Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
Sorry, but this is nonsense.
Every website does this.
Site Design
- Thread starter Pixel
- Start date
Every website does this.
Shademp
420
Thanks for the tutorial on the new Gallery styles. After trying it out my conclusion is that while the new way of creating image galleries streamlines the process, especially for when creating newsposts, it doesn't allow the freedom of customization that I desire. Will keep using the old gallery style for my current features but I will remember the new way of creating galleries for whenever it might be more convenient.
Thanks for the heads up on removing the class="lightbox" tag. Worked like a charm.
What are these [embed] tags you speak of?
For comparison, here is the blockquote style as archived from last year versus now.
2016 - Is FFVII connected to FFX and X-2?
2017 - Is FFVII connected to FFX and X-2?
The old style meant an indent, slightly smaller text than the default and everything by default being turned into italics. This is the style I want to re-activate.
In some cases the stylized, color-popping view of the FFVII-style window can feel appropriate and even uplifting. Ergo why I don't plan to remove this auto-implemented FFVII-style window from all articles where they have now popped up after the site redesign.
In other cases I find the FFVII-style window to be distracting and too eye-popping. It all depends on the tone you wish to surround the article or particular paragraphs with. With the aforementioned copyright note...
...I feel that the blue window is distracting. Also since the Multiplayer screenshots one paragraph below the quote don't have this copyright notice inside an FFVII-style window, I want the blockquote style to be equally simple.
The FFVII-blockquote is generally beautiful. My issue boils down to, again, wanting the customization options to fulfill a personal vision.
Fangu
Great Old One
Well, that was my initial thought as well, but Yop, I guess we mostly work on conservative sites, soSorry, but this is nonsense.
That, or large clients who insists their sites work on Netscape.
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
You're taking the right approach: when you want something changed, post about it here and we'll sort something out.
I mentioned them when you were asking about Youtube videos. The easiest and best way to include a video in your article is like this:
Code:
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYld1_QRdrA[/embed]Fair enough. Since we use blockquotes in articles more than you use them on your pages, I think we should keep the VII-style box as the default, but I can also produce another style for cases where it's too distracting. I'll get back to you.
You know you did this on the old site design, right? And vB is doing it for this very post – the quotes aren't <blockquote class="whatever">, just <blockquote>, and they have a default style. It's basically everywhere.Well, that was my initial thought as well, but Yop, I guess we mostly work on conservative sites, soSorry, but this is nonsense.
Fangu
Great Old One
Don't mix vB into this
Anyway I'm not arguing a "default blockquote". I'm saying that it could be a problem for a default blockquote (or any default element) to have a good deal of fairly modern CSS involved. That box surely wouldn't work on Netscape
And IE8 would probably struggle. (Clients still use IE8! I kid you not!)Also, I wasn't the one to add the CSS to that blockquote so I have no clue how it was done back in 2012
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
We decided not to care about IE8 users. I asked about it during the design process. But even if I had spent a lot of time catering for the 0.07% of sessions we get from IE8, I don't think Fraction itself is even compatible, so there wouldn't have been much point.
Probably the TwentyTwelve default then.Also, I wasn't the one to add the CSS to that blockquote so I have no clue how it was done back in 2012
Fangu
Great Old One
I'm not saying WE should care about IE8 users, I'm saying that the reason Yop and I had that initial thought about that blockquote was because it's a reflex to care about shit one really shouldn't care about because we do this for a living and have to cater to old and tired browsers
I personally think the blockquote design is cool.
I personally think the blockquote design is cool.
Lex
Administrator
I'm a fan of the blockquote. Funny story: I actually approached Flint and said "know how that CSS FFVII text-box quote thing you did? I think we should make that the default blockquote" and he said "I did that already" XD.
The old blockquote is literally just indent/italics and if I'm not mistaken a different font. All of that is very easy to do without the blockquote tags when writing.
The old blockquote is literally just indent/italics and if I'm not mistaken a different font. All of that is very easy to do without the blockquote tags when writing.
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
Yes, but DON'T. I cannot stress that enough. For various reasons, which I've gone over before, it is important that we use tags for their intended purposes. So if you want to include a blockquote in your article, use the blockquote tag. If you want to include a sub-heading, use a heading tag (starting with <h2> because the article title is already in <h1>). If people start "simulating" the effects of these tags with their own styles then we're right back where we started.
I think I need to make a video tutorial series or something.
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
The TL;DR on the blockquote debate is "but but but what if someone wants a different style???". I can imagine there'd be use cases for different blockquote variations, not just FFVII text box style
Also for TLS, I say don't give a fuck about anything but the latest browsers. Fuck all of IE. Fuck Safari too. I can add a banner that says "fuck you, use Edge or Chrome or if you really need to, Firefox but for the love of fuck don't complain if shit looks shit it's your own damn fault, get with the times". or something.
