April 13th, 2007
Latest Redesign Updates for TechTraction
I just completely several little changes to the TechTraction design. Here’s the short list:
- Share This Plugin: I just installed this plugin as a replacement for my Digg and Del.icio.us graphic chic-lets previously found at the end of each post. The old chic-lets only appeared when a user decided to view an entire post. Since the latest post on my site always display completely, these chic-lets never appeared (unless someone decided to comment and then they would see them). Share This places itself at the end of each post on the main page and on the individual page display. Furthermore, Share This offers a large list of social networking sites and an email option to readers. Click on the link and a small option box appears. I think this plugin is a great feature for any blog because it’s very clean and very complete (Please Note: I also use the Popularity Contest Plugin from Alex King, developer of Share This, for the most popular post display in my sidebar).
- Comment Code of Conduct: I cleaned up the text box that appears before the comment section which outlines the basic “comment code of conduct — be nice etc etc. I can delete if I want etc etc.” The majority of my readers don’t need such a reminder; however, I believe it’s good practice to be very clear with everyone that participation is welcome but there are also some guidelines everyone is expected to follow.
- General Alignment Fixes: There were several minor things around the site that needed some alignment modifications. If you find yourself in a similar redesign situation, then you’ll need to comb through the various files included in your WordPress theme. If, however, you just can’t find what it is that you need to adjust, I suggest opening your site in a browser and then “view the source.” My eyes starting glassing over as I was looking for the particular piece of CSS that controlled the alignment of my comment “Submit” button. Viewing the source as seen from a browser revealed exactly what I was looking for on more than one occasion.
That’s all I’m doing today. I’ll spend some time this weekend going over the site and making my “punch list” of outstanding fixes/redesign items. Till then take a look around and let me know what you think.
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Filed under: Blogging Related
Hi Bret,
Haven’t read all your posts yet so sorry for my ignorance, but how much have you done to this template?
Have you ever thought of doing one from scratch?
I would like to do one from scratch myself, but I know it would be very time consuming, I haven’t even got round to fixing a growing list of problems with the template I am currently using….
Interesting blog you have here….
Hi Jez, sorry for the delay in posting your comment. Akismet flagged it as spam. I think it had to do with your email address. I think you made a typo.
Anyway, I have done a small amount of “real” customization. Most of the things I’ve done thus far have been mostly removing sections and adding a few minor things here and there and making slight modifications to the CSS stylesheet. Most customizations have been very straight forward and simple.
Yes, I have been thinking of doing a theme from scratch and that is what I plan to start next week. I have one more post to do regarding my last bit of changes to this site and then I’ll move on to the theme from scratch. I created a web site from my kid’s Karate instructor (all static pages). I plan to port it to WordPress and will do so with a theme from scratch. I’ll be blogging about how I do it here. I think you might find it interesting.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
Hi Bret,
Best of luck when you start your own custom template! It’s a big job, but I have faith that you’ll do a great job.
I hope you have a great weekend.
Hey Bret,
Great job with the site. Every time I stop you’ve made quite a few changes. I especially like how you’ve integrated the ads so far. Very subtle and definitely flowing with the rest of the layout.
I noticed that you’ve also removed the NoFollow attribute from your site as well. I’ve just now tagged you in a meme in support of the IFollow movement on my site, you can check it out at the following URL:
http://www.fuzzyfuture.com/traffic/i-follow-the-following-followup-to-the-ifollow-movement/
If you want to participate all the info is there. At the least, I hope your site at least gets some recognition for taking the plunge
I’ve tagged you on the DoFollow thing too:
http://www.davidpaulrobinson.com/2007/03/29/more-do-follow-bloggers/
Cheers!
David, thanks for the positive show of faith in my upcoming theme project. I’m going to try and make note of all of my triumphs and mistakes during the process here in my blog. Hopefully it help others that might want to give it a try.
Chris, thanks for positive feedback. At times during my redesign I felt as if I was talking to myself. I’m very happy to hear that people have noticed. Also, I did remove the nofollow setting. That’s for the recognition back at your site. I’ll stop by in a bit and check out the post.
David Paul, thanks for the do-follow recognition. I’ll stop by and check out your post as well.
Hi Bret,
If you don’t want to “permanently blind” using the “view source” try this. It’s a whole lot easier.
If your not using Firefox, you’re going to need it. If you have a thing against Firefox then just think of it as the ultimate tool for working your site and use it just for that. Now whether you’re using it or you installed it, go grab the “Web Developer” extension off the Mozilla Add-Ons site and install into FF and no more crawling over source code.
Web Developer has a ton of tolls for you to use but in the toolbar you’ll see a CSS button and from the drop down menu you’ll find “Edit CSS” which throws a “sidebar” on the bottom of your browser. This will allow you to manipulate your Style.css on the fly and you can see the results on your site in real time. Make a change and see the results (no changes are permanent…close the sidebar and everything’s back to normal). Once you get your site the way you want it to look, then you can hit the save button and it will save the modified Style.css on your computer and you can then upload into your theme file via http://FTP. Done!
The combination of FF and the Web Developer extension is amazingly powerful. I think you’ll like it.
Hope this saves your sight.
Please excuse the typos and why did “FTP” turn into a link I wonder?
Kirk, excellent tip. I am a die hard FireFox and only use IE to check things. I actually installed the web tool extension you mentioned. I’ve just never gotten around to exploring all of its features. Looks like I’d better “get around to it.” Thanks for the helpful comment.
Glad to be of service. Now a question for you sir.
How the heck do you get the MyWebLog, Recent Readers widget to show more than one column of visitors? I can always see a complicated matter clearly but the simplest things elude me (does that make me a genius?).
Any info would be of great help.
To get more than one column of MyBlogLog visitors to appear in the widget say “No” to “Show Screen Name” option when you walk through the widget wizard. Depending on the width setting will determine how many columns appear. Experiment with the widget wizard settings and you should get the results you’re looking for.