Flynn's Paws: My Thoughts, My Gripes

Tag: custom css

  • 20090920-Tweaked Blog

    I’ve tweaked my weblog:

    • A`Front` (or `Home`) page of four poems and renamed as `Blogger’s note`.
    • A customer header showing an etheric cloud formation (or a sylph, really)!
    • Cooler colors of blue and gray to match the customer header.
    • Reduced number of widgets to six.
      • Text widget: a tagline, an illustration by Dante and two links to my feed.
      • Search form for text queries.
      • Pages widget listing parent pages as the main menu.
      • Flickr widget of orgone and orgonite.
      • Text widget of `recommended readings`.
      • Gravatar widget of useful links.

  • 20090918-Large Background

    I want a nice large background with purple scrolls but cannot resize to fix different screen resolutions without Javascripts! I tried uploading several `stretched images` with a center-top and no-repeat via the CSS stylesheet but without success! Waaahhh!

  • 20090918-Old Theme

    I’m back with the free theme here at WordPress.com: `Dusk` because, once again, of its time/date stamp feature, followed by the categories and tags element. I  found a `color scheme generator` for my light, purple and gray color based on the default background color #556677 as per the `body element` found on my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade.

    The `before` and `after` content feature was added as a text for the #footer element and the #title element, both of which only appears for the FireFox browser and shows up blank for the Internet Explorer browser. I removed that feature from my CSS stylesheet.

    I’ve tried other themes:

    • `Unsleepable` for sub-pages on the main menu of the right sidebar.
    • `Blix`  for pages AND posts viewed without sidebars.
    • `Kubrick`, `Pool`, `Sapphire`, `Sunburn`, `Black Letterhead`, `Connections`, `Andreas09`, `Solipsus`, `Almost Spring`, `Fleur De Lys`, `ChaosTheory`, `Sandbox`, `Rounded`, `Contempt`, `Misty`, `Quentin`, `White As Milk`, `Redoable Lite`, `Garland`, `DayDream`, `P2`, `Silver Is The New Black`, `DePo Masthead`, `The Journalist v1.9`, `Hemingway` for time/date stamps primarily.

  • 20090915-Tweaked Weblog

    Yippie! I’ve done two new things with my weblog site via my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade:

    • Added my `copyright` and disclaimer notices as a `content“before` the #footer element. I learned how to do this with the`Kubrick` theme.
    • Added a mouse over effect of a button for the sidebar links. I leaned how to do this with the `Solipsus` theme.

  • 20090911-Old Theme

    I’m back on a free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Sandbox 0.6.1 by Andy Skelton & Scott Allan Wallick

    A theme with powerful, semantic CSS selectors and the ability to add new skins.

    Tags: white, left-sidebar, theme-options, widgets, two-columns, one-column, three-columns, right-sidebar, flexible-width, microformats, rtl-language-support

    The Current Skin is:

    Three-Column Minimalist 1.0 by Scott Allan Wallick

    Minimalist style with left and right-sidebars

    The left sidebar is for archives of my weblog. The right sidebar is for the orgone, such as the Flickr.com group pool, links to vendors and recommended readings. The length for both sidebars are almost even. I had to increase the gravatar image of a small white flower against its green leaves to 128 pixels. This compensates for the shortened gap of the left sidebar.

    The main colors to my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade are mostly gray and blue:

    • Body and block quote #eee;
    • Header #ddd;
    • Content #fff;
    • a: #006699; and
    • a: hover #3399CC.

    I had to remove the light blue to purplish background color to something more monotone like gray but lighter than dark. I didn’t want to present anymore weird symbolic weight to color coding for TPTB and thought that the gray tone would symbolize something more neutral, neither red nor purple.

    The `Front page displays` has be set from [My] latest posts to:

    • Front page: Home and
    • Posts page: Archives.

    I wanted to keep track of the many times people viewed that `front page` (aka `home page`) and if people would view the archives page of `Blog pages show at most`: 3 (three) posts instead of 15 (fifteen) posts, which I felt was too long to view at one page.

    I pray that this would be the VERY last time I’d tweak the overall appearance of my WordPress.com weblog.

  • 20090907-New Theme

    Sorry, folks! I’m trying yet another free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Solipsus by Tiffany Nguyen (Rikkye)

    A black and brown two-column design with flowers, clouds and a sun.

    Tags: two-columns, fixed-width, dark, rtl-language-support, left-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post

    PROs:

    • Header is closer to the top, unlike theme`Dusk`, which has a header that pushes my content and sidebars too low into the middle of the screen.
    • Instead of dark blue color of the former, this latter is dark brown and black.
    • It has a left sidebar unlike most other themes, which uses right sidebars.
    • It also has flowers, one sun, one cloud and one frowning face.
    • The date/time stamp, along with comments meta, is located underneath POST titles.
    • No meta appears underneath PAGES.
    • This theme features the < hr > element as a flowery design. Neat!

    CONs:

    • It’s dark but not too dark to hurt the eyes with contrasting, brightly-colored fonts.
    • The letters appear too small but editing my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade helps to increase the font-size to 84% (via the `body` element).
    • There is no custom header.
    • There is no navigation bar with drop-down menu feature.
    • There is no tagline: see reason below.

    Since I still wanted to RETAIN the image of Dante’s Satan in Inferno and the brief welcome message to describe what to do with this weblog, I removed a parent`home` page, which had the same greeting as shown on the `text widget` (which is currently located uppermost left hand portion of the sidebar):

    `God’s goal: be sunny life`. (This is my blog’s tagline).