I'm not frustrated
(actually I'm really not, I haven't had to deal with browser compatibility issues for a while. Maybe the occasional accidental filter on an array which only works in newer browsers, but nothing really frustrating)
Also for TLS, I say don't give a fuck about anything but the latest browsers. Fuck all of IE. Fuck Safari too. I can add a banner that says "fuck you, use Edge or Chrome or if you really need to, Firefox but for the love of fuck don't complain if shit looks shit it's your own damn fault, get with the times". or something.
I'm not frustrated
(actually I'm really not, I haven't had to deal with browser compatibility issues for a while. Maybe the occasional accidental filter on an array which only works in newer browsers, but nothing really frustrating)
Shademp
420
To me, the old blockquote style is a more "formal" style, while the FFVII text box is more cartoony and appropriately references the theme of the site. I'd like to have both the formal and the relaxed styles available.The TL;DR on the blockquote debate is "but but but what if someone wants a different style???". I can imagine there'd be use cases for different blockquote variations, not just FFVII text box style
Fangu
Great Old One
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
And now you can.To me, the old blockquote style is a more "formal" style, while the FFVII text box is more cartoony and appropriately references the theme of the site. I'd like to have both the formal and the relaxed styles available.
Pages now have a plain blockquote style as the default, while articles still have the VII style. These defaults can be overridden as follows: if you want the plain style in an article, use <blockquote class="plain">; if you want the VII style in a page, use <blockquote class="vii">. You should use the default in almost all cases, however. I can think of only one reason to use the plain style on articles: the VII style is designed for quotes from a single person or source, so if you're quoting a conversation with multiple participants, the plain style might be more appropriate. You could also split the quotes up and stick to the VII style.
The plain style isn't exactly the same as it was on the old site design, but it's close. The only changes are that the font size is no longer smaller (I don't see why it should be) and there is now a 1px border on the left (I thought it needed to stand out a little more).
Note: If you can't see the changes yet, it's probably due to caching. You might need to visit this page and hit Ctrl+F5 before they'll show up. The Super Cache plugin is actually disabled for the time being while we continue to make changes but there is presumably server-side caching going on.
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
Done.
Example article: KupoCon 2017: All you need to know. Before I made any changes, it contained the following code:
Code:
<center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jT_utSL8VJU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>The manual width and height already breaks the "no arbitrary styling" rule, but that's not what I want to focus on here. While it looked alright on the desktop,
Not good. Replacing the above code with
Code:
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/embed/jT_utSL8VJU[/embed]fixed the problem,
(Aside: This is how all videos should be embedded from now on. If you're feeling lazy you can even leave out the embed tags and just post the URL on its own line for Wordpress to sort out automatically, but I'd rather you use the tags. The easiest way to do so is to click the "Add Media" button, followed by "Insert from URL", then pasting the URL,
Now, that was only one article, but we have dozens that use the hard-coded iframe embed, so I borrowed some code from the previous site design (thanks Fangu) to cap videos at the page width. Probably should have done that before launch; that was an oversight on my part. As a site-wide fix, it will do for now, but it's not as good a solution as switching to embed tags because it can end up cutting the sides of the video off.
I'll be manually updating the embeds as I come across them but everyone else is welcome to do the same for their own articles and pages.
Shademp
420
You've probably stated this elsewhere Flint, but what is this thing that repeats the article title and has an "image-failed-to-load" icon adjacent to it?
Why does it appear and how will it be removed?
I can understand the aesthetical joy in having consistency, but is there any real, practical benefit from having the embed tag there even when it's strictly speaking not necessary? I am genuinely curious to know if your stated preference is only aesthetical or if there's a deeper logic here.
Why does it appear and how will it be removed?
Could you explain why you'd rather see use of the [embed] tag even when simply pasting the URL leads to the desired embedding result?
I can understand the aesthetical joy in having consistency, but is there any real, practical benefit from having the embed tag there even when it's strictly speaking not necessary? I am genuinely curious to know if your stated preference is only aesthetical or if there's a deeper logic here.
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
That's known as a broken image and it's appearing because that page doesn't have a featured image. Set one and it will disappear. And no, you can't have a page without a featured image, because it shows up in other places, like search results.
As for the embed tags, it's a semantic thing: as I said before, we should always use tags for their intended purposes. In this case it's definitely less of an issue than with actual HTML tags but it's still good practice. Suppose that one day we wanted to replace all our embedded Youtube videos with something else, perhaps a better way of embedding them. Or suppose that we decided to compile a list of every video we've ever embedded. With tags, it would be easy to automate, but without them, we'd have to go through each article and differentiate embedded videos from links to Youtube, such as the one here:
P.S. Please don't do this.
