Icarus Diving

  • I started out with WP2 and the Law-Blog theme (beta) but have modified it extensively. I’ve never dug into the code before so getting things to look right was a bit of a chore. I think things should look/appear okay although I haven’t seen the layout in IE yet (always a fun thing when working with CSS!)…

    I’ve integrate the Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) plugin and provide for viewing posts by tag (in addition to by category). UTW provides some nice integration with social tagging sites including little favicons for them. They’re cute but really clashed with the design so I hid them. Mouse over the links in the “more to explore” area beneath each post to see them (although this might not work on IE <– would someone let me know?).

    There’s a January 7 post that explains a few more things and provides links to relevant (re)sources. There are some underlying issues with the original theme that make for some layout problems. I was going to fix them but realized the page templates are using tables and that’s where some of the problems are coming from (like what happens to the background when the window size is less than 980px wide). Fixing it will require more work than I have time for right now …

    Comments on the look and behavior of the site would be appreciated. Anything that can be fixed using CSS or XHTML I can handle. The WP2 PHP code/design I’m still getting a handle on so if you find something wrong that requires a PHP fix I’d appreciate you letting me know which file to look in and suggestions for how to approach the problem.

    Thanks in advance!

    Web Log: https://www.vlognblog.com/weblog/

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • I like the theme a lot. I like the way all posts and archive appear with the sidebars (to keep the same look on everything). The colors seem to fit well. Mousing over the link in More to Explore doesn’t seem to do anything in IE6, however.

    Thread Starter vnbpaul

    (@vnbpaul)

    Thanks, Jim. Glad you like it. I went ahead and fixed the CSS so that on IE the favicon links will (should) always be visible.

    Thread Starter vnbpaul

    (@vnbpaul)

    I’ve made some big changes to the look of the theme since I first posted this. What do you think of it now? How’s it look/work in IE???

    You’re a far, far braver man than myself… very cool, and not just because I’m a bookaphile.

    there are a couple of issues, one each for IE (Windows IE6) and Firefox (1.5) that both concern the background attachment for the book pages (the image… hang on, easy enough to get exact filename…) ah, here, not so easy as I thought… where IS that shaded center-of-the-book effect coming from. Had thought it was:

    https://www.vlognblog.com/weblog/wp-content/themes/a-blog-beyond-066-ex-en/gfx/body.gif

    but that can’t be it. Ah, here it is:
    body2.gif

    regardless, as i resize the window (firefox we’re now talking, see image below) i see the middle “seam” trying to center itself, but at a certain point it shouldn’t, there is a min viewable area. probably need to make a div with the background attached upper left and repeat Y.

    i’ve had this happen before, just need to not attach the “column’ed” image to the body, but to the smallest container, your book, as it were.

    Now for IE that center effect of the pages is not there at all. So i took a snapshot of the bottom of the page, showing how it appears at the bottom but disappears where there is center content…

    pls hold:

    here’s the problem, as i thought,
    body {
    background:#fff url(./gfx/body2.gif) repeat-y center top;
    }

    see, when i resize this page that’s going to center itself, meaning that your center of page spline will appear to slip left, under the content.

    wrap the book in a div with this background attached instead.

    did that make any sense whatso ever?

    I’ll post, then hate myself for being so obtuse.

    screenshots here:
    https://pizzabytheslice.com/temp/images/vlognblog.firefox.jpg
    https://pizzabytheslice.com/temp/images/vlognblog.ie.jpg

    As for the mouse-over… works in Firefox, but the images all appear, all the time in IE. Might be because IE only has a hover CSS pseudo-class for A … and that might be it, anchors only.

    again, CSS almost but not quite the one-size-fits-all solution.

    i’ve handled a problem similar to this (but different enough that it doesn’t apply here) before using IE hacks, but truly a pain

    the “click to enlarge” effect is fantastic. IE fails to do the graying-out, but still nice, but from Firefox that’s really, truly cool.

    Thread Starter vnbpaul

    (@vnbpaul)

    Carterco, thanks much! I think I have the slippery background problem fixed now. The screenshots were helpful — thanks for thinking of that.

    The “click to enlarge” effect isn’t mine. You’ll find the code for that here: https://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/. It is supposed to work on IE too, so maybe I set it up wrong …

    As for the mouse-over thing, I intentionally set it up so that the images would always be shown in IE due to its lack of support for hover on anything but links.

    Again, thanks. Very helpful.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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