As March begins, I find myself gearing up for sci-fi convention season a bit late. However, in order to fill my duties as a lead there, I found myself at the breaking point of organization. There was so much piled up and going on so I spent a good 2 days de-cluttering my life. I also squeezed in some much needed updates (and fixing) of TGE's site.
Also, my server is up! Slowly but surely I been working out the kinks, tackling the last of the known things that I wanted to fix up/reconfigure. I can say that I am 90% confident that it is set up the way I want it to be. This is a great place to host my images (no need for Photobucket here) and has been the staging server for some trial-and-error projects.
At this time, I'm working on Shadarii again, vowing to get a good glossary up. I still need to track down the fanart and see about getting an interview in. Seems that Ill never get to the templating part of my makeover/takeover, if I dont actually get on the ball about providing and recieving content. I hope I still have passion for it despite that I dont meet alot of of other fans of this book.
My pro-bono project for another person is something local. His page is just plain html/css right now but he wanted to have a revamp. I gave him a bit of something to provide him an idea of where he might want to go. In the process of going along with the simple idea, it gave me time to practice this little bit of CSS.
http://jorenrapini.com/blog/css/super-fantastic-css-navigation-image-rollovers
Mine was pretty successful & I think I will use that in the future for menu rollovers when necessary.
We had also spoken of finding a way that he, someone who only edits a webpage as far as GoDaddy's page authoring tool does, can edit stuff on his own easily, without disturbing the code that makes up layout and design. Thats what CMS/CMFs were designed for, of course. Wordpress is what I would lean to first for a project like this. Still, can I integrate this javascript dropdown (or something else) into wordpress?
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex...ontent.htm
The content inside there would be a menu of items and the prices for them. I would like this to be layed out with the template's CSS but make sure that filling out each item and its corresponding prices could still be done in the backend. Drupal could do this with the CCK module easily but I think Drupal is kind of overkill for a website this simple.
Hmmm..
Showing posts with label css. Show all posts
Showing posts with label css. Show all posts
K2 Extension for Joomla
Yesterday I got an answer in the Joomla forums that recommended K2 as a solution for the personalized blog aspect ot my site. The demo video on the K2 site got me intrigued. It had all the kinds of things most blogs need such as socialbookmarking, tag clouds (although not as nifty looking as Joomulous), and commentary complete with CAPCHA. Overall, K2 acts like a mini-Joomla inside Joomla.
Speaking of that, it was nice that the categories I could set for my blogs could be seperate from the sections/category madness of the original in-the-box Joomla. Overall, it helped me decrypt some of the logic behind the Joomla interface that drives me crazy. Yes, Drupal spoiled me with how changes for something are always in one single place.
I am still left with a few questions and things to troubleshoot:
Speaking of that, it was nice that the categories I could set for my blogs could be seperate from the sections/category madness of the original in-the-box Joomla. Overall, it helped me decrypt some of the logic behind the Joomla interface that drives me crazy. Yes, Drupal spoiled me with how changes for something are always in one single place.
I am still left with a few questions and things to troubleshoot:
- Can I promote featured K2 items to the front page? Where does the category template "blog" comes from? How do I add more? (see screenshot below)
- Glitch: Social bookmarking symbols dont show up even if I have enabled them
- Glitch: Clicking on a K2 item's individual page leaves me with an entry devoid of a stylesheet. This happens no matter which of the Joomla starter templates that I use. (see screenshot below)
Still want to give this extension a chance. It might be the closest to blogging Im going to get.
No Drupal For the Code Cat, Back to WordPress
After things fell apart with the Drupal project that I was into, I had a week of distraction followed by starting back up on a Wordpress Template project.
While I know many Wordpress Template creators that base their template off of someone's pre-existing one, I wanted to start from scratch since I only need a very simple template anyway. Besides, I never know how to gauge how original your template is from complex one you based yours off of. After a while all Wordpress templates probably can start looking alike from one artist to another's.
Almost everything of mine is done. Now all that remains is cleaning up the CSS before getting it transfered to a live website. CSS cleanup can be like cleaning your room. You have to clean out the code you dont need as well as get some of the like objects to be placed together. I have found some useful links that discuss this very thing:
5 Steps to a More Organized Style Sheet
11 Useful Tools to Check, Clean and Optimize your CSS file
10 Best CSS Practices to Improve Your Code
While I know many Wordpress Template creators that base their template off of someone's pre-existing one, I wanted to start from scratch since I only need a very simple template anyway. Besides, I never know how to gauge how original your template is from complex one you based yours off of. After a while all Wordpress templates probably can start looking alike from one artist to another's.
Almost everything of mine is done. Now all that remains is cleaning up the CSS before getting it transfered to a live website. CSS cleanup can be like cleaning your room. You have to clean out the code you dont need as well as get some of the like objects to be placed together. I have found some useful links that discuss this very thing:
5 Steps to a More Organized Style Sheet
11 Useful Tools to Check, Clean and Optimize your CSS file
10 Best CSS Practices to Improve Your Code
The Start
Greetings! I take a break now from the finicky job market to actually blog. Yes, I now have been rejected for being over qualified on web design. Thats shocking to tell you the truth. Admittedly I have also been a bit scattered among things but I allowed for a bit of creative distraction. The sun is coming out and I sure hope to get back out to the outdoor events with my friends as well as bring my "office" out onto my deck.
Amongst some revisions to 2 HTML/CSS based sites, I am slowly changing my gears back towards the Drupal front. The drupal meeting a few weeks ago was stellar. I learned alot more about how Taxonomy works which will help me with the "catalog" portion of things. Did a bit with creating an administrator role which I always have to do with a new Drupal install.
There are a few commands Im using more and more when it comes to installing modules and the subsequent need to chown them appropriately. Of course this wont always be the case for future work but it is pretty much the same whether Im doing this on my local machine or an actual hosting server
Modules Installed:
Amongst some revisions to 2 HTML/CSS based sites, I am slowly changing my gears back towards the Drupal front. The drupal meeting a few weeks ago was stellar. I learned alot more about how Taxonomy works which will help me with the "catalog" portion of things. Did a bit with creating an administrator role which I always have to do with a new Drupal install.
There are a few commands Im using more and more when it comes to installing modules and the subsequent need to chown them appropriately. Of course this wont always be the case for future work but it is pretty much the same whether Im doing this on my local machine or an actual hosting server
Modules Installed:
The House that Mary Built
While I sit in a holding pattern on getting a portfolio site up (I need to spend money to make money but I sure dont have much of it right now), I decided to create a blog seperate from my sordid and silly personal life. Maybe I am just addicted to blogging, I dont know.
One thing I do know is that I finally want to do some better documentation of skills I acquire as well as what I learn about my own methods of thinking and how I go about processes. Take last night's Drupal meeting.
We talked about alot of things. While I picked up some new things about Taxonomy, Creating Content Types and the significance of Image Cache modules, I also came home with a better understanding of how I view the overall design and development of a website.
Being a designer with at least a bit of versatility, I find myself equating a website to a house. In a traditional website, the navigation system would be like the house's blueprints. Add walls to the house with Layout. The lighting and plumbing would probably be things like functional code such as Javascript or PHP which add certain functions such as echoing a statement or conditionals. When it comes to my specialty of the look and feel, that would probably be the landscaping round the building, the house paint job and interior decorations such as wallpaper and those cute checkered kitchen floors.
For Wordpress and Drupal, its pretty much the same thing, except my design is more or less called Templates or Themes. CSS is still used but the theming/template method just a slightly different animal in the implentation of things.
Honestly I never really explained it out like that. However all the questions floating around that people at the meeting were asking me about realy brought me to put things into an analogy such as this. For that Im thankful. High Desert Drupal crew really knows alot of stuff and they arent too gunshy about dealing with someone as new to things as me.
One thing I do know is that I finally want to do some better documentation of skills I acquire as well as what I learn about my own methods of thinking and how I go about processes. Take last night's Drupal meeting.
We talked about alot of things. While I picked up some new things about Taxonomy, Creating Content Types and the significance of Image Cache modules, I also came home with a better understanding of how I view the overall design and development of a website.
Being a designer with at least a bit of versatility, I find myself equating a website to a house. In a traditional website, the navigation system would be like the house's blueprints. Add walls to the house with Layout. The lighting and plumbing would probably be things like functional code such as Javascript or PHP which add certain functions such as echoing a statement or conditionals. When it comes to my specialty of the look and feel, that would probably be the landscaping round the building, the house paint job and interior decorations such as wallpaper and those cute checkered kitchen floors.
For Wordpress and Drupal, its pretty much the same thing, except my design is more or less called Templates or Themes. CSS is still used but the theming/template method just a slightly different animal in the implentation of things.
Honestly I never really explained it out like that. However all the questions floating around that people at the meeting were asking me about realy brought me to put things into an analogy such as this. For that Im thankful. High Desert Drupal crew really knows alot of stuff and they arent too gunshy about dealing with someone as new to things as me.