I have been playing around with the Blog design this morning, which is a very dangerous thing to do with my limited knowledge of HTML. I have removed the entire right hand column and moved the links, Podcast Archive etc to the left hand column. I've also widened the central text column.
It seems to all work fine on IE6 and Firefox but I'd be grateful if anyone could alert me to any problems they have. The whole thing should load a lot more quickly and be easier to navigate, if a little less 'pretty'!
Better now?
ReplyDeleteOn mine its still starting below all the left hadn links
ReplyDeleteIain, I'm curious about something, why are you resistent to the idea of switching software? Also what role does Google play in that decision?
ReplyDeleteseems ok now
ReplyDeleteOn Mac/Safari the left and main columns are wider than the top banner. If you want I can send some screen grabs to you.
ReplyDeleteLeon, My only resistance is because of the upheaval it would entail. I have no attachment to Google or Blogger beyond being concerned that it would all be desperately complicated to change. If Google are upgrading Blogger it seems sensible to hang on in there for the time being.
ReplyDeleteSam, yes please do email me screengrabs. I think I may have to resize the top banner.
My problem is the same as Andrew Woodman's.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you should be looking at the CSS rather than the HTML, Iain?
Ahh... Sorted!
ReplyDeleteI didn't have problems before and I don't have them now. I'm baffled why there seem to be problems.
ReplyDeleteThose with IE6 may want to consider upgrading to IE7. Opera 9 or Firefox also seem to work well with me.
As for the new look I preferred the old one but if people are experiencing problems I understand the changes and it does load a little bit quicker now.
Still I see red is so yesterday.
Looking good, Iain; the new layout is far less cluttered too.
ReplyDeletefor anyone interested in the techie aspect of the problems. It all stemmed from the use of either px width defintion or % width deifnitions.
ReplyDeleteFormatting is fine but I'm still having problems with your RSS feed (it links all posts to your archive).
ReplyDeletemuch better loads a lot quicker too.
ReplyDeleteThe "reshuffle" is looking better.
ReplyDeleteI think you've too many posts on the page, on the pc I'm using now, even with broadband etc etc, it's a bit slow loading up.
Aaargh! It's Ducky-egg blue!!! After a week of Kameeweeeon-Woss Wedd. Get back to your true colours m'boy!
ReplyDeleteIain, understood although I would point out that moving would have to be that much effort. In wordpress you can integrate all your posts from here in under two minutes. I have done the same on another test blog of mine and it worked fine.
ReplyDeleteI Like the masthead colour - Manchester City Blue.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be a missie guts, but I prefered the narrower column - seemed to be easier to read (I know: no pleasing everyone!). PS - have not had any download problems recently, and visit at least once a day.
ReplyDeleteAt last! Mine's fine now, too! And the Comments are back to normal.
ReplyDeleteNever had a problem with old format.Ntl broadband. Prefer old format. New too wide so format precludes viewing ads etc whilst reading text. Can,t please etc
ReplyDeleteNow it doesn't resize in my newsreader's browser window. It did, before.
ReplyDeleteIt's fine for me now - first I lost the text completely, then it loaded on the left-hand side below everything else. Now seems to be back where it belongs.
ReplyDeleteMind, I liked the flags showing who else was online and where from, that seems to have vanished.
I'm IE6 with XP - I've also lost Guido's right hand column, but as that is just ads, don't really mind.
How can I tell which number IE I've got? If it's 5, how do I get six, please?
ReplyDeleteverity,
ReplyDeleteGo to www.firefox.com or www.opera.com. ;)
If you must, though, go to Help... About in Internet Explorer and the version is listed at the bottom.
If it's not 6, run up Windows Update, or alternatively, visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/default.mspx.
Using Opera v9.00. Too damn wide! Previously [I assume] it would format to fit. No longer. I'm having to scrroll horizontally - which is very unpleasant.
ReplyDeleteRegards, Bart.
Working better now - Gr8!
ReplyDeleteEven the word verification is interesting - this time it's "qwhugh"
I think the slowness is nothing to do with blogger (which is down a lot less than typepad in my experience) but to do with the third party includes : eg, the advertising, the amazon stuff. You can tell this by loooking at the status bar in your browser and seeing what is displayed when things slow down on the display front. For me it's uretopiaadvertising.com or something like that
ReplyDeleteGo Mozilla Firefox...
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't touch Firefox with a ten foot barge pole. I hate it. But Tim Almond, thanks for the link to Microsoft.
ReplyDeleteIain, I too find the text column too wide and not comfortable to read. I liked it better the old way. Also, I liked the icons down the side. It was all very stylish looking.
I don't like the wider column width Iain - stick to a more newspaper-like narrow column.
ReplyDeleteI do like the rotating masthead colours though.
Vastly better.
ReplyDeleteNothing bad ... just an unusual browser envirionment. Just got back from a weeks hols to see your changes to the blog format. It seems to work well using Mozilla 1.7 for Sun Java on a Solaris 10 machine and X-Deep/32 X windows....... Just something different I suppose ....
ReplyDelete