Well boys and girls, we've got a new site design (and backend). Much, much thanks to Mike K. most of all for all the help. I think I, in turn, helped him tweak his site by experimenting relentlessly with all the stylesheet settings to get a design I was happy with. At least I hope so! =)
I was able to incorporate solutions to just about all the design problems I identified with the last version. The thing I'm most happy about figuring out is the "recent comments" panel in my sidebar (labeled "Fresh Seasonings").
A brief aside on why I love this feature: I think it's the biggest missing element in blogs to allow easy following of its happenings. With it, you can see at a glance if there's any new comments to check out without scanning entries for clues or silly things like that. Also, you can post a comment on a really old entry without fearing that people won't catch it!
Anyway, it's a little kludgy since it doesn't appear MT thought about using the macros in this fashion. For one, it makes you construct the actual URL for the link by hand, and to boot I don't think there's a URL construction to "jump" directly to the comment. At least it brings up the proper entry though. Sweet enough... If anyone want to incorporate this into their own blogs, it's pretty easy. Let me know and I'll help you out. Also, if anyone figures out how to improve it (or has an in with MT people), let me know too.
Thanks should also go out to all my fellow scribblers, for beta-testing the site Sunday night and giving me feedback (particularly you Tony). Along with this face-lift, I have some new plans for my blogging habits - but I'll write about that in the next entry. Meanwhile, I'm just basking in joy of finishing this migration. Let me know how you like it!
Posted by mlee at August 28, 2002 4:52 AMYeah, I like the sidebar containing new comments - you must show me the way. The site looks good, except the orange bothers me - oh great Illini.
Posted by: haglund at August 28, 2002 11:07 AMI love it. Nice work ... and welcome to our incestuous little MT fold!
Posted by: freesia at August 28, 2002 11:25 AMHail to the orange. Hail to the blue. Hail Alma Mater. Ever so true. We love no other, so let our motto be Victory, Illinois, Varsity!
Posted by: jet at August 28, 2002 12:25 PMYeah. Next thing you know, my blog will be black and gold and the title will be:
"We come from St. Olaf
We sure are the real stuff
Our team is the cream
Of the colleges great!
We fight fast and furious,
Our team is injurious,
Tonight Carleton College
Will sure meet its fate!
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah Yah!"
I actually chose orange because it's the "opposite" color to blue (for good contrast, etc). That it happened to be the colors of UI (and the Bears) was incidental, but amusing.
Here's the template markup for the comment list. I have the actual link in a div (to get nice spacing), but you can use <br /> to separate them instead:
<MTComments lastn="10">
<div class="sidelink"><a href="<$MTBlogArchiveURL$><$MTCommentEntryID pad="1"$>.html"><$MTCommentAuthor$> - <$MTCommentDate format="%m.%d %H:%M"$></a></div>
</MTComments>
[Note you have to modify this if your extension is .htm - there's no macro to discover this]
Posted by: mlee at August 28, 2002 3:21 PMI'll see if I can make it work.
And, it is not incidental that UofI's colors and the Bears' colors are the same. Papa Bear Hallas graduated from UofI, and created the Decatur Staley's with the UofI colors. They would later move to Chicago and become the Bears.
Posted by: haglund at August 28, 2002 3:34 PMYo, ho!
The good ship Harvard,
Is goalward bound again!
All the crew are at the halyards.
Here's a hail for Johnny Harvard's men!
Bright crimson at the forepeak
Rides high, above the foam
As we sail through the deep blue
Harvard strikes home!
Wow. That's even dorkier than mine.
Posted by: freesia at August 28, 2002 7:11 PMHey, Mike, your entries are showing up centered on IE but left justified on Mozilla. It's really weird.
Posted by: yukino at August 28, 2002 7:30 PMGlad to be of service! Happy blogging!
Posted by: tony at August 29, 2002 12:05 AMMike, here's what I did to enable permalinking of comments:
First, in the "Individual Entry Template," I added the following line under the one that says "":
Then, I modified the link part of the code you provided above to read:
Happy trails!
Posted by: yukino at August 30, 2002 6:16 PMDarnit! Reposting because it ate my html.
Mike, here's what I did to enable permalinking of comments:
First, in the "Individual Entry Template," I added the following line under the one that says "<MTComments>":
<a name="<$MTCommentID pad="1"$>"></a>
Then, I modified the link part of the code you provided above to read:
<a href="<$MTBlogArchiveURL$><$MTCommentEntryID pad="1"$>.html#<$MTCommentID pad="1"$>"><$MTCommentAuthor$></a>
Happy trails!
Posted by: Anonymous at August 30, 2002 6:27 PMSorry, one more thing that you might want to do if you don't want to worry about collision of namespaces (because the permalinks for articles seem to use padded numbers too):
Change all instances in the above code of:
<$MTCommentID pad="1"$>
to
c<$MTCommentID pad="1"$>
Mike, if you want to consolidate all three of these awful-looking comments into one fixed comment, go ahead.
Posted by: Anonymous at August 30, 2002 6:30 PMWe are ever true to Brown
For we love our college dear
And wherever we may go,
We are READY! with a cheer.
For you know that people say,
That you can't beat down Brown men (or women)!
With a rah-rah-rah
And a ki-yi-yi
And a B - R - O - W - N!
We rule, because of course we have a fight song written by TOM LEHRER.
Fight fiercely, Harvard!
Fight, fight, fight! Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might, Nonetheless we have the will.
How we shall celebrate our victory? We shall invite the whole team
Up for tea! How jolly! Hurl that spheroid down the field
And fight! Fight! Fight!
Fight fiercely, Harvard!
Fight, fight, fight! Impress them with our prowess, do.
Oh, fellows, do not let the Crimson down;, Be of stout heart, and true.
Fight for Harvard's glorious name! Won't it be peachy if we
Win the game? Oh goody! Let's try not to injure them,
But fight! Fight! Fight!
Can I just say that Olaf has the most inferiority-complex-ridden fight song EVER? hee.
Hey, and any of you MT-mavens know how to get an archive page that just lists the titles of the entries?
Posted by: lizzieb at September 4, 2002 4:07 PMMT is probably already generating one for you; for some reason it's not linked to the main template.
For instance:
http://www.lizzieb.com/blog/archives.html
I've tweaked mine to my tastes:
http://www.neonepiphany.com/archives.html
fixed. thanks. you're such a god.
and, for good measure:
O Carleton, our Alma Mater
We hail the Maize and Blue
Thy name is ever dearest
Thy children ever true
O Carleton, our Alma Mater
To thee we sing our praise
For thee we fight! To thee we pledge
The strength of all our days
I saw this first in Carnie's House Party, one of the random Betsy-Tacy books, and then we had to learn it the next term, and now I swear I could sing it backwards.
Posted by: lizzieb at September 5, 2002 1:36 AMHi, I just graduated college from a Principia College in Illinois. I lived in a dorm/house whose mascot was an Indian named Um-Yah. The name came from our fight song which has the same chorus as the St. Olaf fight song(probably borrowed from St. Olaf) In fact, the tune is the same too. But ours goes like this.
Here on this broad green we're gathered together to sing of the glories of fair Rackham West!
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah
Um Yah Yah Yah!
The reason I mention this is because our fight song is under serious review because the powers that be think since the name of our Indian Mascot is Um Yah our song is offensive. So it is so cool to finally find proof that our song has norwegian roots and not Native American roots.
That's swell.