hi folks!
By dave • Aug 7th, 2007 • Category: Site Stuffi just wanted to let you know that i’m still working on tweaking things. there’s a lot of things i’m loving about this new software, but there are a couple more things i feel like it needs to be “complete”…or at least closer to being what i want it to be. 
i DO want find a way for us to be able to give titles to our comments…i miss that feature, and i think it would be nice to get it back. i’m also going to be working on some page layout things, in order to make content easier to find and navigate.
i really am working on making it as good as it can be…i promise! :) just please hang in there with me, and keep giving constructive criticism, and i think it will all work out.
August 8th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
=D> I like all the smiley choices, the site over all looks a bit better but alas, the old one is missed by some I am sure. Just no bearded emoticons for us al quaeda/toilet towel heads types? Tim Ossman here with a public service anouncement from the CIA, help stop blowback.
August 9th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Can’t read comments unless logged in?
August 9th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
things could get screwy while i’m making some changes, so hang in there folks….
if you run into something that seems strange, that’s probably not the way it is supposed to be, and i’ll get it fixed as soon as i can.
thanks to chimpastro for pointing out that you couldn’t even SEE the comments unless you were logged in on that other theme i’ve been working with…that’s no good at all. :-??
anyway…i’m excited about this new theme i’m working on. it won’t look a great deal different from this one, but it WILL help keep things WAY more organized on the front page, and that should make everybody happy.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Trying this without signing in.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I know your still working on this, and would imagine that the future theme will be a hybird between the two.
Maybe with the ability to add titles to our comments?
I have no insight whatsoever but to be honest about it, I see a subtle improvement if you are going back to the old layout. If you are sticking to the one that I’m looking at right now, then I hope you can work miracles and/or we have verry patient readers.
That was intended to be constructive.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:51 am
And I have to agree with Tech about needing more room for recent comments.
Impose the more tag into the fifth line or so of the articles and it leaves plenty of room to display more then the default 10(?), giving leeway to drop the recent articles catalogue from the sidebar and expand recent comments on down the page.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
chimp…i need to know a bit more about what you don’t like about this current theme, and why you hope i can work miracles with it.
are you referring to this current theme vs. the theme we’ve had for the past few weeks? personally, i think this one is MUCH improved, as far as functionality and layout is concerned already, and i still have some more tweaking to do.
anyway…if you could let me know what it is about it that you don’t like, i’ll see what i can do.
as far as titles on comments, that is proving to be much more difficult than i would have ever imagined…
August 10th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
well…i do see a problem…the clickable smiles are not working in firefox…dangit!
August 10th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
We only have 3 articles on the front page. And I’ve tried a couple of browsers and the bottom two articles are narrow and long. The articles (as example) start at Aug 1, Instead of the most recent.
I’m not complaining, I know your still working on things.
If you could make the long boxes at the bottom shorter and add more of them (auto inserting the more tag comes to mind after 6 lines or so), I dont know how heavily you would have to alter the code base, style sheet, or whatever… I don’t have a clue about that stuff.
But that miracle comment wasn’t an insult or anything. That kind of changes or tweaking would seem to be a miracle to me… speaking as someone who has allmost no knowledge of programming in the new code.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
lol…i didn’t take it as an insult at all. i really seriously do appreciate the feedback.
i’m really trying to clean up the home page, and one way to do that is to cut down on how many articles are listed there. the way it is working, it gets the most recent article posted from whichever specific category i instruct it to…
therefore, we have a scanner scoop box and a site stuff box, with each pulling in 1 article. however, if i can figure out a way to do it, i COULD have it pull like the most recent 2-3 articles of any given category, but insert a “more” tag, so that they don’t take up too much space…
that…you are correct…could be a miracle.
hang in there, though…i believe this template has some hope yet!
August 10th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
the only smiley/emoticon that wasn’t working for me was the forth one with the big cheezy grin, and it worked sometimes in firefox 2.0.0.6. . . . ?
I can appriceate the effort but this format looks werse on firefox the comment box and the recient post on opposite sides of the center text is an ok concept but I had gotton used to the other format and it was better than this looks.
Some of the header features are nice like the post date and time info, and estimated time to read. Dont werk tooo hard, and if it aint broke dont fix it?
August 10th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
that xhtml: guide looks handy? ,ins datetime=”1862″
August 11th, 2007 at 2:52 am
The bottom box on the right side of the front page is similar to what I was talking about, except I had an idea of seprate boxes. Like one big box on top and four on the bottom like this:
FEATURE ARTICLE BOX
Article 1 Article 2
Article 3 Article 4
Those would ideally be four seprate boxes, but the two (as done previously) work out great with the use of the more tag.
Dave I guess I’m describing something similar to the gray news feeds in the dashboard, except modified to work under the feature article on the front page.
That way instead of pulling more than one feed from the same category, you can pull a recent feed from 4 categories (or more if you wish)
Now I have a very vague idea about how to implement that, but I’m afraid that the source would have to be hacked on, making upgrades a painstaking task.
So the original three that you started with this (now yesterday) morning is well enough since the more tag has been added.
The addition of the more tag brings back some of the feel from the old site… when the articles had teasers and we would click to read the article.
Just some random thoughts and ideas there, not really suggestions, mainly because I can’t figure out how this blasted stuff works.
I can use it from a writer’s standpoint, but I don’t know what makes it tick, and that is why I can’t be of any real help.
August 11th, 2007 at 8:24 am
I wish this thing had an editor… lol
Because I meant slightly similar to the gray news feeds in the dashboard…
Of course I was working out of memory and didn’t remember how little information is contained in those feeds. But the scanner scoop on the bottom left that I seen just prior to logging in would be a better example of what I was trying to describe.
Whew! I thing I got it right that time.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Dave,
This is even better than titles.
Looking Good