dreamwidth and customization - crazy fun! emphasis on crazy

Multiple Reading

Okay, this could be because I just like complex things, but I kind of like having two flists to read. I mean--okay, you have to understand. At my highest Ritalin dose, I don't have what anyone sane would call a great attention span, and I miss things like whoa. At least one person on my flist has given birth and I didn't know she was pregnant! That was very lowering.

When people crosspost, I miss a lot less! Part of this is because yes, I'm coding my style live and so hit refresh a lot, but also, because I'm less cluttered in my reading. It's almost like creative filtering, except I was never really good at filtering.

I don't know. It's nice. It's more reading!

Housekeeping

If you're on my flist on LJ, I am adding you here. I could say I haven't had time, but that's a total lie. Every time I come over here to do something like, say, add people, I end up in advanced customization trying to create new and exciting if statements.

Adventures in Bad Customization

If anyone wants it, by the way, I did figure out, sort of, how to put the username below the icon if you want your name/usericon to the right in entries and on the Reading Page, but it's makeshift until I can go over the entire css and functions by hand and remove the older code.

You'll have to do this in Advanced Customization from Your Layers. I think it could be done thematically, but off the top of my head, I'm not sure how.

Add that to your CSS.

.eidentity {
float:right;
text-align:right;
width: 150px;
}

In the Page::print_entry() section in advanced customization, do this:


"""div class="eidentity"""";
$e->print_userpic();
$e->print_poster();
"""/div""";

(add the > and < back in when using. I cannot figure out how to keep the code untouched, and raw doesn't work, darn it.)

Basically, you create a div class to put it in, limit the size, and it forces the name below the userpic. And they really try to sit by each other. I mean, I gave up doing this in comments, because it was just breaking the comment box unless I px'ed everything to an exact size and no one wants that.

Drawbacks: Names below six characters still float up beside it on the left. Lowering the width, however, make long names or long feeds vanish or hide. So I compromise because my Reading Page was driving me nuts.

You may have to play with this to make it work; I did about a dozen tries that all *should* have worked and didn't until this one did. I was trying display:block and some seriously unholy looking CSS at W3 before this one suddenly worked. The only other option I found so far--again, I'm making this needlessly complex, so keep in mind I start complex and messy and then streamline it once it looks like I want it to--is to do a lot of div classing and width percentaging, then use margins to stack the divs like sad little blocks. It was kind of horrifying. It was also funny. And three hours after I finished, I could not for the life of me work out how I did it even with my own documentation, it was that complicated and weird. And I'm fairly sure it would break probably half the browsers that tried to view it. I'm actually not sure this doesn't break for other people, come to think, but you can check my Reading Page and see if it lines up. Except for those short-named people, who just need to get longer names.

I think this is visible: you can find the entire current working code here. It's based off of Negative by Phoenix Dreaming, but still has tons of code I'm removing and changing as I figure out what everything does and discover strange things like removing entry-title suddenly kills my layout despite the fact I never use that class. Always an adventure. And let me tell you one day of the Great Hunt for how the hell to add a | between reply and comments, because the way I am doing it I hate, but tracing functions backward to their root is a new and exciting way to wonder about your own sanity! I'm beginning to put together a chart to trace what functions inherit from what properties, but I have a feeling that I'm getting it dramatically wrong.

If anyone found a better way to do the icon/name thing, please, please drop a line here. Otherwise, I will be haunted by finding a more efficient way. I'm just using too many divs.

Comments

[casspeach]

Just in case this: At least one person on my flist has given birth and I didn't know she was pregnant! was me, please don't worry about it. I didn't tell anyone I was, just kind of disappeared into 9 months of total exhaustion and did nothing but eat work and sleep.

But Merlin has made me come back to the intarwebs...he really is magic!

[seperis]

I remember that. I was in school full time and totally conquered SimCity and made sleep into an art form.

Merlin is love. *nodnodnod* And your contributions are beyond welcome. Like, yearned after with intent and whatnot.

[ratcreature]

Have you looked how existing styles that do this, like say Mixit, handle the formatting in their layers? Couldn't you just copy that? *is fairly clueless about the style system*

[seperis]

Yes, but the problem is, some of them aren't compatiable with my style. It's--irritating. If I knew better what the functions were doing that I can't see, it would be somewhat easier, but so far, that's not working well. *sighs* So it's trial and error.

[lilithilien]

Wow! Thanks so much for this -- I'm bookmarking it to play with later this weekend.

Also wanted to drop a note to say that I've subscribed to you and to say "hi!" I'd friended you on LJ after reading your ZOMG AMAZING Merlin stories, but then just lurked on your journal. I thought I should at least pop in and say hi. So, hi!

[seperis]

Hi! God I have missed Merlin reading. I feel like I'm in withdrawal. Must finish fic. MUST FINISH FIC FIRST.

[treewishes]

Sadly, even though I love your layout, I'm going to wait until there's a ticky box somewhere and I can pick it off a list :)

[seperis]

It's not perfectly up to current code yet, so probably for the best until it is. *g*

[forestgreen]

That looks impressive, *bookmarks for later*. I'm going to start playing with one thing at a time and see what happens.

[seperis]

IT IS A LOT OF FUn!

[snakeling]

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about CSS, and as far as I know there's no way to do it without modifying Page::print_entry() as you did.

< = &lt;
> = &gt;

I'd also advise you to wrap your code in pre and code tags. And if you're feeling lazy, the HTML-for-LiveJournal Modification Tool will do it for you ;)

[seperis]

I am bookmarking that right now. Thank you!

