Tabula Rasa - Blanket / Brittle / Leftovers / Patsy

[sforzinda]

I've just sent the signed/scanned copy of CLA to the e-mail address stated :)

And before adding the layouts, I need to make some things clear that I will not be able to 'work' on the stylesheets as mush as I was able to before, because I'll have limited time to spend on computer. I also tried to 'fix' the stylesheets to make them meet with the requirements in the guidelines but alas, my CSS knowledge fails there :D I did 'fluid' layouts before, but I never thought converting px measurements into percentages would be hard! So my 'epic fail' was definitely re-creating the layouts using the percentages!

I tested all the layouts in Firefox 3.0, Opera 9.6 and Safari 3.0 with 1280x1024 and 1024x768 resolutions, on Mac.

I'm giving these layouts to you, to fix/tweak them if needed, as I'm not able to do it!


Theme name/layout: Blanket / Tabula Rasa - 2 Column (sidebar on right)
Author: sforzinda (Naz)
Layout info: .css file
Image info: originally it had tiny pixel icons from pinvoke.com but i removed them. and this one had a background image that i found somewhere on the internet but i also removed it because i don't know the exact source.

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Theme name/layout: Brittle / Tabula Rasa - 2 Column (sidebar on right)
Author: sforzinda (Naz)
Layout info: .css file
Image info: originally it had tiny pixel icons from pinvoke.com but i removed them.

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Theme name/layout: Leftovers / Tabula Rasa - 2 Column (sidebar on right)
Author: sforzinda (Naz)
Layout info: .css file
Image info: originally it had tiny pixel icons from pinvoke.com but i removed them.

---

Theme name/layout: Patsy / Tabula Rasa - 2 Column (sidebar on right)
Author: sforzinda (Naz)
Layout info: .css file
Image info: originally it had tiny pixel icons from pinvoke.com but i removed them.

---

Comments

[afuna]

Hi! I have the converted Blanket up on http://afuna.afuna.dreamhack.afunamatata.com/?s2id=106. The theme is named Peach.

I ended up some tweaks in the process, but I hope that nothing I did goes against what you want. (Take a look around, if you will, and tell me if there's anything "off")

So, FYI, a quick summary of what was changed:

* converted text to use ems instead of pts
* converted the widths to be percentages instead of px. Converted column width is 60% (I assumed that the base monitor width aimed for was 1024x768; 600 was approximately 60% of that)
* adjusted where the header padding and borders were being set (to #header > .inner) so that the percentage width would work; I think I ended up moving around a few other width settings as well
* added a visited link color
* increase contrast for textarea (same as the page text)

Okay, and here's the big one: After some thought, it seemed that hiding some/all modules would break expectations. So I played with the layout a bit, and put the modules at the bottom of the page.

Please take a look, tell me if you're comfortable with the changes! As always, I'm here to answer any questions :)

[sforzinda]

oh the layout looks lovely :)
just one tiny thing that i'll probably die if i don't ask :D what about making the ~styles of modules matching the layout? i mean, like making the background white, adding a border on the left, making the titles like the ones in entries? because tbh, it looks quite raw right now. but if not, it's still lovely :D

[afuna]

Ohh, now there's an idea. Do you mean each module, or just along the left side of entire module section?

(And yes! The layout looks very lovely :-) I've really enjoyed working with your code; just needed to put in a few polishing touches)

[sforzinda]

i think left side of entire module section would be better.

(and thank you :) i wish i had enough knowledge and time so i could also help you with tweaking other layouts. but for two weeks now i was making dreamwidth versions of some of my livejournal layouts so i may be trying to ~tweak them as well sometime :))

[afuna]

Done! I also added some lines above/below the tag cloud module, sort of like the line below the entry, I dunno *g* Does that look all right now?

And - thank *you* for writing the layout in the first place :) I'm not very good at writing stuff from scratch, but I'm happy to help convert and polish and tweak and what not!

[sforzinda]

ooh it looks awesome now!!

i'm converting my layouts from LJ to DW, but this time i'll be trying to ~tweak them a bit myself, i feel like it's too much to only post the .css here and ask for you to fix it.

[afuna]

I don't mind at all! (Only, I'm kinda slow, hah, as can be seen by how long it took me to finish prepping Blanket).

Have fun converting your other layouts, too :) I'm excited and looking forward to seeing what else you have!

[ninetydegrees]

Hi Afuna, did you leave the header and footer border color hardcoded on purpose? It seems to me it's a pretty big feature of this layout.

P.S. I'm asking because a theme maker remarked on it as she had to use CSS to color them (http://dreamscapes.dreamwidth.org/19565.html).

[afuna]

Hmm, I can't remember. I think I made them match something else. Module background, maybe?

[afuna]

Ohh, wait, border color, right? The stripe on the left? Nope, I didn't do that on purpose. Please do file a bug so we can get that fixed!

[ninetydegrees]

Done! You probably got or will get an e-mail about http://bugs.dwscoalition.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1824#c5 but I wanted to ask you if we should use/create a property for the day names too or if it wasn't worth the trouble.

[afuna]

Hmmm. I think it would be better if we could use an existing property. Is there any currently in the scheme that we'd be safe using?

[ninetydegrees]

Now that I think about it, I believe it may work better if we change var string month_header_colors = generate_color_css( $*color_page_title, $*color_entry_border, new Color );
to
var string month_header_colors = generate_color_css( $*color_page_text, $*color_entry_border, new Color );

I'll have to do some testing.

[afuna]

Hrrrm. I think, tentatively, I like the look of that (pending your testing, etc).

[ninetydegrees]

:/ page_text or entry_text don't really work. We could go for entry_background hoping people would choose to have enough contrast between the background and the border (this wouldn't work for subtler themes). Thoughts?

[afuna]

Could we change the background, instead so that it uses some color that's a background, not a border?

[ninetydegrees]

Sure. I thought of that actually but it makes the style not look as nice, in my opinion.

[afuna]

*think think think* How about making the color a darker shade of the border, using $*color_entry_border->darker()? Light-on-dark schemes could put in a couple more lines of CSS to use $*color_entry_border->lighter();

[ninetydegrees]

You mean combined with the entry_background color or something else?

[afuna]

Hm, I was thinking keep the current $*entry_border, but have the foreground be $*entry_border->darker(100), or something like that.

[ninetydegrees]

That's an excellent idea! I'm testing it with all the themes we have.

[afuna]

The background color of the module is the same as the sidebar for the moment; need to fix a couple of IE bugs, and then I'll go do the modules again, with your suggestion :)