    Having a left sidebars means I could set my `Front page display` to latest posts instead of setting the `Front page` to `Home` and the `Post page` to `Archives`. My purpose is to allow a short introduction when viewing my weblog through the `front page` via a mobile, cellphone.

    The sidebars may change as I continue to tweak the appearance of my IMPERFECT weblog site.

  • 20090906-Tweaked CSS

    Due to technical difficulties with previous themes and the face that I ain’t got NO satisfaction with just ONE theme, I’m back with the free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Dusk by Becca Wei

    A dark blue and grey two-column theme adorned with flowers.

    Tags: dark, fixed-width, two-columns, right-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post, rtl-language-support

    In addition, I’ve tweaked my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade to include the original flowery images:

    • bg.gif – background:##556777 url(‘images/bg.gif’) repeat-x;
    • wrapper.gif – background:##EEEAE8 url(‘images/wrapper.gif’) repeat-y;
    • header.gif – background:# url(‘images/header.gif’) no-repeat;
    • content.gif – background:# url(‘images/content.gif’) no-repeat and
    • sidebar.gif – background:# url(‘images/sidebar.gif’) no-repeat top right;.

    TIP: Add an extra pound sign (#) before the `url` section of each `background` images. This will bring up the original flowery designs without having to upload, copy and paste each one.

  • 20090903-Time Format

    Snork! Snork! I’ve been tweaking my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade. So for the `#noticias small`, I had to increase the width from 150px to 160px to accommodate the longer length of the `Time Format` (found via the General Settings of your `/options-general.php` Dashboard link):

    • H:i:s a (or 01:23:52 am, which is the time I changed the `Time Format`). This is the 24-hour format with leading zeros for the hours, minutes AND seconds, followed by a lower-case Ante meridiem and Post meridiem.

    Of course, team Automattic had better fix the damn time stamp because this particular post entry published two minutes SLOWER than the atomic clock!

  • 20090901-Tweaked CSS

    I’ve been tweaking my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade. I couldn’t figure out how to make the bullets for listed, unordered and ordered items line up perfectly for visual impact. Here are some useful CSS codes for the `Sandbox` theme.

    For the content:

    `div.entry-content ol li {
    color:black;
    margin:0 0 0 30px;
    padding:0;
    }`

    `div.entry-content ul li {
    list-style:disc;
    margin:0 0 0 10px;
    padding:0;
    }`

    `div.entry-content ul ul li {`
    list-style:circle;`
    margin:0 0 0 10px;`
    padding:0;`
    }`

    `div.entry-content ul ul ul li {`
    list-style:square;`
    margin:0 0 0 10px;`
    padding:0;`
    }`

    For the sidebar:

    `div.sidebar ul ul li {`
    list-style:disc;`
    margin:0;`
    }`

    `div.sidebar ul ul ul li {`
    list-style:circle;`
    margin:0;`
    }

    `div.sidebar ul ul ul ul li {`
    list-style:square;`
    margin:0;`
    }

    I can’t figure out the rest and don’t know the purpose of bookmarks, yet.

  • 20090829-Duhh, Thanks

    Duhh, i think this [new WordPress.com] works pretty good. 🙂

    Duh! Gee! Thanks. I have no real complains with my new `Sandbox` theme. BUT there are two areas, which did not make me happy:

    1. When viewing in `archives` mode, the list of posts are viewed as `EXCERPTS` and not in its entirety! This means I’ll have to switch back to the `Dusk` theme and do the copy and paste schmeal to a Word document, in case the servers of Automattic loses my precious, hard work!
    2. The HTML code – visibility:hidden` – is not hidden (or suppressed) when viewed from my outdated cellphone. The meta is show for the `single views` of each posts and when viewed from the home (or front page) of the weblog.

  • 20090828-Tweaked CSS

    After selecting my newest `free` theme here at WordPress.com:

    Sandbox 0.6.1 by Andy Skelton & Scott Allan Wallick

    A theme with powerful, semantic CSS selectors and the ability to add new skins.

    Tags: white, left-sidebar, theme-options, widgets, two-columns, one-column, three-columns, right-sidebar, flexible-width, microformats, rtl-language-support

    I made the following changes through my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade.

    Since I don’t really care for the `category`, `tags` or `comments` showing for each post entry, I’ve made the following edits:

    `body.home .entry-meta,body.archive .entry-meta` {

    `visibility:hidden;`

    `margin:0 0 4em;`

    }`

    Other changes to the layout of my weblog were: background-colors to the sidebar, content, header and entry-meta; font -size in percentages; colors for the`a` and `a:hover`; and adjustments to padding, margin, unlisted and listed style types.

    What I particularly like about this Sandbox theme is the auto width adjustments for screen resolutions (i.e. 800 by 600 pixels and 1024 by 768 pixels). The overflow for the bottom scroll bar of the internet browser is `hidden`, too.

  • 20090827-Tweaked CSS

    I couldn’t avoid editing my paid upgrade: CSS Stylesheet (AGAIN)!

    I tried another theme that sported: `customer header`, `navbar` and `tagline`. But I made a compromise with my personal `perfection` and settled for `Dusk` theme by beccary.com – a dark brown and blue color but without the flowery background designs.

    As a result, the `content` and `sidebar` are closer to the `header`.

    For the `#content`, set top to auto:

    `margin:auto 0 0;`.

    For the `#sidebar`, set top to auto:

    `padding:auto 25px 0 15px;` and

    `margin-top:-63px;`.

    To achieve the centered `#title` and narrow `#header`:

    `text-align:center;`

    `margin:auto 0 0;`

    `float:none;` and

    `height:auto;`, respectively.

    Besides the above tweaks, everything else remained the same, except the `.sticky` with a `padding:0;`.