Recent Comments, plus Minor Change(s)
I added a Recent Comments widget to the sidebar. As the name implies, you can see what people have been saying in the comments, without having to click to each comment page. I got the widget at this page.
It's very easy to add: just type in your full blog address (minus the "http://" part), adjust your options, click "Apply," then click the button next to it. Then you will be spit into your Blogger account if you were signed in in the first place, where you finally add it to your blog template.
You can also adjust how many characters the widget shows. For example, our's shows the first 82 characters of the comment. This should be sufficient for a large portion of the first sentence, and then some. The default value is 100, but I thought that was a bit crowded. I think I like the placement as it currently is, but please let me know if you have any suggestions.
I also adjusted the width of the main body text from 850 pixels to 900 pixels. I don't like it when main body width is so thin that it feels like you're reading off of a rapier blade :p Judging by Sitemeter's monitor resolution data for this blog, most of you have your resolutions at 1024x768, which should be fine for this blog (I checked it myself). I prefer 1280x1024 and use that on both work and home computers, but then again, I have young eyes.
Let me know if anything on this blog looks crazy. Including the content itself ;)
Categories:
admin details
It looks good to me. How did you get the background of your blog to be gold, while the sidebar and main body remain white?
♪ Up with the white and gold! Down with the red and black! Georgia Tech is out for the victory! ♪
Anyways.
I manually edited the CSS template. If you go to your Blogger dashboard, click on Layout, then click on "Edit HTML," that's the page where I made the changes.
An easier way to make changes is under the "Fonts and Colors" tab, which I did use too. But eventually I had to go manually edit the HTML, because the Fonts and Colors tab didn't give me enough control.
If you want to change things and find that you can't do it under Fonts and Colors, let me know; I can help you out.
Thanks. I have actually changed a few things by editing the CSS template, but I never could figure out how to get the "skin" to be a different color than the main body and sidebars. I am using Minima Stretch edited to accomodate 3 columns. Any suggestions?
It would be nice to have a left column on our blog...I might look into that one of these days.
I'm not quite sure which is which when you refer to skin and main body, so I'll just toss out a couple of things. Also, since you've edited the CSS template before, I'll assume that you know your way around it.
When I was first trying to figure what went with what in the CSS template, I initially faced quite a challenge. Which color goes with which attribute? So finally I figured out that I could go around to each color attribute and set it to something outrageously bold, like bright red. Then do a preview, and you will know exactly what you've changed. It took a while to pinpoint exactly what I wanted, but it worked.
To get the gold background, I changed the 'color' attribute in the body tag. This is the section that comes right after all the variable names are defined. In your template, it should be soon after the thing that says "End side in blog language."
As for the skin (?), try changing the main-wrapper attribute. I notice that you don't seem to have a color attribute in your main-wrapper section. Just add one in. I don't know if changing the "background" attribute will change the color.
Let me know if you have more questions.
Can't we just give you the keys to our blog and let you fix everything?
Well, you *did* say to let you know if we had any other questions?
Thanks, JM. By "skin" I'm referring to (and possibly using the wrong term for) the area "behind" the posts section and the sidebars, the area that is gold on yours.
I'll use your trial and error suggestion and fiddle with it.
Headmistress,
I make no claim that I am an expert at fixing blog problems. But I'd be glad to hear your questions, even if I find I can't do anything about them.
Connie,
Here's a convenient way to pick hex color codes. Here's another one, where you can type in the hex code you might be searching for, to see what color it really is. Perhaps you already have a source for these, but it's just in case you don't.
After hearing your definition of skin, I have to retract a previous statement. In order to change your skin color, change the "background" attribute in the body tag. Currently your's is set to ffffcc. Previously, I had said to change the color attribute. Well sometimes the body attribute does what color does, and sometimes it doesn't. Go figure :\
Connie,
Given the disaster that is our blog this morning, I'm not so sure that you should take my advice without a big 80 pound bag of salt. Make sure to back up your template before making changes! And even then, Blogger might not let you revert to your old template, as is happening for me right now.
While I was messing with my template this morning, trying to add a third column, somehow my gold background disappeared, and my font got one size bigger. What on earth is going on here??
Did you fix it? Because I am still seeing gold background.
We have an issue where on three out of four of our computers the blog is a cheery, somewhat zany, shade of yellow and red. But one one of them, the yellow is a sort of washed out, sickly salmon color.
DHM,
I was able to fix my problem somehow. Now I'm reading up on proper blog layouts and whatnot, and debating whether I should keep this third column or not.
My knee jerk answer is that it sounds like a monitor issue. If you really want to pursue this, you might try changing monitors and seeing if you still get the sickly salmon color.
If it's only the yellow color that's messed up, see if you can't adjust color settings on the monitor itself. I'm sure Pip could help you if this is intimidating ;)
If neither monitor adjustment nor monitor switching works, I suppose it could be a video card issue. Anything other than that, and I'd need more information.
Whatever the case though, it doesn't sound like a Blogger issue, but I could be wrong.
DHM, you are using the same browser for all the computers, right? That was the first thought I had....
And if you're using an alternative browser (not IE), is it fully updated on that one computer?
I like your corners. I have been hammering and sawing away over at my place. Will you take a look and tell me what you think?