[geeklog-devel] GL 1.5 test site user login

Fri Nov 2 01:35:07 EDT 2007


Dirk Haun wrote:
> =MF=Geiss wrote:
>
>   
>> http://geiss.getmyip.com/gl15/
>>     
>
> I always thought the theme looked like a cross between the Wordpress
> default theme and the iPhone ;-) Take that as an observation, not a
> valuation of any kind ...
>
>   
LOL! perhaps I should change the name of the theme from "nouveau" to 
"itheme" :-)
> Anyway, a few things I noticed, in no particular order:
>
> - My browser window is something like 720 pixels wide (canvas size) and
> I get a horizontal scrollbar even though there's nothing apparent on the
> front page that would need that much space. How good does this theme scale?
>
>   
I made some tweaks tonight and I believe I fixed it. Let me know if it 
works for you. In researching it, it seems to be a well known bug in IE. 
Gotta love those IE quirks.
> I see, for example, that on the calendar index page, the column for
> Saturday is partially hidden by the right side block while the colum
> heading and the mini calendar above it are overlapping the right side
> block (screenshots on request).
>
>   
Yeah, I'll need a screenshot for that, as I can't reproduce what you 
describe on FF2, Opera 9, Safari for PC, or IE6/7. Nobody has commented 
on why with the {right_blocks} variable being called in header.thtml, 
the right blocks aren't being dropped on pages that by default only 
render the left blocks and content area. The calendar is an example of 
this. I think the calendar would have adequate area if the rightblocks 
disappeared as they should be doing. Thoughts? :-)
> - I always thought the Professional theme had too many horizontal lines
> thrown in. Have you tried leaving out the horizontal lines between side
> blocks and between stories?
>   
> - Speaking of side blocks: To me it looks odd that the light grey
> background of the left side blocks just ends somewhere in the middle of
> the page. Likewise on the right side, only that there are more blocks
> there so it's not as obvious. Shouldn't the grey background end flush
> with the footer, like it does with the header?
>
> Alternatively, the side blocks could have a proper border at the bottom,
> like they do on their right and left side (where they border with the
> content area), respectively.
>   
I agree, and made some tweaks tonight to the block layout. Thoughts? I 
haven't gotten to reworking the stories layout yet, but it's on my list. 
:-)
> - Looking at the site in Lynx (/me can hear the groans ...) I notice
> that the content of both the left and the right side blocks comes first
> before you get to the actual site content, e.g. the articles. That could
> have some impact with search engines.
>   
Yep. That's the tradeoff when doing a css layout as you really need to 
call the right and left floated content first, so they have their space 
allotted in the page, prior to rendering a 100% width div (for fluid 
center columns). If they are called after the main content, they 
typically don't have enough room and get pushed down below the content 
area. If anyone has some ideas, I'm all ears. :-)
> This is also something visually impaired users would have to struggle
> with. There's an old feature request for this, actually, from which I'm
> quoting some portions below:
>
> --- snip ---
> Geeklog with professional theme is not very accessible for blind
> computer users.
> ( I am self blind and to use computer I use screenreader JAWS, http://
> www.freedomscientific.com)
>
> suggestions:
> 1. add to header.thtml between <body> and start of content (menu, search
> form or ...) 
>     <a href="#content_start"><img src="{site_url}/images/speck.gif"
>     width="1" height="0" alt="skip navigation"></a>
> and to the end of header.thtml
>     <a name="content_start" id="content_start"></a>
> this modification creates top of the page link with very litle picture
> (heigth/width 1:0) and alt text (alt text is visible to the screenreader
> users) and anchortag to jump directly to the content area.
> string "skip navigation/jump to the content... must be in language file.
>
> (...)
>
> 3.
> problem with search field (simple search) 
> search field don't have descriptive text
> possible solution: add to input tag (<input type="text" ... 
> title atribute with descriptive text
> descriptive tekst from language file
> --- snip ---
>
>   
Added items 1 and 3 above to the theme. Let me know if you find any 
issues. Thanks for the feedback! :-)
> bye, Dirk
>
>
>