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tlpakiipierce
Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Bowie, Maryland
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Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 9:21 pm Post subject: Blogharbor Custom Blog Designs Anyone? |
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Hey folks,
I'm looking for information on how to get my blogharbor blog design refreshed. I'm looking for something beyond tweaking a standard template already included.
I'm looking for something completely unique. I'm just not sure how a blog designer views the code for blogharbor versus say a WordPress or Typepad as I don't see BlogHarbor templates listed as skillset when doing a search.
Thanks in advance for any and all feedback.
TL |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 1:19 pm Post subject: Re: Blogharbor Custom Blog Designs Anyone? |
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I'm just not sure how a blog designer views the code for blogharbor versus say a WordPress or Typepad as I don't see BlogHarbor templates listed as skillset when doing a search.
I would be the first to admit that we don't yet have the market share that "abililty to customize BlogHarbor templates" is something you're likely to see listed as a job requirement. Give us time though.
I'm looking for something beyond tweaking a standard template already included.
The look and feel of your blog is primarily a function of the style template, which is the CSS stylesheet which controls almost of the presentation layer of your design. It's possible to create a unique and original design by altering this template alone.
Since it's necessary to modify specific CSS classes in order to change the look and feel of your blog, it's always going to be necessary to start with any of our default templates because that's the only way you or any designer will be able to know which classes are available for customization.
Anyone out there interested in creating a unique look and feel for TL's blog? If any of our users who have experience creating or customizing stylesheets maybe we can have a little fun with this...
For any BlogHarbor user who creates an original stylesheet and is willing to share that stylesheet with TL and the rest of our users, we'll create a special gallery for all of your submissions and provide some special promotion to your blog. I'll keep this offer open all summer, even if TL chooses a design in the meantime.
How about it? Anyone want to have a little design fun this summer? If you're familiar with CSS and interested in creating a custom template to share with TL and everyone else, please reply to this thread.
Last edited by john on Tue Jun 27, 2006 8:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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tlpakiipierce
Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Bowie, Maryland
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 3:22 pm Post subject: Re: Blogharbor Custom Blog Designs Anyone? |
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John,
Nice! Can we make this a stickly or something somewhere??
Man, I'm tempted to run out and get me a CSS book and see what I can hack through myself, LOL.
Seriously though...thanks a bunch for the reply and for putting this challenge out there to the BlogHarbor community. Nice!
Best,
TL
Last edited by tlpakiipierce on Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gristgal
Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 209 Location: Mississippi
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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Not to divert discussion away from the topic, but the preceding post illustrates what happens when a poster tries to do an "attributed quote", i.e., one that states at the top, "JoeBlow/SueGrow/AnnSnow said". It inserts the appropriate commands, but they don't execute. I kludged this last time I was posting a response by using the standard unattributed quote. I think I put John said above it. I don't think I've ever seen this particular kind of error on any other message board before. Could somebody look into why it isn't working?
I, too, would be interested in seeing what some alternative designs look like. That's why I'm following the topic. |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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tlpakiipierce wrote: | Nice! Can we make this a stickly or something somewhere?? |
Just made this a sticky post... Hopefully we'll get some folks interested. I promise that anyone who submits a design will be glad they did...
gristgal wrote: | I don't think I've ever seen this particular kind of error on any other message board before. Could somebody look into why it isn't working? |
Yes, it appears to have been a bug in the latest version of the phpBB forum software we use here. I just reinstalled the latest version and all appears to function normally again... |
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des
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 152
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:38 am Post subject: |
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It's a nice design. I'll break it down for you so you can see what's behind the curtain, I think you may be a little surprised to learn what you are looking at and how easy it would be for you to implement similar ideas.
- Remember that it's possible to add an index.html file to the root of your File Manager and have that file displayed as the home page of your blog when someone visits your base URL without the /blog at the end of the URL. So if you uploaded an index.html file to your site, that index.html file is what would be displayed if someone accessed the URL of http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com/ . Of course your blog would still be displayed if someone accessed http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com/blog .
