ij_siteschemes
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About this journal
IJ_siteschemes is where everyone involved in designing site schemes for IJ can exchange notes, documents and ideas. Membership is currently moderated, so please leave a comment for branchandroot if you'd like to join in.

September 2015
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Branch [userpic]
State of the Schemes

So, work is going forward on debugging and refining the site schemes. The compliant browsers should all be fixed now, so if you have IE7, any Mozilla, Safari or Opera and are still seeing layout bugs, please let me know.

The good [info]brawlyball has volunteered to work on backward compatibility for IE and is prodding at the more arcane bugs on that end.

There are small-font options in the works, but that requires some template code changes and will therefore probably have to wait until Squeaky has dealt with getting a new server and has a moment to breathe.

Once the css is finalized I can bring out the black-and-white scheme which will be the one most useful for putting skins on top of. I'm hoping to have three options for that, a dropdown, a sidebar, and a horizontal dropdown (a la the old XColibur scheme).

On that note, I would like, at some point, to have a graphic interface on the site by which users could either a) cut and paste a premade style sheet or b) select colors that would generate a style sheet to individually customize the site scheme. This is a bit of a pipe dream, but I still dream it. So if anyone is or knows of someone who has programming experience in Perl and database driven applications and might be willing to donate some time and skill to the project, I'd love to hear it.

Tags:
Comments

Hi.

I still love the new schemes like a crackthing - thanks for that :)

Just gotta ask though, I use sitescheme Worksafe (Dropdown) (beta) and I was trying to ask the Support a question (RSS and lj-cut not applying to the feed) and I got this response when trying to reach that page:
Sorry...
We're currently experiencing some technical difficulties. Please try again in a few moments.


I use Firefox and thought I'd try with IE. Since I wasn't logged onto IE (= original sitescheme New Tweak) I got the page immidiately. I tried to log on but then the page was once again back to Sorry....

If I change the sitescheme on Firefox back to New Tweak it also works just fine reaching that page. So I was kinda wondering if that link is just not part of the new design and forgotten - or if I'd missed that there's something that will come later on?

Great to hear you like the new schemes!

I see what you mean, and it should not be doing that. I'll mention it to Squeaky; it looks like some kind of glitch down in the templates.

I'm afraid they still don't work in Opera.

As per the screen-shots I showed you before, everything still huddles over to the left of the screen.

Hmmmm. I think this may be an issue with your Opera copy. Or possibly the cache. I asked Brawlyball to take a look at the schemes using the latest Opera on XP and she said it looked fine after the width fix was applied, but from a few other things she's said it sounds like Opera's cache mechanism is a bit wonky at times.

Of course, she also said she didn't run into those core code problems with updating things, so it's also possible that this is some kind of XP glitch. If a site behaves differently on different computers that are using the same type and generation of software, that usually indicates a software problem.

Can you try clearing your cache or, possibly, uninstalling and re-installing Opera? I hesitate to suggest reinstalling your OS, though if there's a glitch in it that may become necessary. I understand XP is much more stable than the Windows versions that came before it, but MS has a bad history of accumulating problems over time.

Okay, well I did try it on all three of my computers - a PC and two laptops, and it was the same thing. And they are all unique copies of XP and of Opera. Actually, make that four as I tried it on my husbands PC too. So the site wasn't behaving differently on four different computers, it was behaving identically yet the software on all computers is in effect 'unique' to that computer. When I update Opera I do so on all computers, i.e. download each time, I don't copy across the first copy and use that.

I clear my cache on a daily basis (at the very least, sometimes more than once a day), so it can't be that.

However, I have just had to reinstall my whole operating system, thus Opera on one of my laptops, I'll check it out there later on.

Were it just one computer then yes, I'd agree that maybe the OS or Opera was, maybe at fault, but four computers doesn't seem likely.

I'll also try it with fixed width - not something I normally use as I don't like what it does to my sites. Hence I hadn't considered doing that.

First follow up

Okay, I tried it with fixed width and before I did that I did yet another clear of my private data (cache) and cookies. But actually it's even worse. As you can see.

This wasn't on the re-installed computer, but I thought I'd try the fixed width thing anyway.

Interestingly what happens is that it initially seems to come up correct, for about a second, and then it all scurries over to the left hand side.

Hmm. Interesting.

