WordPress.org

1. rvblog
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   I'm new to WordPress and starting playing around with version 1.3 a couple months ago.

   Knowing there would be a newer version of WP down the road, I decided to install the nightlies rather than learn a older version of the program .

   The thing that really caught my attention about WP and made me decide to use WP for my new website was its new "Page" features.

   Over the past 5 - 6 weeks, I checked out various themes. After trying out a few, I decided to try my hand at creating a layout for my own use, something that would be simple for me to maintain and, at the same time, easy on the eyes.

   I started out with the new 1.5 default theme (Kubrick) and changed it from a dual column to a single column layout. I decided to use the defaut theme code because I thought I could get more support if I got into trouble with the coding. I also incorporated some styling ideas from Manji and a couple layout ideas from thoughtmechanics.

   In fun, I named my personal theme "Lilbit" with the longer version name being "Lilbit of Disandat".

   Anyway, I'm looking for some comments, suggestions, new ideas, or constructive criticism. I would also very much appreciate some feedback from those who are using other browsers (I use Firefox) expecially older versions to see if the layout breaks down. I attained validation a few days ago but did some tweaking since so I need to do that again and clean up the css a bit more.

   When visiting my site, feel free to check the navbar out. Also, because I travel a lot, I sometimes have to make use of various locations to use my laptop, so click on the picnic table in my header picture to see how I maintain my site (LOL).

   The site can be see here: http://www.rvadventure.ca

   And, thanks for everyone's help getting me this far.

2. Cattrin
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   Not bad at all :) It does look a little empty, but then again I'm no minimalist. I'm not to partial with centering the text, But that's just me. The colors work well... My eyes aren't slaughtered when I get there. Very nice! :D

3. sadish
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   When you click on 'Photos', the TopNav changes to a different thing...

   this is not good for the general feel of the website.

   any links in the top nav should be always visible on every part of the website. If something disappears in the middle, the user loses the trust in the website and may quickly go away.

   Otherwise, everything seems good.
   Thanks

4. rvblog
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   @sadish:

   The topnav in the "photo section" was made separate and different for the following reasons:

   When you click on the "login" link on the right side of the photo section navbar and then logon, other coppermine links appear inside that navbar for administrative purposes. I tried to combine both of the navbars into one, but when I logged into coppermine it added the extra links and blew the navbar way out of proportion.

   Originally I had the one main navbar thoughout both sections, and a seperate nav section inside of the photo section for coppermine's functions, but I went this way to eliminate some of the space at the top of the page that was used by the second navbar in order to raise the large "image viewer" higher up the page so that people would not have to constantly use the scroll bar on the right side everytime they viewed the next picture in the viewer (It was either that or eliminate my header image at the top)

   Anyways, your point is very well taken and I will try and figure out a way to keep the same navbar throughout the entire site and fix the image viewer issue at the same time.

   Thanks

5. philpeeps
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   The site looks good. I had been keeping an eye on your site and saw it's progression. The theme looks great. Good work on the integration. Glad to see you stuck with Coppermine. I'm sure you are the true expert now :)

   Regarding the menu, I think you should keep the main nav bar and then just make a separate nav bar for Coppermine. Sometime soon, I will be adding a nav bar to the top of my site and would love to see what you come up with....

   Another note regarding your Coppermine nav bar, I would keep the "last comments" (if you are going to allow comments) and "last upload" links as that is what many frequent visitors might use to find new Coppermine content...

6. ChristopherD
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   I think it looks GREAT. I want to integrate coppermine into my wordpress too and make coppermine look like my wordpress theme, which I am becoming increasingly content with, except for the header image, but I'll work on that later. :-)

   Mine: http://www.jamalong.com

7. philpeeps
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   @RVA...what happened to your header image on Coppermine? It was there for a couple days and then disappeared....

8. greenfreak1
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   I like it too, the colors are pleasing. I agree with cattrin about centering text and sadish about the Coppermine page. I also have Coppermine but haven't decided whether to try integrating it into my blog or just style the existing galleries the same as the blog.

   Btw, the middle rig in your header looks exactly like my parent's setup. Except their truck is white. They haven't made it up to Canada yet, they're still touring the southern US during the winter.

9. rvblog
   Member
   Posted 8 years ago #
   

   Sorry, been kind of busy lately. Retired life and spending the winter down here in Texas can do that to you.

   I dumped everything from the server and installed 1.5 strayhorn - I wanted to get rid of all orphaned files from my trial and error test site. My site is now official. Now getting ready to upload our photos to the server.

   @Cattrin:
   I was using centered text headings etc in all of my trials. At your suggestion, I moved everything to the left and it seems to look okay, so I'll keep that change in place. Thanks.

   @Sadish:
   I took your advice ( and philpeeps') and made the navbar common to both the main site and the photo gallery.

   @philpeeps:
   I removed the header pic from the photo gallery section of the website in order to move the intermediate "image viewer" higher up on the page. I wanted to try and eliminate the need to scroll down a little bit everytime a new image is displayed. Thanks for staying in touch by the way.

   @ChristopherD:
   I checked your site out - also a great job - I like the layout and your choice of colours.

   @greenfreak1:
   Forget about the idea of trying to integrate Coppermine into Worpress or vice versa - I spent quite a bit of time trying to do just that - but then people in the Coppermine forums changed my mind - too many coding conflicts between the two porgrams.
   The best way is to just change one of Coppermine's themes to match your site's layout as I did. Doing that will save you a lot of headaches and few will notice the difference anyways.

   And thanks to everyone for the input - I really appreciate it - Thanks

10. rvblog
    Member
    Posted 8 years ago #
    

    Oh yes,

    I also went back to the two-column layout ( content area and sidebar)

11. jwexler
    Member
    Posted 8 years ago #
    

    This may be a simplistic question but I am having major problems with figuring out where I can set the links for the top navigation: "topnav". Which are the links on the header of the blog.

    I checked the code and they are just all pointing to the homepage with a "#" appended. Any advice would be great. I assumed you could control these from within the admin pages, but I cannot find topnav anywhere. Thanks a lot!

    -Jonathan Wexler

12. Root
    Member
    Posted 8 years ago #
    

    Topnavs need to be handcoded into the relevant php file.

13. garethjmsaunders
    Member
    Posted 8 years ago #
    

    I particularly like the picnic-table link in the header to the wp-admin. Very neat. Though I'm also a fan of a link in the header (image or text) back to the home page. Clickable trucks, perhaps?

    Gareth

14. Kalen
    Member
    Posted 8 years ago #
    

    I love it! :) I love simple layouts... can't wait for the about page! I'll be checking back.

15. vkaryl
    Member
    Posted 8 years ago #
    

    Very nice! I too think a header link would be good....

16. MaxT
    Member
    Posted 8 years ago #
    

    <joke> OMG, they got Internet in Canada! :O </joke>

    Otherwise pretty nice, not trendwhore at all, getting boring of these :) Keep it up and come safe home ;)

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