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Site Seeking…uh…Updates
Posted by Raven on August 25th, 2008
As you can all see I have been fiddling, twiddling, tweaking and messing around with the look of this theme for several days now. Literally, I’ve been jumping in between work and play. It’s taken some time, but it’s where I want it to be now.
I added a script that allows readers to change text size with a simple click…I know we can do this via the zoom tool, but that’s a PITA.
The text IS smaller for Firefox users; it has to be in order that IE users can see the site in a decent way. I wish the damn browsers would all have the same standards, but they don’t.
Also, I found some obnoxious but fun smileys that are in the comments section.
:rredshooter: :tank: :nurse: :fastshooter: :madshooter: 
:airforce:
I can’t claim all this was done without some help.
:pirate:
My good friend from Day One of my blogging, Teach, has helped tremendously with feedback and ideas, and some code here and there. His blog is using the same theme so we could see the differences and apply fixes here, as needed.
It’s been a lot of work. Like I said though, it’s where I want it now.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Holy Cow. SMILIES!!
:airforce: :rredshooter:
August 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I thought you’d like these.
LOL
August 25th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
:neverforget:
Nice look!
And I just had to use one of the new graphics.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Thanks AOW!!
August 25th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I second Duncan’s motion. Gotta love the new smileys.
:neverforget:
:madshooter:
:pirate:
August 26th, 2008 at 12:17 am
I gotta figure out how to get these to work.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:28 am
:91101:
August 26th, 2008 at 12:28 am
I changed the name for the Never Forget “smilie” and it seems to work now… any others having issues?
August 26th, 2008 at 12:29 am
:proudusa:
August 26th, 2008 at 12:29 am
:airforce:
August 26th, 2008 at 12:29 am
:happyshooter:
August 26th, 2008 at 12:41 am
:ptbaa:
There might be a letter-count limit? I changed this one also and shortened it some…
August 26th, 2008 at 12:46 am
COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
I didn’t think of a limit but it seems that is it.
Whacky things…I love them though even if they do look a little MESSY up there…
:nurse: < — my fave for some reason, also, this one
August 26th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Yeah, it would be nice if there was a way to collapse the smilies in a menu that you could open and close…
August 26th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Looks awesome! Thanks for the shout out, Raven. You did an awesome job with all the rest.
:pirate:
August 26th, 2008 at 8:13 am
PS: now I’m trying to figure out how to get the content to load first, then the sidebars, but happen correctly. Sidebars go wonky if do it the normal way.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I read somewhere that in the Main Index template it directs how sites are loaded- header first, then sidebars, then content. The reason for this order was because the header and sidebars rarely change so, for readers these are in their cache. Content changes- is dynamic- and can’t be cached the same way. WP is designed to load hdr and sb first.
It’s the images and scripts that slow things down. Esp. Blog Rolling- probably one of the worst offenders. I’ve keep all the BR codes off the front pages here.
Also, social bookmarking scripts and similar stuff rank higher than Blogrolling as offenders. I don’t use them here. I don’t see the need when I have a SUBSCRIBE link already in place. The traffic one gets from those sources isn’t worth the slowdown.
Images that are hosted on your own server load faster than outside services such as Photo Bucket. So I’ve tried to keep as many images as possible on the front page with my server and I’m still working to move them all there. For post pictures and images though- Photo bucket will work fine.
The theme I used at Just Raven had no images and it loaded up in less than 4seconds. LOL, not many blogs do that.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Exactly. Having the content load before the sidebars is better for search engines and page rankings, and, like you alluded to, is better because what if something is down on the sidebar? Blogrolling has done that a few times.
What is happening, because of the div tags, is that if you put the sidebar scripts below the content, they will not float at the top right and left. I got that solved, but, they would then float over the footer. So, have to try and get the footer to be at the absolute bottom. Not sure if it will work. I almost went back to my previous theme, which I tore apart and made look almost like Andreaus 9, but, when that theme plays well in Firefox, not too good in IE and Opera.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Teach I contacted the person who developed this theme- begged her to check out your post on this and hopefully she will come in and help. I checked your test site and like how the content loads first- that’s cool. But the sb’s are way down…messed up…(((sigh))