Sorry no blogging yesterday… as you can (I hope) see, I spent yesterday working on getting “Alas” to look more like “Alas” should look. I’ve finally gotten the background colors right (which took forever – I kept on trying to fix it in the CSS, when actually there were background images I needed to change), and I’ve added in some graphic dividers between posts and comments. I’ve also fixed up some other things – the comments are numbered again, the archives provide full posts instead of just the first hundred words, the entire header (instead of just the words “alas, a blog”) is now a link back to the top page, that sort of thing.
More to come – I’m looking forward to returning the bighead drawings to the blogroll (they’ve been absent for months now).
The most intractable problem I’m having right now is that I can’t figure out how to modify the default WordPress 1.5 layout to allow a bigger footer image. (UPDATE: This problem has now been solved, thanks to Jennhi in the comments!) If any “Alas” readers are CSS or WordPress mavens, please feel free to look at the files and make suggestions – here are links to text files of the stylesheet, the header php file, and the footer php file. (WordPress 1.5 has separate files for all the elements, rather than putting them all in a single file).
Anyway, feel free to use this thread to offer me advice, or to make suggestions about “Alas.” I’m here to serve – well, actually, I’m here to serve me. But I’m interested in what you have to say, too. :-P
To make the footer height bigger to accommodate your image, you can set the height of the element to the height of the image, or more if you want. Yours is 127px high, so in that line where you define the background, also add a height:
(I removed the path to the footer because it was pushing out the content area)
I tested this out on my puter and it seemed to work pretty well.
ahhh… CSS. Check out what they’ve done at css Zen Garden
Thank you, Jennhi! That worked perfectly!
surely. One extension for Firefox I highly recommend is something that lets you edit the CSS and see the changes reflected as you type. There’s also one for web development and one of my new favorites: ColorZilla, which does the eyedropper but also does pixel measurements. Very VERY useful. Boy, this looks a lot like spam, don’t it?
I’m really liking the look now, the screaming guy between posts is quite cool.
What I’m missing, layoutwise, is a bigger border between days, so all the posts don’t lump together as much.
Help! We somehow screwed up the formatting on the Terri Schiavo Brain Scan page (actually I think it was the guy who posted just before me, who didn’t close his block quote).
Can you help us out here?
New format looks GREAT!
Like it a lot.
Not so sure about the spiral in the header. (Distracting.)
Am head-over-heels with the little guy down in the corner of the comments page.
Susan –
Thanks! Glad you like it.
Can you tell me exactly which brain scan thread (there are two with the image) and what post number the problem starts at? I can’t see the problem in my browser; both threads look okay to me.
Kip –
Yeah, I agree about the spiral. When I have time I’m definitely changing that. And the little woman is actually at the bottom of all pages, but because the main page is so long she’s most visible at the bottom of the comments page.
Well, when I change browsers (to explorer, which I hate with a devout hatred) the formatting problem goes away, so I guess I’ll use that.
The page is “Regarding the CAT Scan of Terri Schiavo’s Brain,” and the problem begins at David Helson’s post 68 (in the screwed up version) and 79 (in the version that looks OK).
I’m utterly hopeless as a techie, so I leave that to you Wise Ones.
I hate explorer too – I use firefox, myself. What browser were you seeing the error in?
In any case, I want to that thread and corrected a number of missing blockquote tags, so hopefully the problem’s been solved now. Thanks for pointing it out to me.
Hey – I love the layout of this blog…you are obviously very talented, and I think this is one of the most aesthetically appealing webpages out there! Love the graphics on the comments page!
As the afore mentioned David Helson, I apologize for not realizing that my shortcut of ignoring the end blockquote could/would screw anyone up.