On the clean install laptop it works fine. At first I thought it might be because in order to see the menus at all normally I have to mask Opera as Firefox and of course still had that on on my PC/laptop - so I turned it off and cleaned the cache, etc. but no. I tried all four schemes on the clean laptop, both with it masked as Firefox and identified as Opera, and it worked fine.

Okay, can you ask Brawlyball if she installed Opera from scratch, just to do this, or whether she was was using an updated version of Opera (i.e. installed it originally months ago and updated it as and when new versions of Opera became available) please.

As I said, I can't believe it's something to do with XP given we're talking about identical behaviour on four of the computers we have in our home (all of which have separate XP installations, not the same CD, oh and they are all XP Pro - sorry I should have said that, although I believe the only difference is the networking feature). However, the one common factor all computers here have (which is different on the 'cleanly installed laptop) is that Opera has been there for a while (months/even years) and just updated as and when Opera is updated.

It would be interesting to know if Brawlyball did download Opera purely to test this - at least then, if she did maybe a 'note' to that effect could be made (i.e. you need to install Opera from scratch to get these schemes to work). If she did, I'll then try doing a clean install of Opera on one of my other computers and see what happens. Would that be possible, please?

Thank you in advance.

Hi. Yeah, I used a fresh download of Opera on my XP to test. Didn't change any preferences or anything, just went right to IJ and logged in.

I've had a copy of Opera on my mac so I never bothered to download it for Windows until this issue came up. I don't really use Opera that much, so I'm sorry I'm not more helpful.

Sorry for the delay in answering this, I had issues with my laptop.

Thanks for confirming this. A clean install does indeed make it work.

*nods to Brawlyball's comment* Looks like that's it, then. I will see about where we can post a note about doing a clean install of Opera, definitely on PCs and possibly on Macs as well; perhaps in the FAQs. Thank you for following up on this.

Apologies for not answering this sooner, but I was having problems with the fonts on my laptop.

Anyway, it's just to say that I can definitely confirm that a clean install of Opera does indeed solve the problem - no matter what 'tweaks' you do to Opera, or what kind of installation you do. I tested it on two additional PCs here, and it worked on both.

One addition thing that might be worth noting when you post the clean install note is that the only thing that should be copied (from the existing installation( is the bookmarks file. I made the mistake of copying some other things across and it again had a problem (albeit not quite as bad, rather than go completely to the left it was half way across).

Also, I would suggest that people as well as using Add/Remove programs to remove Opera, also check the folders to remove anything that isn't taken out. I would guess that would be second nature, as Windows always seems to hang on to something when you remove the program.

And it doens't have to be in fixed width either. It works fine in non-fixed width.

Thanks for your help with sorting this out. I do appreciate it.

*nods* I'll definitely mention the file-copying, then. Thanks for telling us!

a horizontal dropdown (a la the old Dystopia scheme)
You mean XColibur?

*facepalm* Yes, I do. Excuse me while I go change that and look for my scattered wits.

Opera Problem, and gray boxes, and hard coding on tables.

Problem with Opera: missing all the tabs. In all versions of Opera I tested: 9.25, 9.23, and 9.5 Beta.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p149/marahmarie/2008-02-11_024149.jpg

Problem with tabs hard coding: the words are squished together instead of spaced out evenly, and there's too much space for the login tab and a few others. This is an issue in all modern browsers...not sure about the older ones yet. I know it's not your problem, so point me in the right direction and I will report the issue there.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p149/marahmarie/2008-02-11_025108.jpg

Gray box:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p149/marahmarie/2008-02-11_025310.jpg

If someone will post simple instructions on how to edit and test CSS in Web Developer for FF I will help you guys out this weekend with whatever testing you need - if you want me to. I have the feeling all browsers need one more going over - including updated versions.

Re: Opera Problem, and gray boxes, and hard coding on tables.

Yeah, the old schemes aren't my work and involve a great deal of Javascript. To report bugs in those, you need to go to the Support area and submit a report.

That box is actually supposed to still be gray. There are a few like that. Their styles are hard-coded in at the tag level, in the core code, and since it isn't a problem to have them be gray I've left them as-is. Changing the core code makes site updates far more difficult and we don't want that. If a few notice-boxes stand out a bit more, I think that's fine; people are supposed to notice them. *grins*

Another going over would be lovely, but not if it's going to be any trouble. I'm planning on asking Squeaky to post a last-call for bugs, in Announcements, and I think that will work better than any testing a small group can do.

I know you said that you're working on the smaller fonts, but I wanted to let you know that in

IE: You can see post and comments in Times New Roman.

