Over the past couple of days, I’ve been deep in the weeds reworking the UX and UI of my dev blog. The goal? Make it cleaner, more reusable, and most importantly, easier to navigate. 🛠️

Reusable _include Files

One of the biggest upgrades was overhauling my _include files. These are now fully reusable components that allow for custom filters, limits, and headers. Instead of repeating code all over the blog, I can now drop in a single include and adjust it to whatever I need. It feels like the blog just leveled up in maintainability.

A New Page for Public Posts

I also added a dedicated page to show all public posts. The page includes a text input that allows filtering by post name or tags. This makes it way easier to find specific posts without scrolling endlessly, because honestly, who has time for that? 😅

The related-posts section got an upgrade too. It now works with my revamped category/tag system. Related tags within posts are displayed at the bottom, and when there are too many, pagination kicks in so it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Your brain will thank you.

Consolidating the About Section

I decided to remove the standalone “About” section. Instead, I’m highlighting it on the index page along with the five most recent public posts. This way, visitors immediately see the latest content and get a bit of context about me without digging through menus.

Other Quality-of-Life Improvements

There are plenty of smaller tweaks sprinkled throughout: adjustments to spacing, better handling of metadata, and just making the site feel smoother overall. Sometimes, the devil really is in the details.

Takeaway

It feels great to have a blog that is not only more functional but also easier to maintain and expand. Next steps? Keep iterating, keep refining, and maybe someday add some surprises for readers. 😉