Beth Winter ([info]bwinter) wrote,
@ 2008-03-14 14:11:00
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Entry tags:blather, technical

CSS Nostalgia
I've been reading A List Apart, because at some point, I do have to do something about my website. The fanfic portion is fine, but the code could use a cleanup. The Discworld site will stay up as-is, for non-link-breaking, but I should add a disclaimer that it's no longer updated. Main index, of course, needs updating. Additions

And while my Greymatter installation broke ages ago, maybe I could use another blog. This "Wordpress" thing sounds interesting, even if learning another structure and language to play with its layout will be daunting. Does anyone have a Wordpress blog and can tell me how difficult it is to design it properly as opposed to designing a non-dynamic HTML/CSS site?

And as I read about things that changed in the last four years, since I last seriously took an interest in webdesign (no 4.x browsers, hallelujah), I find myself thinking about my LJ. Style systems are a bitch and a half, but Expressive *is* CSS-compatible.

I designed my first site in 1997. I've never dabbled in anything but the simplest Javascript, but otherwise I've gone through all the phases, tables, rollovers, image maps, you name it. CSS, once the browsers are halfway compatible, has a logic and beauty to it.

My fingers itch to code something.


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[info]alighiera
2008-03-14 02:04 pm UTC (link)
If you know how to deal with HTML and CSS, and aren't afraid of tinkering with the source code a bit along a trial-and-error line, Wordpress isn't that hard to use. My experimental wordpress installation took about as long to code as my website when I switched to some basic PHP bits.

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[info]bwinter
2008-03-14 02:17 pm UTC (link)
My big worry is that I fell off the webdesign train right before the PHP point. On the other hand, I've basically taught myself financial modelling over the last year... how hard can this be?

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[info]alighiera
2008-03-14 02:18 pm UTC (link)
It's really a lot easier than it looks at first glance. Just grab a template that suits the basic shape you want and modify from there.

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[info]bwinter
2008-03-14 02:53 pm UTC (link)
In other words, the monkey approach ;)

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[info]alighiera
2008-03-14 02:54 pm UTC (link)
Is there any other when it comes to web design?

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[info]bwinter
2008-03-14 03:04 pm UTC (link)
Um.

This is probably the wrong place to admit the fact I read the HTML 4.0 specification from A to Z before coding my first site.

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[info]alighiera
2008-03-14 03:06 pm UTC (link)
But you were young then and didn't know better. ;-)

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[info]bwinter
2008-03-14 03:14 pm UTC (link)
Point :) And monkey-see is how I did my first financial model.

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[info]sukeban
2008-03-14 03:49 pm UTC (link)
I'm so happy with WP, I'm developing a lyrics minisite with it as a CMS right now :)

The templating system is a bit baroque, but once you figure out the page structure you can always install a simple theme like the ones at plaintxt.org (Sandbox and veryplaintxt are pretty good for this), and style them with CSS and some positioning of the DIV blocks. Depending on how you set the file permissions in your theme directory, you can edit the template and style files right from your WP dashboard.

If you're still with Axishost the Fantastico WP install and upgrade system is a breeze, although there is a glitch in config.php where you have to comment out two lines of code if you want to use UTF-8 characters in your blog. Like, Japanese text :3

Anyway, WP 2.5 is supposed to come out next week, so don't bother to do a 2.3x install yet, better wait for the 2.5 version. But if you want to use Fantastico, be aware that there will be a ~20 days or so delay before it appears there.

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[info]bwinter
2008-03-14 03:56 pm UTC (link)
There is the small issue of Easter coming up ;) Right now I'm lost in cooking, so this will probably be an April/May project, with May more likely (got challenges to write in April).

And the Sandbox theme looks damn interesting. I'm reading up on CSS tricks now that 4.x browsers are a bad nightmare, and I've got design ideas galore for just the console alone.

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[info]sukeban
2008-03-14 06:42 pm UTC (link)
The best part about Sandbox is that layout and styling are completely separated, so it's a great theme to play with :)

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