Site Design

Some questions after browsing the test page. Keep in mind that my focus is, as usual, centred on the design of the most lengthy and comprehensive of articles. (Part 9 Test Page for reference)

#1: At the bottom of the page there is a Comment window. Will that be there in the final version? It is my desire that the Unused Text articles feel more like "Documents" and "Guides", rather than a News Article that people can spam comments on. It is for this reason that, when using WordPress, I have chosen the format "Pages" for UT articles instead of the News "Posts", because the former doesn't include Comments.


#2: Observe in the embedded YouTube video near the top of UT Part 10 that the video extends beyond the "wall" to the right, interfering with the "Recommendation Bars" (or whatever you call them). Can this be fixed so that embedded YouTube videos have their size adapted to the article width limit, which appears to be just below 830 pixels?


#3: When comparing the Current/Normal frontpage and the Test design, the article width limit has been decreased for the latter with about 100 pixels. I will admit that my dislike of moving down from just below 930 pixels of width to just below 830 pixels is only based on my taste as a content creator: I *like* the more freedom I have to move around in. Whether this is actually convenient for the reader or not is a different story.

But regardless of my personal taste in that regard, one piece of the test design sticks out to me: The unused space to the right.

For pages like the Unused Text articles, I would either completely remove the content of the "Recommendation Bar" to the right, or move it to the very bottom of the page. That way there won't be an endless pillar of nothingness to the right.


All the three items can easily be solved if page-specific designs are a viable option, without in any way interfering with the overall design plans (which are great).
 

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
Does the skin have an easy way to define differently sized images for different devices?

Not that I can see, but someone a lot more knowledgeable might want to take a look into it.

All the three items can easily be solved if page-specific designs are a viable option, without in any way interfering with the overall design plans (which are great).

Luckily the theme comes with a lot of toggleable options in the points you've uncovered, Shademp. So this should be pretty simple to implement.

#1: At the bottom of the page there is a Comment window. Will that be there in the final version? It is my desire that the Unused Text articles feel more like "Documents" and "Guides", rather than a News Article that people can spam comments on. It is for this reason that, when using WordPress, I have chosen the format "Pages" for UT articles instead of the News "Posts", because the former doesn't include Comments.

The comments section can be switched off manually on any page by de-clicking the comment section tick box. (You might have to add it to your available viewable screen options- top right in every editing page - if it doesn't appear for you immediately). I just did a test so it shouldn't be active on text series 9 right now.

#2: Observe in the embedded YouTube video near the top of UT Part 10 that the video extends beyond the "wall" to the right, interfering with the "Recommendation Bars" (or whatever you call them). Can this be fixed so that embedded YouTube videos have their size adapted to the article width limit, which appears to be just below 830 pixels?

Yeah Fangu brought this up and pointed out a work around a page or so ago. It's some editing code left over from the old theme that shows up in Fraction (videos are right-aligned for some reason). Lex was going to get individual authors to go over and sort out their posts once we went live (I think). Though I can jump in and do it if it helps speed things along.

#3: When comparing the Current/Normal frontpage and the Test design, the article width limit has been decreased for the latter with about 100 pixels. I will admit that my dislike of moving down from just below 930 pixels of width to just below 830 pixels is only based on my taste as a content creator: I *like* the more freedom I have to move around in. Whether this is actually convenient for the reader or not is a different story.

But regardless of my personal taste in that regard, one piece of the test design sticks out to me: The unused space to the right.

For pages like the Unused Text articles, I would either completely remove the content of the "Recommendation Bar" to the right, or move it to the very bottom of the page. That way there won't be an endless pillar of nothingness to the right.

The sidebar isn't finished, but that won't escape having a lot of blank space on longer articles. Luckily though, any and all sidebars can be turned off for individual posts and pages (as well as the creation of new sidebars to be used for a specific page or post). So turning it off would give you more of a field to play with and better aesthetics.
 

Fangu

Great Old One
Does the skin have an easy way to define differently sized images for different devices?
I'd assume it doesn't*; it's rather easy CSS to write though, as you know. But, preferably, the image should work on mobile skin as is imo, which might make it look a bit 'large and simple' on desktop, true.