Firefox: Post is in Times New Roman and comments in Verdana large (or I think it's Verdana).

This applies to Worksafe with sidebar.

You mean, IE is showing the posts and comments in TNR on your computer? The whole site should be in Verdana, at this point. *puzzles over this a bit* Could you possibly take a quick look at your browser options and tell me whether you have any user styles set, or whether you have any boxes checked that say things like "Always use my fonts/colors"?

Right in IE, everything shows in TNR (which I rather like), in Firefox the original post is in TNR and the comments in verdana (Which I don't like it).
I checked and no there aren't any user style sets for Firefox or IE. I double checked.

Hmmm. There's nothing in any of the site style sheets that even mentions Times, so somehow the browsers must be overriding the font rule. I don't know if there's anything we can actually do about that, but if you can tell me your computer's platform (Vist or XP or OSX or whatever) and what versions of those browsers you're using, I'll see if there's anything we can find.

I made caps:

Firefox: http://pics.livejournal.com/titti/pic/000g1hz6
IE: http://pics.livejournal.com/titti/pic/000g04b8

In the IE, if you were to scroll down, the text is the same throughout the comments. As you can see it's different in Firefox.

All right, that is not Times New Roman. The whole page is in Verdana, it's just in different font sizes. The entry font is picking up the small-font setting while the comment-font is not, at least in Firefox.

That we may be able to fix, but it may also take a while.

They looked like different fonts to me, but I guess it's the size.

I don't mind either way, but it was to let you know.

Hi! I just wanted to say again how excellent all of the work that this crew has accomplished! I love that the font is verdana, and a smaller font was managed! the only slight issue i've found is that over the last couple of days in the COMMENT sections, the smaller is REALLY small. I snapped a screenshot to show. Is it possible to get it back to being the same font size as what's in the entries? Sometimes it's hard to read.

screenshot

Argh! I was hoping to make the comment font match with the entry font. Can you tell me what browser and operating system you use? I may be able to fine tune it some more.

Hmmm. Well, the comment font did match the entry font at first! And then there was a change so I'm not sure if there's a way to pinpoint what triggered it exactly. But to answer your question, I currently use Internet Explorer V.06 and Windows XP!

If you're using IE6 it's a browser difference. The older IE versions interpret style rules differently than, say, FireFox or IE7. I'll add a rule targeted for 6 to the next update, then, since it was already working in that!

Okay, I've fished around with the style sheets and a bunch of different browsers and they're behaving quite oddly. I've given Squeaky an update to upload and see if it fixes the problem. If you still have tiny comments in a day or two, would you let me know so I can try something else?

Certainly! Thanks for trying to take care of it :)

Hi! I hope you don't mind me butting in, but I've been having the same problem too. Comments text is just tiny, while the post text is larger.

I'm on Windows XP and I run both IE7 and Firefox 2.0...

No problem. Could you check once more, now? I think the changes went live about an hour after this comment.

!!!

IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

Thank you so much for arranging it!

I don't know what you guys did but just wanted to let you know that the font is the same now in comments and entry for m! Thanks! :***

Hi, I would also like to register a complaint about the new font size for comments in the beta schemes. One of the things I loved most about them when they were first released was the easy-to-read font sizes, but now I really have to strain to read comments. I know the schemes are still being worked on and I hope this particular change isn't going to be permanent because daily headaches are not something I want to associate with IJ.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the hard work on the new schemes!

The small-font option is planned as a separate scheme. Worksafe is currently being used for testing is all. I'll remind Squeaky to make up the new template as soon as he has time, so we have both small and regular available, but he's very busy looking into the server slowdown just now so it might take a little while.

Thanks for the response! I can definitely understand about wanting to get the slowdown issues taken care of first.

Just out of curiosity but is it because they're still in beta that the new siteschemes never seem to 'stick'? I have to keep switching back to them every time I log in.

*blinks* That should most definitely not be happening. If I'm understanding correctly, whenever you log out you find that your scheme has reverted to the site default, upon logging back in?

I think you should submit this to Support; it sounds like a programming glitch rather than a layout issue, and Squeaky should see it faster on the support board. Have you tried selecting any of the older alternate schemes and seeing if this happens with them, too, or whether it's only the new ones?

I'll play around with it and see where all it happens.

Also, just a side note, I downloaded opera for something else, and I'm willing to be PMed and emailed if you need to bug somebody to see how this or that works.

Thank you! I'll definitely keep you in mind, then.