So if you check out the URL http://www.ottergroup.com/ you are seeing an index.html file that they have uploaded. How do you know that? Access the URL http://www.ottergroup.com/index.html and you will see the same content...
So their blog pages still live at http://www.ottergroup.com/blog and what you see there should be familiar as a standard 2 column blog, but the addition of an index.html file gives them a sort of cover page or home page which can give them some flexibility in terms of layout and perhaps navigation.
- The home page displays their latest blog post. If the index.html is a static file, and since we do not support Perl or PHP as server side scripting languages, how does that section get updated without the publisher uploading a new version of the index.html file every time a new blog post is made?
A service at http://www.feed2js.org/ allows you to add the contents of an RSS feed to your blog or weblog just by including some Javascript code in your content. In this case, they are actually using the feed2js service to read their own RSS feed in order to dynamically display the most recent article from their blog. They just added the Javascript to their index.html page and uploaded it, now every time the home page is loaded the browser will read the Javascript code, which will check with the feed2js service which will in turn read the blog's own RSS feed, reformat it, and return the summary to the browser. Hope this gives you some ideas for extending your blog. |
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des
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 152
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tlpakiipierce
Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Bowie, Maryland
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:32 pm Post subject: Thanks for the breakdown John. :-) |
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Really great input on that and very, very useful as a design tip and option. I'm still looking to do more with my blog so I'm working on freshing up my understanding of CSS a bit better and I'm going to review Cruise #3 for additional suggestions on customization.
Thanks again!
TL |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 1:18 pm Post subject: Re: Thanks for the breakdown John. :-) |
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I am working on a theme on my blog here. Take a look and let me know if you have any suggestions and I'll think about incorporating them, and when we've got something that looks decent I'll post my stylesheet here so you can use it on your own blog if you'd like. |
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des
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 152
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 9:39 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: | I am working on a theme on my blog here |
Very neat, John. I like particularly the way of displaying quotes. Am I right in assuming you get the effect from manually inserted the blockquote tags in the html? _________________ Des Walsh
Gold Coast, Australia
www.thinkinghomebusiness.com
Author, 7 Step Business Blog
http://www.7stepbusinessblog.com |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:41 am Post subject: |
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Yes, those are just styled blockquotes... |
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zoli
Joined: 27 Jun 2005 Posts: 108
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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I secretly hoped we'd get John's theme as a Christmas gift... |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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zoli wrote: | I secretly hoped we'd get John's theme as a Christmas gift... |
In order to implement the style I currently have on my blog, download these files to your computer:
* http://www.johnkeegan.org/images/roundedcorners.png
* http://www.johnkeegan.org/images/gray_bg.gif
* http://www.johnkeegan.org/images/dark_gray_bg.gif
* http://www.johnkeegan.org/example.css
Now go to your File Manager and create a directory called images if you do not already have one, and upload the 3 images (roundedcorners.png, gray_bg.gif, and dark_gray_bg.gif) to that directory.
Now go to Look & Feel > Templates and look for the style row, and click Edit in that row. If you've never customized your style template before, you'll come to a page where you will need to click the Customize button at the bottom of the page.
Next, choose Empty - Custom from the top dropdown menu where it says Select theme. Click Change.
Lastly, remove anything you might have in the Custom CSS box at the bottom - let's start fresh (save your existing customizations if you have any for your later reference). Copy the contents of the example.css file and paste it into this area. Click Save CSS at the bottom of the page. You're done!
Customize this style as you see fit - please share your modifications here!
Merry Christmas! |
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des
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 152
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Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:29 am Post subject: |
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john wrote: | Customize this style as you see fit - please share your modifications here! |
I've installed it and I like it. The only modification I've done is to put the sub-title of the blog in white, as it wasn't legible otherwise.
I'm still tantalised by how to change the colour for the <home> and <About> Web page links I have in the header section - actually can't recall how I put them there in the first place.
Des _________________ Des Walsh
Gold Coast, Australia
www.thinkinghomebusiness.com
Author, 7 Step Business Blog
http://www.7stepbusinessblog.com |
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