Changelog

Website updates and events, listed in reverse chronological order.

05 Oct 26 — v5

  • A new theme, Veedu (വീട്, “home”): a stone and ink look, with no Bootstrap.
  • The Malayalam writing now lives on its own site, ml.binovarghese.com; the old addresses redirect there.
  • Stats became the Dashboard.
  • Six longer poems moved from the Drawer to the Desk, each with a cover photo. The old addresses redirect.
  • Cards no longer show a slash between the lines of a poem.
  • Photos saved sideways by a phone now stand upright in galleries.
  • The life-lessons tag is now life-notes.
  • Visits are counted with GoatCounter, without cookies.
  • Credits updated to match what the site uses now.
  • Added History: screenshots of this website from 2021 to today.
  • Above written and done by Claude Code.

22 Sep 26

  • Fixed image galleries not lining up three in a row.
  • Galleries now serve images at the size they are actually shown, as WebP in three widths with srcset, plus lazy loading. The Asry beach post dropped from 22.5 MB of photos to 0.77 MB on a desktop screen, and Sketches from 55.3 MB to 0.80 MB.
  • The lightbox now opens a screen-sized image instead of the full multi-megabyte original — around 360 KB per photo instead of 2 MB.
  • Added a layout="masonry" option to the gallery shortcode, so Sketches keeps its staggered wall while every other gallery uses the three-across grid.
  • Removed a lightbox script that had been erroring on every gallery page — it ran before the library it needed had loaded, and redeclared the same variable once per gallery. The footer was already doing the job properly.
  • Moved the gallery styles out of the shortcode into main.css, where they were being repeated once per gallery on the page.
  • Added breathing room above and below galleries in posts — they previously sat flush against the following paragraph.
  • Above written and done by Claude Code.

19 Sep 26

  • Modified the theme switch to load the system theme and now two states only, light and dark.
  • Reduced Notes width bacnk to col-8 as the compact style dropped.

17 Sep 26

  • Fixed the footer text color busgs in the dark mode.

17 Sep 26

  • Mods in [Chithrakurippukal] project page has been updated.

16 Sep 26

  • Simplified Movies to a single unified page, matching the Library “All” page — removed the separate Malayalam/English split pages.
  • Hid the author name and “last updated” line from the Movies and Library pages.
  • Commented out the All / EN / ML tabs on the Library pages and replaced them with a plain “Library” label.
  • Moved Library out from under /common/ to the site root, as a single page — same structure as Movies. Updated every link to it across the site (posts, pages, footer, changelog).

15 Sep 26

  • Simplified the About page — removed the featured essays, favourite poems, and travel snapshot preview sections.
  • Built the Movies section to match Library’s format — new JSON data file, a movie-shelf shortcode, and real poster data with language tags.

14 Sep 26

  • Added ചിത്രക്കുറിപ്പ്, a new 365-day Malayalam photo-and-writing project — its own section, archetype, and templates, styled as a card grid.
  • Added a ചിത്രക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ link to the Malayalam navigation.
  • Reworked the site’s color palette a few times, settling on a cooler neutral white-and-gray with a single accent color.
  • Did a full audit of the site’s CSS — fixed several real bugs (broken variables, hardcoded colors that ignored dark mode, duplicate rules) and deleted five unused stylesheet files.
  • Converted the site’s main fonts from .ttf to .woff2 and fixed a broken italic font declaration — meaningfully smaller page weight with no visual change.
  • Deferred a render-blocking script that was loading on every page regardless of whether it was needed.
  • Explored a few different directions for the About page.

13 Sep 26

  • Redesigned the home page to simply everything. Removed all the cards related to esasys, notes, and other cards has been removed. Now it just a bio with links.
  • Changes on 13 Sep t0 16 Sep has beend done with the help of Claude Code.

07 Sep 26

  • Fixed showing projects in notes style in the tags list.

03 Sep 26

  • Reduced space between heading and post date in cards.
  • Added Projects link again in the menu bar.

02 Sep 26

  • Reduced navbar font size.

27 Aug 26

  • Modified image gallery to remove the hover animation and updated the paddings.