I figured it would have to be at the CSS level to get the stack. I know I'm missing a hugely obvious way to do this, but doing it to the right is most of the problem. Lefting it was easy to make it stack.

[snakeling]

The problem is that to send it to the right, you need to float it, which removes it from the normal flow. And you have to float the userpic and the username separately, since they aren't in the same div. So to float them together, you need to put them in the same element by hacking the actual S2 function.

[seperis]

I actually tried putting every element in its own div, which worked--to a point. I'm wondering if forcing with a left margin so neither can get by each other and div them separately might help, but honestly, yeah, it's going to have to happen at the function level or switch to tables, which I'd rather not do.

My current obsession is working out how to get the divider between X Comments and Reply. The only way so far is to add it to the set text, which is--questionable--and print_interaction_links two function definitions are not what I'd call open to a lot of easy alteration. I'm kind of tempted to see if I can create my own function definition temporarily for it, or create a new function to handle it, but God knows what horror that would unleash mucking with the core functions.

Tempting, though.

[snakeling]

Aha! That one I can answer, because I worked it out :)

Here's the code (well, it's for the tags, but you can extrapolate):

.tag ul li {
	display: inline;
}


.tag ul li:before {
	content: ", ";
}

.tag ul li:first-child:before {
	content: "";
}

The only problem, but it's huge, is that the CSS cleaner will throw a fit if you use unicode characters such as "\00b7", which is the middle dot and which I wanted for the entry function links. I've settled on ~ for now, but I'm not really satisfied by it.

[seperis]

...you are brilliant. I should have thought of that, I noticed you could em the space between each of them. I didn't think to use that to insert a separator.

Hmm. You know, I wonder if you could define that?

Or use the seet text_default_separator and define it with what you want to use.

[ringspells]

I am somewhat css challenged; I can do some things, but for others I need to find help. So I don't know if this would work for you. I used a mixit style made for LJ, so I used Core1, and followed the instructions here to make the names show. (If, however, what you're trying to solve is the fact that in Core2, usernames show up far away from the userpic, then I'm pretty sure I was no help at all, sorry.)

[hermitsoul]

Thank you - this fixed my problem!

[ringspells]

Glad I could help!

[seperis]

NP. I'll go look and see if it has any tips. Thank you!

[lunasky]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Once I stopped being stupid and actually recompiled my layer, it worked like a charm. Thanks for the link!!

[cali]

Oh man that username thing was bugging the crap out of me. Thank you!

[lunasky]

OMG. Thank you for the icon/username thing. It's driving me batty. I mean, I recognize a lot of icons that my friends have, but not all of them. Is it because I'm using a Mixit style? I'll have to put some time into it tonight,

[seperis]

I think Mixit has it's own method, but if this helps, excellent!

[lunasky]

oh yay! I just tried the link given below and it totally fixed it right up. I'm off to go lavish some serious love. And much love to you too of course, cause otherwise, I'd have never found the solution!!!

[mrshamill]

I wish (I wish I wishIwish) I understood that, because dammit Jim, I'm a hardware geek not a software hack and I just don't get it. I want to customize my journal here and I really don't get it, and my husband (who freaking teaches HTML at the local CC) is no help at all, he just tells me I should be able to figure it out by now. Bastard.

sigh

[seperis]

I learn the hard, boring way--stare viciously at the code and break it thoroughly before working out how it broke. *nods solemnly*

[lunasky]

If it's any help, I found this guide really excellent (http://community.livejournal.com/thefulcrum/27856.html), and grrliz has lots of nifty mixit layouts to pick from. The only problem I've found is that the the usernames do disappear as well, but the fix is very simple and can be found here (http://dw-styles.dreamwidth.org/5062.html)

Sorry for the ugly links. I suck at html tonight.

[sami]

n-now I feel like a SHORT-USERNAMED FREAK :O

[seperis]

*solemn* You really are. ADD SOME LETTERS SO MY STYLE WILL NOT BREAK OKAY?

[scrollgirl]

What you said about Multiple Reading! I get why people want to take me off their LJs now that I've subbed them on DW, but for me? Two reading lists are better than one! Crossposting is good and I don't mind the overlaps, especially as most of us aren't stopping comments on LJ and I like seeing the different discussions.

I should make a Dreamwidth-slash-LiveJournal icon :D

[seperis]

YES THIS.

[scrollgirl]

I've been asked to make an alternate version with more innuendo. To wit: "switch the two logos so that the rigid LiveJournal stylus is poised to penetrate the center of the convoluted flowery Dreamwidth icon."

[seperis]

*falls over* Brilliant!

[anatsuno]

Found in the FAQ:

"If you want to temporarily disable auto-formatting for part of an entry you can use < raw-code > instead of < lj-raw >."

I have a feeling that it will work as well as the PRE or CODE tags, if not better.

[anatsuno]

oh, sorry, I might have misread! If that's what you tried that did not work for the code display you wanted, sorry for butting in stupidly!

[seperis]

No, that was my first choice too--I guess formatting it to HTML and then putting it in the raw code would probably do the trick to keep it visible correctly.

My pain is very great.

[everysecondtuesday]

I am pretty much reading about everyone else customizing and letting my journal stay as it is (it changed styles all on its own at one point! To one I liked much better!) until I feel like I've absorbed enough to not utterly break it when I go blundering through the styles customization.

[christycorr]

I know, right? All the crossposting is making my life much easier.

Anyway, hi! I've lurked around your LJ for Merlin-fic-reading purposes, but I figured I should be nice and add you properly on DW :)