My suggestion, if Pixel wants to create detail in the banner, is to have one 'normal' sized for desktop + pads, and then create a simplified version for mobile widths. I think that's the simplest solution.


* It doesn't, I looked it up. Strangely enough, Fractions has this whole self titled 'Banner System' where you can add HTML to your banner (ooooo now that's a system), but there are no options for creating different banners for different display ports/ widths. Which is, you know... why didn't you while you were at it?

Anyway here is fancy Banner tab (banner image is set in "General", as Claymore and Lex know already):

kL8Uuxa.png
 
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Fangu

Great Old One
FYI,
1) Unused Text CSS
I've been working with Shademp to create some custom CSS to add to the custom style sheet of Fractions Child theme (Appearances > Editor) to make his Unused Text articles look okay in the new theme. I'll just paste it here in case my laptop decides to die or something.
Code:
/* Used for Shademp's Unused Text articles */
--------
#unused-text th, 
#unused-text td {
	padding: 2px 5px 2px 5px;
}

#unused-text table {
    margin: 0 0 1.625em;
}

#unused-text td {	
	border: 1px solid;
}
We might not still be 100% done yet as Shademp is still discovering smaller stuff, but this might be the final version.

2) Bug
He's also discovered a bug in Fractions that I'll have a look at next - the 'nextpage' function to break Pages into... pages (lol) is supposed to trigger a link at the bottom of the Page (go to page 1 | 2 etc), but it seems to be missing for Pages. (Apparently it shows up like normal in Posts.) Since I don't require any specific access to look into it (I have Admin rights in WP on the test site which lets me update any php file in the Theme's custom php folder) I'll have a look and see what might cause it.

Edit: Found it. Fractions was missing the <?php wp_link_pages();?> right under <?php the content();?> in page-single.php. Not sure why they decided to not allow that function in Pages, when they didn't remove it completely - the page still breaks, but the links are missing. Might actually be a bug, someone should complain :monster:
Anyway, I added that line, however, it can be customised to say something other than "Pages:" etc. Just edit that line to send in an argument array instead:
Code:
<?php 
	$args = array(
		'before'           => '<div class="post-pages"><p>' . __('Pages:', THEME_NAME),
		'after'            => '</p></div>',
		'link_before'      => '',
		'link_after'       => '',
		'next_or_number'   => 'number',
		'nextpagelink'     => __('Next page', THEME_NAME),
		'previouspagelink' => __('Previous page', THEME_NAME),
		'pagelink'         => '%',
		'echo'             => 1
	);

	wp_link_pages($args); 
?>
Or some such. (Code is snipped from Fraction's news-single.php (corresponds to post-single.php. Not sure why they decided to rename, but whatever.))

3)
So ya, I don't have the title but I do have the time, so if you find any weird crap, let me know and I'll have a look :monster:
 
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Lex

Administrator
I'll have to give everything a proper look over when I have more time but I just wanted to say awesome job so far (Claymore and everyone) and also keep in mind we need some adspace (I'm thinking one banner and one at the side, so empty side-space is kinda alright even though we'll be adding more widgets and whatnot).
 

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
Bonus ads could be injected somewhere inside of articles, maybe, but I'll leave that up to whoever wrote the ad, I know it can be a bit jarring and shit.
 

Lex

Administrator
^If you do that, I give you my solemn guarantee that unless it's super easy, none of us will do it.
 

Fangu

Great Old One
Aye, better to avoid customizing, moar people can handle it and shit.

So, plugins :monster: Or, use widgets. Should be doable without programming skillz, depending on how weird you're wishes are.

Also pretty sure ads are placed outside content areas. As in, sidebars, footer, before or after an article etc. Plugins built for ads usually inject these in the proper fields.
 

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
Yeah, at worst it'd be someone having to chuck an [ad hear] tag somewhere. We'll have to see, regular ads somewhere is good enough for now.

