My plan was simply to work on the primary navigation tab set. I also needed to do some prep for the weekly Web standards workshop today. But you know me…once I get started, it’s hard to stop. I just couldn’t help myself. I took a break on Saturday to help my brother move some furniture around for Mom. Other than that, I was immersed in code.

Check out the before and after.

Not a bad start. Using WebSiteOptimization.com to compare the two versions side-by-side, you can see that the total size of the optimized version (44 KB) is around 30% of the original (120 KB). The mark-up alone has been cut from 37 KB down to 9 KB. The CSS from 63 KB to 9 KB.

Ahhh….that feels good. Just put one foot in front of the other. With a little luck and a lotta faith, this thing (either in part or in whole) may see the light of day sometime before the end of the year. Until then, there is much to do. I want the layout to be flexible of course, so a strategy will need to be developed that allows for that, and at the same time ensures visual consistency with the legacy content. And I still think we can squeeze some more bytes out of this thing. Oh yeah….it looks great on the phone.

Update:

Just fixed some positioning issues with the tab set in Safari 1.3, Netscape 6.2 and Firefox 1.5b. We’re good to go except for Mac IE 5.2 and again, just some positioning issues with the tab set.

Disclaimer: While I am an eBay employee, these opinions are my own.