Well, I finally got around to it . I refactored and redesigned theUpstairsRoom website. I currently have six distinct websites that I am responsible for, and over the last year, each one has undergone some form of backend refactoring to keep up with improvements/additions in Horde's framework code. Most recently, I have refactored almost all of them to use the new Horde_Controller library. I feel really good about this code, as the site's code organization is clean and elegant. Anyway, I've not touched this site's design in about 2 years or so, as other things always seem to require attention.

During some recent work, I was browsing through open source CSS templates (since my color-matching and general design skills are somewhat lacking) and  I came across the Coffee N Cream design. I thought it would be a good match for theUpstairsRoom after some tweaking, so I dug in.  First thing I did was replcace the header's background image. The new image is a modified version of a stock image from the "stock exchange" site  http://sxc.hu.  I've previously struggled trying to represent the name of the site graphically but I think this image is a good fit.  Then, I ripped apart the template, modified the CSS and put the whole thing back together again with my code and content in the form of a MVC application with Horde_Controller at the heart of it.

Horde_Controller is one of the newest Horde 4 components.  It uses a Horde_Routes mapper to map urls to the proper controllers and dispatch the request.  It's actually quite elegant, and simple to use.  It is Horde 4 code though, which means it's only availble via Horde's git repository.

The site is not complete, as there are still some things that need to be tweaked, but it's complete enough to make live.  I'd be happy to hear any comments about the new look!