(remind me to figure out filtering ads for donators)
 

Lex

Administrator

Lex

Administrator
So I don't want to let Claymore's efforts go to waste and this has been on indefinite hold for some time. Now that I'm in an actual career saying my time is limited is a bit of an understatement. I'm not saying this is something I'll never do, but for transparency's sake, here is my entire thought process:

Me: Really need to get the site updated
Me: *fiddles with it*
Me: *wow this thing just keeps breaking*
Me: *I've made progress, I'll come back to it in a bit

***months later***

Me: really need to get the site updated
Me: oh no it's been a while, how does this thing work again?
Me: I broke something but that other thing looks alright now. Oooo this could be working... I'll come back to it in a bit

so on and so forth.

So Claymore has done some work but I really need a person to kind of take charge/ Get It Done kinda thing (Claymore if you want to be that person, you're more than welcome). I'm just a bit lost with it at the minute.
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
The Beacons of Site Design! The Beacons are lit!

Lex calls for aid!

...and Flintlock will answer.

:monster:

If nobody else wants the job, I'll do it. I haven't followed the progress so far very closely, and I'll need help, but I'll get it done.
 
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Carlie

CltrAltDelicious
AKA
Chloe Frazer
I'm willing to help though my coding abilities are very, very basic and mostly involve HTML. I've also been working on a few things to add to the new site design that I'll show you guys soon to see if you like it.
 

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
Meanwhile, I'm a pretty decent software developer that could probably knock up a CMS and forum software thing within a few weeks, but I know fuck-all about design, already have a fulltime job and trust the people behind werdpress to do an okaysih job, and really can't focus on doing shit in my non-work taimu.

[/excuses]
 

Fangu

Great Old One
^ I checked test.lifestream.net, you're an Admin there and should have all the access rights Lex and vader have.

Not that I'm sure that's what you're asking, but now you know :monster:
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Wut, who made me an admin? I've had nothing to do with it until now. :P But that's cool, I'll get started this evening.
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Okay, I found time to have a look back through all the discussion while I was TLS-AWOL. Honestly, I was expecting there to be more of it, but I understand that this is a big, difficult job. And while it was never explicitly my job, I was one of the people pushing for a new theme, so I should apologise for not being around to keep pushing.

But anyway. I'd like to discuss a few things before doing any theme editing:

  1. Fraction's latest version is 1.1.4; we're still using 1.0.0. The changelog (visible in Wordpress on the test server or here towards the bottom of the page) contains no major changes but a lot of bug-fixes. I see no reason not to update: the CSS we've customised has all been in a child theme (as far as I can tell - if I'm wrong, speak up now!), so we won't lose it when we do so. We're supposed to back everything up first but since it's the test server, I don't know if that's necessary - Yop?
  2. Wordpress could also be updated while we're at it.
  3. This is the big one: are we sticking with a light theme? I think it looks good, but as we know, every time we've proposed a new design before, the first thing that comes up from our regular users is that they like the dark theme. The theme as it stands is not light all over, but the page/article column is white with dark text, as opposed to... whatever colour you call #051012 (very dark blue-green, I guess) with grey text.
  4. Are we happy with the page width as it stands? While the theme is wider overall than what we are currently using, the actual usable space for articles is narrower, at least on pages/articles with the sidebar enabled, as Shademp pointed out.
  5. "Smooth" scrolling, yay or nay? Has anyone spotted an option to disable it in the theme options? (I vote nay, for what it's worth - it's the kind of thing that should be decided in the browser, not the website.)
  6. Where should we put ads? The sidebar would be a good candidate location but I don't know if Google offers ads in an appropriate size and shape.
  7. Was a decision ever made about the menu bar, i.e. are we keeping it, changing it, or ditching it? I still think it hides too much content.
I've also started making a list of things that definitely need changing before we go live, but we'll get onto that later. I'm popping out for a while now but I'll be back in a few hours to continue the discussion.
 

Fangu

Great Old One
I see no reason not to update: the CSS we've customised has all been in a child theme (as far as I can tell - if I'm wrong, speak up now!)
Correct :monster:

I mean - upgrading the CSS might affect any custom changes, but I'm the only one to have made any changes, anyway. And they're tiny. And very basic. And should they break, I'll fix them :monster:
 
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