20 Aug 26

  • Removed multiple theme switches (Light, Dark, Earth, and Code) button and added the light, dark, and system theme.
  • Added posts from Malayali also in All section along with Workbench and Desk posts.

12 Aug 26

09 Aug 26

  • Added projects link in the footer.

28 Jul 26

  • Housekeeping in progress.
  • Font size and font styles are modified to look consistent in large screens and mobiles.
  • Category tabs (All, Workbench, Desk, Malayali) on the Archive page and Featured for filtering posts by type
    • Workbench: blog, notes
    • Desk: desk, drawer
    • Malayali: ml, ml-musings
  • Year headings on post previews, grouping posts under their publish year (e.g. 2026, 25) instead of repeating the year on every card
  • Changed code font to Geist Mono developed by Vercel.

28 Jul 26

  • Revamped home page. Removed Room, Workbench, Desk, Malayalam posts cards in home page and updated the essays and notes section which show combined posts from Workbench and Desk.
  • Updated new images in explore section for travel, tags, , library and statistics.
  • Changed fonts from Inter to Geist and Playfair Display to Libre Baskerville.
  • Other minor improvements in some of the pages.

27 Jul 26

  • Removed the simplified menu (All, Essays, Notes) and returned to this format (All, Workbench, Desk) as I realized categorization is important to me.

26 Jul 26

  • Background color changed to #F4F3EF from #FFFFFF.
  • Simplified menu to show All, Essays, Notes instead of Room, Workbench, and Desk.
  • Bug fixed in pagination where All section is showing all the posts with out pagination.
  • Added blog cover to several blogs.
  • All posts will show the blog cover if available.

19 Jul 26

  • Removed Google Analytics. Now there no tracking in this website.

16 Jul 26

  • Updated the Tags page to match the Rooms section layout: notes now display in full, while essays appear as card links.

01 Jul 26

  • Added muliple themes in the website.

29 Jun 26

  • Added All library page combining both Malayalam and English books.
  • Moved all book data to a single data/books.yaml file as the source of truth.
  • Created book-shelf-data shortcode that reads from the data file and filters by language, replacing the duplicated shortcode lists in each library page.
  • ML and EN library pages now use the shortcode template instead of maintaining separate book lists.
  • Replaced section folders (room, room-essays, room-notes, writer-space, coder-space, ml-space) with flat .md files — content, URLs, and page logic are all preserved.

03 Jun 26

  • Fixed hover animation on travel page cards — transition was missing on the base .card class, causing the lift effect to snap instead of animate.
  • Improved travel page card style — uniform image height, image zoom on hover, portrait aspect ratio maintained, card body pinned to bottom with mt-auto.
  • Converted travel page sections (Bahrain, Georgia, Kerala, etc.) into accordions — multiple sections can be open at the same time, Bahrain opens by default.
  • Improved footer styling while keeping the existing 3-strip structure — boxed social icon buttons, separator dots in the credits row, hover underline on nav links, and a quote icon in the bottom bar.
  • Fixed note card animation — a duplicate .note-card CSS block was overriding the transition property, removing the translateY animation on hover.
  • Created a unified pagination partial used across all section pages — smart page window with ellipsis, chevron icon nav buttons, and theme-aware styling using CSS variables. Replaced Hugo’s deprecated _internal/pagination.html in all layouts.
  • Improved ML library page — fixed broken <h> tag in the shelf shortcode, 2-column mobile layout, consistent aspect-ratio: 2/3 for book covers, excluded book images from medium-zoom.
  • Redesigned tags page — replaced accordion with a tag cloud, popularity-based sizing, live filter input, and inline post panel that shows posts for the selected tag without navigating away.
  • All the above improvements were made with the help of Claude Code.

03 May 26

  • Made improvements in image figure shortcode to handle images in posts to handle custom width and other details.

01 Apr 26

  • Changed website background to #F4F5F6 and post background to #FFFFFF.

29 Mar 26

  • Removed fw-light from the intor heading and description in the home page.

24 Mar 26

  • Modified footer text to ‘Made with ♥️ and ✨ by Bino from India’.
  • Improved pages.

23 Mar 26

  • Modified Blog Statistics page to add the target and actuals posts for tracking my writng progress.
  • Added Blog Roadmap page to list the features I want to add to this website.
  • Removed slash pages and added pages to list all my links in this website.
  • Improvements in trravel page design.
  • Removed ‘More button’ from the menu bar and added pages link.
  • Imporved pages link details.

14 Mar 26

  • Added movies page to list all the movies and series I watched.

11 Mar 26

  • Updated Hugo version to v0.157.0.
  • Added new shortcodes to image responsive in library and other pages.
  • In Now page last modified date is disabled.
  • Disabled navigation between pages using the left (←) and right (→) arrow keys as its conflicting with Glightbox.
  • Added sketches and photos in slashes page.

10 Mar 26

  • Instead of Now page page link travel page page link added in the more section.
  • Updated open graph and twitter protocol metadata tags updated to show the image correctly.
  • Updated scheme metadata to include more details.

08 Mar 26

07 Mar 26

06 Mar 26

  • Added ‘Playfair Display’ font for headings in the website.
  • Updated contact section in the blog post to add contact page link.
  • Updated About page to add contact page link.
  • Updated headings in the main page as h2 and blog listing titles as h3.
  • Modified home page to show image cards in the Desk section.
  • Updated profile pic in about page.
  • Modified Wall page to fix the dark mode issues and updated card to add images..

01 Mar 26

  • Added photos page for my random clicks. Still work in progress.

26 Feb 26

  • Updated Bootstrap to version 5.3.2
  • Removed dark theme using by inversion method and added dark theme based on Bootstrap.

25 Feb 26

24 Feb 2026

  • Improvements in footer section padding and font sizing. Also added slashes, favorites, and Wall links.
  • Removed now from the more section in the menu.

23 Feb 2026

18 Feb 2026

06 Feb 2026

21 Jan 2026

  • Created projects section and updated in the menu.

29 Oct 25

  • Updated images back to the essay sections.

17 Oct 25

  • Added last updated time in the footer.

09 Oct 25

  • Reduced space between cards in the Room, and Notes.

21 Sep 25

  • Changed background to #FAFAFA and the blog posts background as white.

26 Aug 25

  • Card color changed from #FFFFFF, again.

19 Aug 25

  • Modified footer to display random quotes in the footer when user is refereshing the page.
  • Others section added in the main menu.

18 Aug 25

  • Card color changed from #FFFFFF to #F9FAFB.
  • Text color changed from hsl(222deg, 22%, 5%) to #090408.
  • Modified title and sub heading to make it more bold.
  • Footer texts color also updated from #596073 to #F9FAFB.
  • Updated bio with links in the home page.

05 Aug 25

04 Aug 25

  • Added statistics in the home page in the ‘more on this site’ section.
  • Added Favourites section in the home page.

30 Jul 25

  • Modified cards to add rounded (rounded-4) corner in every sections.

23 Jul 25

  • Added Essays and Notes section in the Room which will include all the posts other than Malayalam posts.

16 Jun 25

12 Jun 25

  • Changed Room style to display the full content if the post is from the notes section and otherwise summary only with a read more button.
  • Changed hovering color of essays to same blue as in the all section.

28 May 25

  • Added blog statistics in the webiste. This is one of the updates I’m most satisfied with recently.
  • Restructured internal pages for easy maintenance.
  • Minor improvements in the cards in the home and all section

27 May 25

  • Renamed Garden to Room, Coder to Workbench, Writer to Desk.
  • Removed colored border for essays and notes in the All section of the sections.

26 May 25

  • Changed Coder space and Writer space to feed like structure, If its a note or drawer post, it will show full. Otherwise summary with link will show.
  • Added colors to identify the post type in the above spaces.

24 May 25

  • Updated the About page to dynamically display featured blog sections using front matter tags, replacing the previous hardcoded approach.
  • Heading icons fonts size reduced in all the spaces.

20 May 25

  • Added icons in the writer and malayali space posts listing.

