dreamscapes | Gradiance

Theme name/layout: Gradiance
Author: Kaigou
Layout info: originally Tranquility III
Image info: 10 substitute icons (5 per style)
Layout url: http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/advanced/layersource?id=87751&fmt=html

Users can change the 8-scale gradient, the page background, the default text color, the content/comment background color, and colors for active & visited links. As long as the contrast between the 4th color and the 8th color is enough to make text legible, the gradient can go from darkest-dark to lightest-light, or from medium-dark to medium-light, depending on the amount of contrast required. The CSS looks a little funky as a result, but it makes for some easy cut-and-paste to create new color schemes.

The links all go to a test post on my journal, which has multiple replies of varying types (anon, registered, openid) so you can those in action.

Gradiance Amethyst — Gradiance Amethyst Verso
Gradiance Carmine — Gradiance Carmine Verso
Gradiance Celadon — Gradiance Celadon Verso
Gradiance Cerise — Gradiance Cerise Verso
Gradiance Cerulean — Gradiance Cerulean Verso
Gradiance Cobalt — Gradiance Cobalt Verso
Gradiance Emerald — Gradiance Emerald Verso
Gradiance Forest — Gradiance Forest Verso
Gradiance Fuschia — Gradiance Fuschia Verso
Gradiance Grayscale — Gradiance Grayscale Verso
Gradiance Halaya Ube — Gradiance Halaya Ube Verso
Gradiance Harlequin — Gradiance Harlequin Verso
Gradiance Heliotrope — Gradiance Heliotrope Verso
Gradiance Indigo — Gradiance Indigo Verso
Gradiance Jade — Gradiance Jade Verso
Gradiance Lemon — Gradiance Lemon Verso
Gradiance Maize — Gradiance Maize Verso
Gradiance Majorelle — Gradiance Majorelle Verso
Gradiance Midnight — Gradiance Midnight Verso
Gradiance Moss — Gradiance Moss Verso
Gradiance Nadeshiko — Gradiance Nadeshiko Verso
Gradiance Ocean — Gradiance Ocean Verso
Gradiance Ochre — Gradiance Ochre Verso
Gradiance Olivine — Gradiance Olivine Verso
Gradiance Peach — Gradiance Peach Verso
Gradiance Pistachio — Gradiance Pistachio Verso
Gradiance Racing — Gradiance Racing Verso
Gradiance Sangria — Gradiance Sangria Verso
Gradiance Sapphire — Gradiance Sapphire Verso
Gradiance Sienna — Gradiance Sienna Verso
Gradiance Sky — Gradiance Sky Verso
Gradiance Slate — Gradiance Slate Verso
Gradiance Spring — Gradiance Spring Verso
Gradiance Storm — Gradiance Storm Verso
Gradiance Thistle — Gradiance Thistle Verso
Gradiance Vermilion — Gradiance Vermilion Verso
Gradiance Viridian — Gradiance Viridian Verso

The substitute icons fill in when there's a blank for an anonymous poster, an RSS feed, a DW user, or an OpenID user. The last image the blockquote background. [ETA: after further testing, the regular icons look fine even on a reversed setup, so not seeing reason to do that extra bit.]

There are still some outstanding issues that I can't figure out. None of them are really deal-breakers, but if I can find answers to these questions, I'll edit the existing code to reflect the fixes.

I'm presuming separate layouts for reversed (light-on-dark) color schemes, but it seems like it'd be a LOT easier to give users the option of reversing the colors, with a simple yes/no question (which would then flip color_001 for color_008 and so on). Or is it better to treat each as separate themes, on the grounds that users wouldn't be aware ahead-of-time that the colors can be easily reversed in the wizard?

...I think that covers it!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh! Though I just looked at your journal, and it looks like #2 is no longer an issue? *crosses fingers*

I'm not sure. I think it might not be an issue, but then again, the so-called resolution was to basically force a min-height on the entry-content. Not really entirely a kosher kind of resolution, if you ask me, but it works... as long as I don't have a one-line post and six or seven tags. Erm. So, maybe not entirely fixed... *eyeroll*

Hummmm.

Maybe:
.entry-wrapper .contents>.footer { clear: left;}

(Tested only in FF 3 in Ubuntu)

Hrm, didn't seem to do it. (See test post at the top of my journal for what I mean.) Unless it works okay in Ffx3 and it's just Ffx2 that's an issue. Hmm, it's doing the same (not going full height) in Safari, too.

Missing a "." for entry-wrapper in the CSS definition! (Though it looks slightly odd, since the links in the footer are pushed way down. Since you've been moving things around in print_entry anyway, perhaps add a new div after the footer, and clear on that? Assuming the clearing works in all browsers).

*smacks forehead*

right, right. I need to stop doing that... ~~will try & test my way through & get back to you~~ YAY YOU. It worked! Alrighty, then. Now I just need to narrow down the 'no-subject' so it only applies to comments, not posts.

I remember there was an LJ style that took the no-subject and instead turned the first X characters into the post's title, with an ellipse at the end. I always thought that was a nifty trick, and only slightly less-cool was a style that used the date as the subject if no subject was present. Hrm.

Edited 2009-11-17 06:26 (UTC)

YAY!

set all_entrysubjects = true;
set all_commentsubjects = false;

to fiddle with the defaults

And if you want to play around with other ways, have fun!

(Though hmmm. I should note that the date as subject could be problematic since the dates are all automatically linked to the month views, etc)

No, I meant that the subject became "March 3rd 2004" or whatever, even if the style then has "03 March 2004 12:31 AM" in the line below, or above, or wherever. As in if $title = "" { then $title == $date; } ... and stuff.

Wait, "all commentsubjects = false" means it'll hide all comment subjects, right? All I wanted was to make it such that if no subject was entered, then it wouldn't force a "(no subject)" bit, though it has the nice side-effect of letting you change that text in the Wizard, as well... although that right there is a bit odd, since none of the rest of the wizard's text-lines will allow you to leave them blank, so this added line of "if no subject is present" shouldn't let you do that, either.

At some point I really need to stop thinking, because all I do is get myself in trouble.

Edited 2009-11-17 06:43 (UTC)

Ah! I'll leave you to it then :-)

Almost forgot to ask: should I do completely separate styles for reversed, or just figure out a way in the wizard to ask if it should be light-on-dark or dark-on-light?

Hrrm. You can look up $*color_xx->saturation() and/or $*color_xx->lightness() (which both return ints) Would comparing that for two colors be enough to go on for light-on-dark versus dark-on-light?

This is getting so squeezed at the sides that I'm going to reply to your comment as a brand-new comment, so look for it down at the bottom of this thread. (I don't mind the indentation, normally, but when we get this deep in a thread it starts to get ridiculous.)

Wait, "all commentsubjects = false" means it'll hide all comment subjects, right?

Nope! It is only applicable when there are no subjects specified. (All comment subjects is pretty much "always show a subject for a comment?" but I guess it's too late to change the variable name now)

Gotcha, and it's behaving now. Until the next unexpected discovery, at least. Again, thanks so much for the help!

You're welcome!

(I'm rather sad that you're running into so many unexpected discoveries. I wish that we could make things more intuitive for people messing about with these things, like you are!)

Most people don't and won't run into as many as I do, but then, most people don't make a habit of hitting every button on the dashboard and not asking "what does this do?" until afterwards. For that matter, most people don't even ask beforehand.

I figure I'm here to serve as an example. Of what, still not sure, but of something, that much is clear.