Please Help Troubleshoot My New Site [Archive]

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drewprops

2006-02-01, 21:02

I've been looking forward to starting this thread since November but before I begin I'd like to say:

THANK YOU FOR THE GIRL IN THE PROM DRESS BRAD!!!!!
I wouldn't have started down the road to an XHTML compliant, WordPress-flavored, PHP-driven website without her.
You guys in the Programmers Nook have been a fantastic resource too, I appreciate all of your help. Thank you!

I switched hosts yesterday so the name server info is probably still being updated around the globe. Here's a snapshot of what first time visitors should see when arriving at the new site:

http://homepage.mac.com/drewprops/applenova/drewprops_thumb.png (http://www.drewprops.com/)
http://www.drewprops.com/

The site isn't all that fancy, just a place to hold my 5+ years of blog posts, some photos and some portfolio crap.
I think that I'm most excited that I've been able to make a site that should grow with me for awhile but by now I know that there's still plenty to learn. So.......

What have I left out?

What's not working?

For instance, for hotlinked images on the site, should I just declare border="0" in the HTML or is there a way to suppress the color using a stylesheet? Do I just define a global "img a" and "img a:hover" that do not have a border color? (just occurred to me)

Brad you even made it into my salutations list in the <HEAD>, thanks again!
Thanks again everyone!

Brad

2006-02-01, 21:07

THANK YOU FOR THE GIRL IN THE PROM DRESS BRAD!!!!!

Brad you even made it into my salutations list in the <HEAD>, thanks again!
I'm honored! :o :lol:

Do I just define a global "img a" and "img a:hover" that do not have a border color?
Yup! "border: none" should do the job. Although, I think it'll be the other way around ("a img").

Everything is looking good so far. :)

drewprops

2006-02-01, 21:15

fixed!

scratt

2006-02-01, 21:20

Very nice.. All your own work? I am not doubting it at all..

Just it looks so nice I though it was a derivative of a content management system to start with...

Fancy re-designing a couple of mine for me? ;)

EDIT : Oh I see, it's Word Press.. How easy did you find it to use? I am looking at some of these options at the moment so that people who are not mega web-savvy can update content on some of our sites. A couple of mine a falling down simply because I don't have time to tidy them anymore and the content is mushrooming.. Would really love some feedback from you, and I shall be looking at your site with interest as it develops..

drewprops

2006-02-01, 21:28

The only thing that's been filched are bits of the nav bar.
Go to Dan Cederholm's website http://www.simplebits.com and look at his navigation menu's code/styling. For the two stylesheets I currently have available "Blue Monday" and "Grey Fade" I am using CSS modeled after Dan's nav bar. Dan is the author of "Bulletproof Web Design".

I can't wait to start working on a design that's more like something from CSSZenGarden... that's going to be really keen.

drewprops

2006-02-01, 21:35

Oh yeah! WordPress! ;)
WordPress was a bit of a switch from MovableType, my last CMS. I was lucky to get in right as 2.0 was coming online. Having everything being in PHP is awesome though you're beholden to a routine called "The Loop" in WordPress. Search the docs for "the loop" at www.wordpress.org

WordPress allows themes... separate folders contain separate themes.
What I've done is to create an entire PHP-driven site within one single theme folder (that's where my gallery and other sections are too). It's kind of a wheels-within-wheels thing but it works like I need it to right now. If I switched to a different WordPress theme you wouldn't be able to see the other sections of the site that are there now... they're only part of this theme.

I daresay that Chucker and Gargoyle are the WordPress experts here but I might be able to add some comments now that I've made this site.

scratt

2006-02-01, 21:43

It's cool, man. I am uploading it to a test location on my server right now and am going to have a play today....

Keep up the good work buddy, and thanks for the heads up on this. Your site convinced me to finally go take a look at wordpress. :)

torifile

2006-02-01, 22:17

What, scratt? My site didn't convince you???? :mad: ;)

drew, it's looking good. I've got 2 comments.

1) http://homepage.mac.com/torifile/.Pictures/arrows.jpg
These arrows are backwards. The one on the left takes you forward and the one on the right takes you back.

2) http://homepage.mac.com/torifile/.Pictures/notflush.jpg
I wonder if there's anything you can do about this part. The sharp bottom corners of the "you are here" bar doesn't match the round corners of the section below it.

scratt

2006-02-01, 22:51

What, scratt? My site didn't convince you???? :mad: ;)

Well of course. I just like to make everyone feel special. So I let drewprops think it was his site that got me! ;)

2) http://homepage.mac.com/torifile/.Pictures/notflush.jpg
I wonder if there's anything you can do about this part. The sharp bottom corners of the "you are here" bar doesn't match the round corners of the section below it.

I'd second that also.. Sorry forgot that to mention that in my earlier post. It was the one bit that sort of stuck out and didn't quite gel for me. I would see if you can round the bottom of the top border too...

ast3r3x

2006-02-01, 23:27

tori, I was going to tell you that you were wrong about the arrows, but it just occurred to me that he fixed them :)

Nit-picking because I care…

http://www.swigg.net/files/ddexample.jpg
I'm not sure what you can do, but I am bothered visually by your side bar. I think separating it from the top would stop it from having that weird connecting feel, and balance out the separation from the nav bar.

