etc.
Maybe, to make it easier for you at first (since you’re working on other things – and, you’re kindly sharing) just take out anything you’d not want others to see/use and zip up the index.php, wp-layout/style.css and any images (if you want to include yours – great, or offer some generic ones) – then share that alone.
I bet there would be lot of people that would be more than happy to get the style. :o) For casual/beginning users, I’m sure they’d like something usable right away without any changing/hacking.
It is very nice of you to share, too. Thanks!

Well, I would update it to make it more plug and play friendly, but as I really am in the middle of a project, I have simply uploaded a zip of all the relavant files (as best as I can remember.)
https://blog.danbowling.com/wordpress/
I hope some day that I can give the community somthing a little nicer to play with, but for now I just don’t have the time ??
Maybe after this project is up I will.