MassForm.com – a photoblog

  • https://www.massform.com
    I’ve created a photolog (still working on it… have a few photos up to test the design). Would like some feedback and also help on Validating it. I’m getting this error from the validator:

    Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because on line 63 it contained one or more bytes that I cannot interpret as utf-8 (in other words, the bytes found are not valid values in the specified Character Encoding). Please check both the content of the file and the character encoding indication.

    Thanks.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    Yeah, I’ll have to insert a graphic into that area for the catagory descriptions. Reason it’s doubling the text and has the top one bumped tight to the edge is because it’s showing the excerpt. I’m putting the photos into the excerpt field so I can pad the storycontent copy. I’m not sure how I’m going to do the thumbnails yet though; I was thinking maybe with the custom key…

    nice. would you be creating it as plugin like LL’s pictorialis? ??

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    The site is using 1.2-mingus with only some changes to the index and the CSS. Used a couple of hacks like the page navigation, breadcrumbs and alex’s last_visit plugin. Other than that, its pretty much stock WordPress. I really liked Pictorialis, but I wanted to stay within the WP main package for upgrades and such. Hopefully when I’m done with the site, it’ll have a lot more options.

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    When I’m done, I’ll post the items used and changed in detail if anyone is interested?

    yeah, please. something like a tutorial. or is there a tutorial out there already on changing the index and css.
    can i do it by studying https://blog.nuclearmoose.ca/wp-docs/wp-layout-explained.htm?
    i like your photos ??

    oooh. i think the tutorials r in wordpress wiki’s customizing.
    lane, did u create yours based on all those reference?
    i don’t really know programming. wondering if it would be difficult if i were to customize mine based on all those reference?

    with a fixed width design+right margin like yours, I would personally like it better centered in <body>
    The comments have no padding in Safari (on purpose?) and black on dark background might not be the easiest to read
    Other than that, very nice, cool pix too! ??

    I meant left margin… I always get confused between the two ??

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    misterx:
    Yes. I do like centering it as well, I’ll have to change that. Thanks. I’m still working on the design somewhat (placing the menu better, using small random thumbs, etc). I really wanted to understate the overall colors and keep the design to a minimum to allow one’s eye on the photos. It’s not going to be a terribly copy heavy. The comments should only show in the pop up window (there are a couple of posts that are acting weird and I have to sort through that..), and those are easier to read; just trying to figure out how to get the comment count to show even when viewing the actual post.

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    murmur:
    I’ll post as much detail as you want. I went through Tamba’s WordPress CSS Guide to understand the elements of the template. Then adjusted the design according to my Photoshop mockup. The one thing that I read the most on was about the Post Meta because I figured that would be what I would want to use. I post all the photos into custom key called “postphoto”. This is because I wanted to separate the large photo from the copy that might appear for each photo if I decide to put some there. Then I used Idahocline’s meta hack to output that photo. I stripped some of his tags in it so it outputted only the actual “$value” of the key. Then formatted how I wanted in the CSS:
    <div id=”postphoto”><?php the_meta_key(“postphoto”); ?></div>.
    I also have all the thumbs generated dynamically (then cached once generated) using Singapore’s thumbnailing feature. So, I can have Singapore generate any size thumb (even square) by just linking the thumb like:
    thumb.php?gallery=.&image=20030802-278.jpg&width=100&height=100&force=1
    So I can scale the thumbs however I want. Using Singapore isn’t necessary, I just wanted more control over the thumbs to make the square and the thumbs created by the upload function for WordPress was putting an ugly black line to the right of all the thumbs…
    Posts are set to “1 – Paged Posts”; then using vbNavi gives me my navigation for each page. Also to give some input to location, I added breadcrumbs.The archive does use the Pictorialis archive listing.
    Then I just created catagories that defined the photos I will be posting. So I have things like (Style: Black and White, Color, Cross Processed), (Subject: Object, People, Scenery, Abstract), (Mood: Funny, Sad), which allows me to cross catagorize the photos so people can search through whatever style that pleases them.
    Next thing I’m going to do is put random thumbs on the pages using a modified version of random posts plugin since all the thumbs are in the excerpt field. Trying to figure out a way to get exif data into another custom field as well. If anything, I’ll just put it in manually since some of my photos are taken with a film camera.
    So with a few tweaks, I think the base WordPress works out pretty good for a photoblog.

    thank you thank you! ??

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    No problem. ?? I’ve been having fun with it. I’m listed as 78th on photoblogs.org’s hotlist which is cool. There’s one person ahead of me that I noticed is using Pictorialis. He’s got some great photos; looks to be all film based too. Thats the nice thing about WordPress, you have a lot of options to work with.

    Maybe one day we will out number the MT folks over there at photoblogs.org!

    Maybe one day we will out number the MT folks over there at photoblogs.org!

    Yeah maybe people will start switching over to WP… i think its a much better system.
    btw… i enjoy your work also.

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    Validation issues with XHTML and CSS taken care of on that site. ??

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
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