Now again, this is personal opinion, and maybe I'll be overruled, but I feel like your missing a coherent layout a bit because how 'floaty' your posts are. Maybe (unrefined, so don't critique me), but perhaps you could pull it together a bit by adding a border (http://www.swigg.net/files/ddexample3.jpg), or my preferred way would be to add a background. (http://www.swigg.net/files/ddexample2.jpg)

You need a new podcast image as the black border just looks ugly :p

And last but not least, is there a way to shorten the listen of all your archives? I am not sure how Wordpress works, but could you possibly add javascript so that all the previous years are just listed and when you click on a specific year it expands to show that year? That way you wouldn't have all that unnecessary clutter and I think it would focus more on the most recent archives.

…as much as I picked, I really like it, I wish I had a site that cool, I am never happy with anything I do and never get anywhere :/

Ryan

2006-02-01, 23:52

I think those arrows need to be switched. They're still backwards for me.

Other than that, I think it looks pretty good. Nice job.

:)

drewprops

2006-02-02, 06:32

Thanks you guys, I can't wait to work on what I consider to be a "really nice" CSSZenGarden style theme. Meantime, I'll pick up your suggestions as time allows.

I fixed the banner. The corner cuts were left over from an early design idea that I never followed for that theme, based on Cederholm's examples of using the "sliding doors" method. I ended up using that method for the "Return to Homepage" buttons which are actually kind of ugly, which brings me around to the sidebar....

The sidebar does in fact tuck up to the navigation bar in Safari and FireFox on the Mac and in Explorer 6 and FireFox for the PC on XP... so I'm curious, what browser are you using ast3r3x? I may need some help fixing that for all browsers...

I agree about the podcast icon, it's fugly. Will fix that soon.

The arrows?
I think that they're correct. Let's figure out how we all expect for them to work, I'm thinking that might be the problem.
Consider the list of entries as being on a timeline with the past on the far left and the future on the far right. When you arrive at the website there is only one arrow, pointing left, allowing you to dig back. As soon as you are on any page that is older than the front page there is an arrow on the righthand side, a button that allows you to climb back toward the front page. Perhaps if I added a TITLE tag to each link so that "Older" and "Newer" appear if you hover?

But I think that they're right. Otherwise, I could actually put the text Older and Newer in the HTML code, enclosed in a <SPAN></SPAN> so that it can be turned on and off in the CSS...

I resisted putting any javascript into the site because I wanted it to be pure text, no sorcery at all... but you're right. That's one long-ass list of years and it'll only get longer. I need to consider a way to shorten it and a clamshell javascript would seem a good solution... anybody else have a suggestion for this one?

Blue Monday was my development theme, I'm hoping to do a more visually compelling theme soon!

torifile

2006-02-02, 08:27

drew, are you sure the arrows are right?
http://homepage.mac.com/torifile/.Pictures/arrows_desc.jpg
The arrows that point left should go BACK, correct?

drewprops

2006-02-02, 09:04

torifile

2006-02-02, 09:20

Think of it as going "back in time".
WordPress stacks the pages up with the freshest stuff on top, just like pages in a book with the newest on top. Subsequent pages are numbered with higher numbers. That's why I've used the notion of a timeline. I fully expect that many people won't notice those gizmos. Fortunately, there are so many ways to navigate the posts that it shouldn't matter.

So.... does this feature make sense now? I'll add the TITLE tags that I mentioned when I get a chance to get back to the code.
Ah. Gotcha. That makes sense. Still, generally the "next" page is by going to the right. Even here, navigation to the previous page is place on the left, despite the fact that you're going to newer posts. I *get* your logic, but I'm not sure it works given the more established ways we think about page navigation.

drewprops

2006-02-02, 18:35

Okay, I understand you Tori, you're using a "turn the page" metaphor. That makes sense too. I guess you can think of it as me adding the newest pages to the end of my manuscript. If you want to see what happened earlier in the book you can start flipping backwards page by page.

I was looking at the code I used to generate those tags and found that the WordPress functions I'm using have been deprecated. As it's still working I don't much feel like changing the code right now, but it appears that I can't use the function to insert a TITLE entity inside the HTML anchor tag without a lot of crap. So for now it remains the way it is.

Also, Scratt, if you're still reading... for a still-learning PHP coder like myself The Loop can be intimidating. I discovered this afternoon that when the page delivered search results that something was whammying my page structure. After some investigation I found that I had duplicated some DIV definitions within The Loop... inserting them TWICE by mistake in my PHP code. At least I'm not afraid of the loop anymore.

Like Chucker has been telling everyone, WordPress is really, really, really nimble, especially if you're any good in PHP.

ast3r3x

2006-02-02, 19:02

dd, I'm using the newest latest webkit from nightshift.