Again, I see no reason not to do it, especially since Wordpress generates the tags automatically if you use the "Insert Media" button, but this is pretty far down on the list of priorities. Plain URLs are still preferred to hard-coded iframes.
As for the embed tags, it's a semantic thing: as I said before, we should always use tags for their intended purposes. In this case it's definitely less of an issue than with actual HTML tags but it's still good practice. Suppose that one day we wanted to replace all our embedded Youtube videos with something else, perhaps a better way of embedding them. Or suppose that we decided to compile a list of every video we've ever embedded. With tags, it would be easy to automate, but without them, we'd have to go through each article and differentiate embedded videos from links to Youtube, such as the one here:
P.S. Please don't do this.
Again, I see no reason not to do it, especially since Wordpress generates the tags automatically if you use the "Insert Media" button, but this is pretty far down on the list of priorities. Plain URLs are still preferred to hard-coded iframes.
Shademp
420
In the past, it was possible to have a featured image but without it popping up in the actual article. I am unable to find a setting to make the featured image not appear in the article.
I was only accidentally able to change the featured image to thumbnail size once, but as the smallest available option it's still too large.
Alrighty. I have no problem with this.
Shademp
420
An error suddenly popped up with the [embed] tag. The embed size adjustments are no longer working.
I have some videos set to [embed width="425" height="349"] and they worked fine yesterday. Now the videos appear in default size no matter the width and height settings.
I have some videos set to [embed width="425" height="349"] and they worked fine yesterday. Now the videos appear in default size no matter the width and height settings.
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
Can't you accept having the image on the article? The internet is a highly visual place these days. Having it full-width would make it consistent with the rest of the site.
This is intentional behaviour. There's no point wasting the space at the sides of the page.
Edit: I guess it looks a bit off for 4:3 videos.
I've been trying to find a solution that allows all videos to shrink properly while still allowing centered less-than-full-width videos, but it's proving difficult.
Last edited:
Shademp
420
I can not. In the context of a Featured Image popping up alongside a search result on Google, I am fine with it. It has the same purpose as the Preview Snippet which describes the article somebody gets in their search results. It is on my to-do list to improve the Preview Snippets for all the UT articles. But I can't accept the Featured Image being forced into my Page-category article the way it currently is.
I was just about to change all the YouTube embeds in my articles from the old style to the [embed] tags, but if I can't adjust the embed size freely then I will use the old code to do so.
I think a contributing reason to our frequent clashes in this topic is because I'm not writing for a newsfeed. In hindsight the choice of a WordPress-based site to host my Unused Text articles may not have been entirely appropriate, due to WordPress gearing towards blogs and news. Yet I remain firm in my belief that there is no better spiritual home for those features than on TLS, so ultimately I regret nothing. To some degree I will always have to live with the fact that WordPress wasn't meant for the content I want to publish.
In regards to the Posts category, or more specifically "newsposts", I won't argue against the way that Featured Image works. You are doing great work in promoting that newsposts have a consistent style, formatting, tagging, categorization etc. I consider this an appropriate strategy because that's what a newsfeed should be like: A presentation with a consistent structure that the viewer can get accustomed to.
I view my "Page" features differently from newsposts. The Unused Text, the Version Guide, both Toshiba DVD articles are more likes guides or books in my vision. They benefit from the editing freedom of the online world but they are intended more like fan-made guide books, and just like the official guide books they may vary greatly in how they are presented. This is why I don't want these features as part of a newsfeed and why I don't want a Comment section: Because that's not consistent with the "guide book" style.
Ergo, I will not change my mind on the customization freedom that I want for Featured Images and YouTube Embeds.
If you are frustrated with me that's perfectly understandable. Our visions generally don't align. But just because I want a solution to what I consider a needless limitation in regards to how Featured Images works, that doesn't mean you have to instantly look up a solution. You already have your hands full with updating the appearance of old newsposts and in general checking up on the functionalities of the new frontpage. It's alright with me if you prioritize that before dealing with my frustrating requests.
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
I was referring to searches on our site, not on Google or anywhere else. Here, for example. It's important that we have an image there.
As I added to my previous post in an edit, I'm working on it. It's looking more and more like the solution is going to involve Javascript.
I don't think starting each page with an image makes it feel like any less of a guide book. What if we got one of our artists to produce a beautiful Unused Text logo which you could use on each page?
It's fine. Your work is important to our site so of course I'm going to try to accommodate your requests. You're the only person I'd do this for.
I'd just appreciate it if you could meet me half-way a bit more often.