If I were to describe how I make decisions and set priorities, the first thing that comes to mind is the scene where Harry Potter takes Felix Felicis and heads to Hagrid instead of looking for Slughorn. That's pretty much how I operate: my task manager tells me to continue working on the new version of Vulpea, and instead, I end up rewriting large sections of Barberry Garden.

But, you know, the timing is actually perfect. I usually work in short bursts, but when a task doesn't fit into a single evening or weekend, planning it becomes more difficult. And now that I'm not in Kyiv, I drink less and spend less time on “writing,” which has not only freed up some time but also created a window for major changes to the site.

I'm sure you've noticed something different. That's what I want to talk about.

Updated Design

The first thing that stands out is the updated look of the site. It's important to note that I'm not a designer or a front-end developer, so my abilities are limited to borrowing visual elements and adding some programmer's charm. However, if you follow the evolution of Barberry Garden, you'll see that everything is becoming more reader-friendly. Formally, the new design resembles the very first version, but in reality, it develops ideas from the previous one. I've stopped trying to make things "modern and stylish." The core content of this site is text and wine information, so I used ready-made solutions that make the text incredibly readable: more space, logical spacing, etc. I hope you like it too.

Besides visual changes, I also prepared the design for future updates (more on that next time). This meant working on the structure and, most importantly, navigation. Since I'm not a designer, it was easier to rebuild than to fix the existing layout. If you don't like it - find me a designer.

What has changed:

• The structure is now more classically vertical.
• On the homepage, post components now have images and are arranged horizontally (on wide screens). Instead of "unique" information like "language – English" or "author – Boris" (which is obvious anyway), they now contain only the date, category, and a short description.
• Navigation on small screens is now more spacious.
• The Consumption Heat Map now consists of squares instead of rectangles.
• Charts no longer shrink on small screens - they can be scrolled, so you no longer need to zoom in just to read them.
• Tables have been redesigned (more on this below).

New Wines Table

The old table (the database of all my wines) was created quickly and without much thought - I just grabbed the first component library I found and used its table components. They were fine, but not ideal for large datasets. So, I switched to a solution that offers better sorting, searching, and filtering capabilities.

Improvements:

• Separate filters for almost all columns.
• Tree-structured filtering by origin: now you can easily find all wines from Côte d'Or or Côte de Nuits just by selecting a branch of the tree.
• Improved filtering by grape variety: you can quickly select a variety from a dropdown by its primary name or synonym.
• Filtering by rating date: select a date range, and it will show all the wines I rated between those dates. You can also sort by the latest rating date.

I still plan to improve the table based on my needs, but if you need something - let me know (for example, Serhii asked me to add a rating date).

Technical Changes

• Upgraded to Tailwind CSS 4, NextJS 15, and React 18 (soon 19, once I resolve dependency blockers).
• Dropped the component library chaos: no more Flowbite or NextUI/HeroUI - now it's just Ant UI for tables, tooltips, and accordions, and for everything else, clean Tailwind and its Typography plugin.
• For charts, I now exclusively use Observable Plot/D3.

What's Next?

• A redesign of the tasting participants' page to make it more useful.
• Consumption analytics - both personal and for tasting participants.

I think these will be the main focuses of the next major updates. When? I don't know, maybe I should actually work on Vulpea for a change…