I also think the arrows make sense, and thought they made sense from the beginning, but I was looking at the date of the posts, not the numbers that tori was looking at.

dd, what do you think about the suggestions I made, I don't mind if you don't like/want to do them, but I'd be curious why as maybe I suggested something horrible that I'd do in the future that would be a bad idea to!

drewprops

2006-02-02, 21:53

Oh ast3r3x I'm totally looking at your posts, go back and look - I even made sure to ask you what browser you were running because in the four browsers I tested the sidebar tucked up underneath the navigation bar as intended!

Meanwhile, I fiddled around while watching TV tonight and cranked out another theme based on the same basic premise as the first two themes. This one (called "Drew Colors") is so dark and strong that I'm making it the new "default" theme.

Note that I do not set a cookie unless the person requests a new theme.

torifile

2006-02-02, 22:05

Nice colors, Drew.

I just navigated around the site and the arrow scheme is beginning to seem more natural. Nice work. :)

ast3r3x

2006-02-02, 22:18

Reminds me of the navguide to a college I just applied to…
http://muweb.millersville.edu/index.php

But I like yours better, I think it looks really good. I feel like it's a lot more together now.

Check out the site with the new version of webkit, there is a problem, I am not sure if it's a problem with the actual rendering or your code, I kinda think the webkit rendering since it looks ok in other browsers.

Edit: I just checked, and the regular version of safari shows it too…
here (http://www.swigg.net/files/ddexample4.png) is my problem. The dark grey bar atop the light grey post area looks fine until it blend together with the "shopper's paradise" which is the same color. That for me just looks off and makes it look like your light grey area is placed wrong.

drewprops

2006-02-02, 22:34

Hey that's a cool marching band that Millersville has!! I *love* their uniforms!!!

Regarding the sidebar and headline colors:
Do you think there should be a dividing strip between that sidebar and the thing above it? I kind of like the way that the sidebar "pops down" whenever you're away from the homepage... kind of mechanical looking.

I want to do a few more themes along the basic lines of the existing ones out there now, like an iTunes style theme with brushed metal. Then I want to go completely gonzo and try doing some themes with absolute coordinates and artful image insertions ala CSS ZenGarden. Something more photographic and less basic CSS-ish.

ast3r3x

2006-02-02, 22:51

Ohh, it looks absolutely fine at every page other than the Articles page because they don't have the "Shopper's Paradise" thing there. So it's cool, I'm not sure what else you'd do about that because it looks fine on other pages so to change it just for the articles page would be kinda silly.

drewprops

2006-02-05, 13:09

lavieboheme

2006-02-05, 18:32

Um, on your "High End" layout, the color of the links in the sidebar is hard to read.
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5035/drewprops2tn.jpg

torifile

2006-02-05, 21:46

Once I break away from using a design with the sidebar on the right there are lots of things that I could do with the CSS. I made another new stylesheet this weekend that treats the sidebar elements slightly differently...

http://www.drewprops.com/?sec=preferences&style=highend

I swear that this is the digital equivalent of having a model train set!
It really is! I've done a lot of tweaking on the backend of things to get them working the way I want and I've spent time with some switch statements to get different functionality in different parts of my site. Now I can make changes to the CSS. Since it all validates (I started with a good theme), I can start having fun. There are only a couple of tables. My first task will be to get rid of them. Now that I've got a working site, I can have some fun with it.

drewprops

2006-02-06, 16:29

Um, on your "High End" layout, the color of the links in the sidebar is hard to read.
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5035/drewprops2tn.jpg

Thanks, I'll see about tweaking that style.

What I've found especially helpful with making multiple schemes is that it has forced me to scrutinize the structure of my site. For instance, the elements in my sidebar were all individual DIVs with the links made into a list... except for "Shopper's Paradise" and the "Feeds" sections. When I began to apply the "sliding doors" technique to the DIVs in the sidebar I discovered a misalignment with some of the elements inside the DIVs, specifically the ones that were not made into lists. I've gone back and made the "Feeds" items into an unordered list and need to go back and do the same with all the elements in "Shopper's Paradise".

I learned a lesson like on an ABC After School Special or something....

ast3r3x

2006-02-09, 01:36

I had nothing better to do (surprise!) and I just saw your new highend theme, and thought it just looks like it should have a reflection (http://www.swigg.net/files/banner.jpg):p

It just reminds me of Apples black reflection theme somewhat. Why did I even spend the 2 min it took to make that? It's more amusing for me to play with parts of your site in photoshop than actually work on me :p

drewprops

2006-02-09, 06:30

ast3r3x

2006-02-09, 08:17

Dude!!
I just swapped out with your new banner, gave you a shoutout (didn't have a site to link to) and made "High End" the new site default since I'd been considering it all day yesterday!

Making themes is fun! Having other people improve your theme is AWESOME!!
Heh, thanks, but really not necessary, so it's up to you if you want to keep it that way. I wasn't sure what font you used in your original banner, and didn't feel like looking through all my fonts for an exact match. I liked your font better as the one I used looks a little 'smushed' compared to yours if you will.

I'd recommend remaking it with your font for super-mega-maximum effect. ;)

PS: I charge $50/2min :lol: