Planetside Software Forums

General => Open Discussion => Topic started by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 03:15:28 PM

Title: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 03:15:28 PM
Hey everyone, I just implemented a new design on my blog early this morning (around 4am  :-X), so I was wondering what you think of it.  I highly modified it from the original theme by adding scripaculous effects (click the open/close shelf button to see what I mean) and some extra content (Flickr photostream).

I'm not sure how many people here know a lot about web design, but I was wondering if anyone might have an idea why the content in the shelf jumps to the side when I click the open/close button.  I wanted something clean, sleek and open and I think this theme is exactly what I had in mind.  Heres a link: http://meltingice.net/?wordpress=true
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: old_blaggard on February 07, 2007, 03:33:27 PM
That's really nice.  I don't know why things jump to the side, but the overall theme is good.  I'm working on writing an integrated forum/gallery/article system script in PHP and MySQL, and I'm going to be converting it to XHTML within the next month or so.  It's a bit of a side project, but if you would be willing to maybe give some advice for design and stuff (especially some CSS bugs in IE) that would be great.  If you're willing to, I'll PM you the link to the test site.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 03:39:35 PM
Quote from: old_blaggard on February 07, 2007, 03:33:27 PM
That's really nice.  I don't know why things jump to the side, but the overall theme is good.  I'm working on writing an integrated forum/gallery/article system script in PHP and MySQL, and I'm going to be converting it to XHTML within the next month or so.  It's a bit of a side project, but if you would be willing to maybe give some advice for design and stuff (especially some CSS bugs in IE) that would be great.  If you're willing to, I'll PM you the link to the test site.
Sure, I'm always in the mood for web design.  I love working with CSS so I'd be willing to lend a hand or two.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: king_tiger_666 on February 07, 2007, 04:09:03 PM
nice... quick to load, and clear to see everything...

Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: old_blaggard on February 07, 2007, 04:09:33 PM
PM sent. It might have been sent twice, though....
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: king_tiger_666 on February 07, 2007, 04:23:59 PM
old_blaggard when your terragen site goes live.. pop a pm, so i can check it and perhaps link it to mine
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 04:37:13 PM
old_blaggard: I think your problem is that you are trying to make some things do more than they should be doing.  You should put that form with the login in a div tag so that you can edit its properties better.  With CSS, try to avoid tables as much as possible.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: old_blaggard on February 07, 2007, 04:39:27 PM
I realize that tables are bad - that's part of what I'm going to be getting rid of in the next couple of weeks while I rework a bunch of code.  However, the top bar itself is in a div tag.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 04:47:27 PM
Oh, yea nevermind I see it now.  To be honest, your best fix might be to make the background gradient a couple of pixels larger, then try adding something like:

.topbar form{
      margin: 2px 0 2px 0;
}

On another note, I just noticed that when you view my blog in IE, everything is aligned to the left instead of centered.  Not sure why to be honest with you.  At least its not all that bad looking.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: king_tiger_666 on February 07, 2007, 04:55:54 PM
meltingice... you cannot expect much from internet destoryer 7.... as compared to firefox 2...

Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: old_blaggard on February 07, 2007, 05:01:06 PM
Yeah... internet explorer is the bane of my existance.  It's not stardized, and I can't test on it because I'm on a Mac.  I would just ignore it if 85% of internet users didn't use it.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 05:14:11 PM
Haha yea, to be honest, I don't really care what my sites look like in IE because I refuse to work with it due to such horrible CSS support.  I think I'll add a firefox button to my site  :P
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: Will on February 07, 2007, 05:14:51 PM
good man  ;D
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 05:28:54 PM
There, I added it.  I feel like my blog is much more complete now  :D
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: king_tiger_666 on February 07, 2007, 05:30:00 PM
good old firefox button!!!!!....
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 08:20:56 PM
Added latest diggs and did some reorganizing.  The animation is smooth now with no jumping text.  I still have more customization to do though, so I'll let you know when I'm done with that.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 07, 2007, 11:51:02 PM
Added a header image to make the blog look interesting.  I would love to hear comments (good and bad) on the header image though.  If you have any suggestions for it, or for the rest of the design for that matter, please let me know.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: king_tiger_666 on February 08, 2007, 12:04:15 AM
thats a sizeable header you have there

i like it but perhaps a little smaller so that it doesn't take half the height of the screen.... but then again i'm stuck on 1024x768 it probably looks great on higher resolution.....

Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 08, 2007, 12:59:53 AM
Haha yea it works much better at higher resolutions.  I have 1280x800 on my laptop and it looks good to me.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: inkonyto on February 08, 2007, 04:44:24 PM
Hello MeltingIce, your blog rocks  :o

Thank, it helps me a lot !

Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 08, 2007, 09:37:41 PM
Quote from: inkonyto on February 08, 2007, 04:44:24 PM
Hello MeltingIce, your blog rocks  :o

Thank, it helps me a lot !


Glad to hear it  ;D
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: Lucio on February 11, 2007, 08:06:51 PM
I'm enjoying it :)

Regards,

Lucio
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 11, 2007, 10:49:49 PM
Thanks Lucio  ;D

I moved the shelf button and made it so that it switches back and forth between saying Open and Close, depending on what state the shelf itself is in.  Also, changed the global font to Arial.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: Dark Fire on February 12, 2007, 12:13:39 PM
All I have to say about your new blog design is 'wow'. I would say to most people that a design like that is over the top because they'd never be able to maintain it properly, but you seem to have a rather good ability at making and maintaining amazing things on your website. Blogs like yours make my blog look old and semi-abandoned... :'(

Oh well, at least I virtually wrote my blog from scratch (the very core of my blog is still powered by Blosxom...but not for much longer).
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: old_blaggard on February 12, 2007, 12:31:53 PM
Quote from: Dark Fire on February 12, 2007, 12:13:39 PM
Oh well, at least I virtually wrote my blog from scratch
I'm with you there.  I'll let you know when my site gets into a semi-presentable state :D.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 12, 2007, 05:55:04 PM
Haha thanks guys :D
I think I'm done modifying it for awhile now.  I just got a book I ordered in the mail on PHP coding, so I am going to start experimenting with making my own wordpress themes from scratch.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: MeltingIce on February 26, 2007, 01:49:42 AM
Ok well this isn't exactly my blog, but its my site nonetheless.  I re-designed the index page for my entire website.  It was inspired by an operating system desktop's layout.  Let me know what you think  :P  Best viewed in Firefox, since IE doesn't know the "window.innerHeight" javascript function for the background wallpaper.  There is still one thing I would like to add, which is a drop-down menu containing all the links when you click the MeltingIce logo in the taskbar.  You can check it out by simply going to http://meltingice.net
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: old_blaggard on February 26, 2007, 08:40:00 AM
I like the new design!  Good job.
Title: Re: New Blog Design
Post by: Dark Fire on February 26, 2007, 04:07:44 PM
Nice logo and 'start' menu...