We’re going to be messing with the look of the LoGroNo (Locally Grown Northfield) website over the next few days, in preparation for the launch of the membership option which is on its way Real Soon Now.
So be prepared for ugliness and ever-changing sidebars, columns, do-dads, and gizmos.
I really hope you’re not planning to let the elite membership sidebar continue to dwarf and crowd out the proletarian comments column. (I say this at the risk of being calling into your office for sarcasm again.)
Be careful, Rob, or you’ll be demoted to LoGroNo’s steerage section.
Since the membership sidebar blog would contain full blown blog posts with links, images, video, etc, I definitely want there to be more real estate for them than the comments. I anticipate devoting more editorial time to them, too, helping the authors improve them before publishing them. Some of those membership posts will likely get ‘promoted’ to the main blog, too.
But recent comments are still front and center.
The LG Membership page is now ready. Feedback puhlease!
Ad banners for the membership drive start going up on Monday.
I’m experimenting with a new theme/template tonight.
And I’m delaying on the membership ad banners till I get a few things fixed.
It’s just the default boring colors for now till I get some expert help later this week.
Actually, the default colors aren’t bad. The alternating colors for the columns helps to compensate for the difference in column width. The comments column stands out more, instead of seeming crowded out by what you consider more valuable real estate.:)
Thanks, Rob. The discussion column stands out even more on individual posts pages and other pages as I’ve disabled the member sideblog on all but the home page.
The Blog Categories are broken so I’ve removed them from the navigation bars for now.
I don’t like the mini-column with recent blog comments, but otherwise it is a great improvement--I love the look.
BUT….I can’t stand looking at a white screen too long--just too much bright.
Love the banners and the changing colors of the poster-commments--but I don’t know why Griff always gets to be pink.
I wondered about Griff’s pink, too. It must mean something.
What I really miss, though, are the message numbers. It’s hard to refer to an earlier message without them.
Paul, the message numbers on comments are now working.
Paul/Jane, I’m color-impaired so the current colors are the new theme’s defaults. Tracy will be tackling that job shortly.
But am I really always pink? I hadn’t noticed. Cool!
Paul, I currently can’t figure out why this theme is overriding the plugin that creates the message numbers. But that will be fixed.
Jane, what don’t you like about the mini-column with the comments/discussion?
I’ve now de-pinked my comments. Background color to comments should now just alternate between white and gray.
Griff: I think she told you… it’s too mini!
Now seriously, Griff, you’re making everyone nuts with all these changes, and everything moving from right to left and back to right again and it never is really RIGHT!
Can’t you just put a ‘trial’ up , and then go ‘behind the scenes’ and do all the site’ construction’ you want and then put up a finished product? What’s all this sophisticated technology for if you can’t do that? Get behind the screen, Mr. OZ!
I’m not contributing a penny til it settles down…and believe me, Rob; you do NOT want that MUG on that MUG!
Oh, scusi… that’s the other thread…
I think we’re just about done, now. The shifting columns were my fault, I was experimenting and hoping I did it in a condensed timeframe so that not many people would be annoyed and/or freaked out by it.
You’re right, Kiffi, it *is* technically possible to do the redesign on a staging server and then move everything over etc etc but that takes a helluva lot more time/effort/skill for us to do, with a higher risk of seriously effing something up.
Sorry for the frustration, and thanks for hanging in there with us!
Um, hello?! Your Twitter “Follow Us” badge is obscuring the comments on my small screen!
It’s amusing to note that the Twitter badge does *not* obscure the Ads by Google. In other words, it only covers up things it considers unimportant….
I changed it to the left sidebar. It behaves better over there.