19 May 25

  • Added icons in the coder space headings such as All, Essays, and notes.

18 May 25

  • Updated back the post images from the preview cards in the Desk section.
  • Hovering color changed to #FF373C from #27AE60.

13 May 25

  • Added section link in the top blog post, so user can back to the list of section.

10 May 25

  • Menu changes to Malayali from ML.
  • Malayalam font added in post preview and Malayali Space.
  • Cleaned up the layout by removing post images from the ‘More Posts’ section beneath each article.

09 May 25

  • Added Writer space section to view the all the non tech essays and notes in one section.
  • Redesigned the home page to incorporate Garden, Coder space , Writer space, and Malayali Space.
  • Modified menu to add the spaces and removed the sub links like Essays, Notes, Desk, and Drawer.
  • Removed post images from the preview cards in the Desk section.

08 May 25

  • Added navigation between pages using the left (←) and right (→) arrow keys.
  • Added Coder space section to view the tech essays and notes in one section.
  • Feed section renamed to Garden.

07 May 25

  • Feed style changed from cards design to minimal listing style.

06 May 25

  • Added Shelf to write my notes about everything other than tech. Drawer will be used to write poetry, musings, and social media posts only.

05 May 25

  • Added a menu footer below the actual footer to include various links.
  • Added shadow effect in the blog post images.

10 Dec 24

  • Added date in the feed page.

23 Nov 24

  • Added English books to the library section.
  • Also added menu for English and Malayalam books.
  • Updated Malayalam writings, Now, Library, and tags links in the home page.

19 Nov 24

  • The heading alignment issue in the Drawer and Notes sections has been fixed.
  • Fixed: Images are opening twice when clicking in gallery.

17 Nov 24

  • Inside a card, added a ‘Reply via Email’ link at the end of each blog post.
  • Also added email share button in the social sharing section.
  • Added tag icon along with tags.

14 Nov 24

  • Updated the feed to organize and display all posts grouped by month and year.

13 Nov 24

  • Updated about content and minor modifications in the styles.

12 Nov 24

  • Changed text colur (hsl(222deg, 22%, 5%)) and heading color (#0F1031).

11-Nov 24

  • Implemented image gallery feature.
  • Added links curated by me to the desk section. Previously, link posts were hidden.

03-Nov 24

  • Reverted drawer style to card with lesser width.
  • Card footer added for feed section.

02-Nov 24

  • Changed drawer style from regular card to masonry layout.

01-Nov 24

  • Added read more link in the search results.
  • RSS feed updated with full content.

31 Oct 24

  • Added search option in the menu.

27 Oct 24

  • Started to migrating my various social media posts to drawer.

22 Oct 24

  • Updated 404 page. Do you want to view that, go here.
  • Added explore button in the home page to get an idea about my blog and various links in it.

21 Oct 24

  • Reactivated drawer link on the menu.
  • Temporarily disabled now link from the menu.

19 Oct 24

16 Oct 24

08 Oct 24

18 Jun 24

  • Added drawer link on the menu.

29 May 24

  • Removed images from tech essays.

2 Apr 24

  • Tags link updated in the feed page.

17 Mar 24

  • Updated last modified date in posts.

07 Mar 24

  • Collections removed.

01 Mar 24

  • Collections link removed from the menu.

21 Feb 24

  • Link color updated as green.
  • Added notes and removed collections from the home page.

02 Feb 24

  • Improved dark mode CSS and JS to avoid the flashing when switching pages.
  • Limited image zooming to blog posts only.
  • Added collections of links and notes from the web community on various topics.
  • Added link to notes in the menu.
  • Removed Codbix newsletter posts from collections.

01 Feb 24

  • Image zoom feature implemented.

29 Jan 24

  • Feed link added in the menu.

27-Jan-24

  • Feed page implemented.

24 Jan 24

  • Secondary color added to summary text and card hover style added.

14 Jan 24

  • Added drawer section.

02 Jan 24

  • Removed my reading highlights from this website.

01 Jan 24

  • If there is no description auto summary will show in the blog cards.