Sunday, October 08, 2006

So what do you reckon?

For those who can't see for one reason or another, I have been fiddling with my Template in a dramatic fashion. I hope this might make it easier to read.

I have considerable difficult reading long lines of text, but I also struggle finding the next line. I hope this may be a happy medium, but I really would appreciate feedback; I am no expert on web accessibility so there may be something major I have missed.

I stole the template from Thur's Templates and I've probably not finished playing with it.

Yes, yes, I am working. Actually now my cold has just about cleared, I'm feeling pretty good and pretty positive about the editing process. But one does get easily distracted...

Actually this font is too small (or the font I have realised I am writing in at the point I posted this - it may be a better size by the time you read it).

8 comments:

Mary said...

It is just a smidge of a bit too long a line for me... but then I have a wide screen for gaming purposes. If I was on a square screen it might arrange itself differently.

Anonymous said...

Works fine from a Linux/Firefox view (although I probably don't show up that way in NetMeter) and it's good to change dress style periodically.
The pop-up comment box works though I'm more used to the normal style. Having said that, it's useful to see original post and comments in adjacent windows.
Your line length can seem long in a large browser window. If I resize the window, it wraps perfectly, both for your main blog and your pop-up comments.
The content is clear and if the font is a pixel too large for my eyes, it's a doddle to press Ctrl-Minus and tame it. Much more important for me, is whether your presentation makes it easy for you to deliver such lovely writing.

Purely to satisfy curiosity, I directed a console based browser at it (ELinks) to get a feel for how it might appear on a handheld device, and that worked fine. You may have no readers who use these things but if you do, I have a very minor suggestion.
On the tiny screens of things like Palms, the first thing your blog presents is your sidebar. It takes a few moments to scroll through this to get to the content. Although I'm no professional expert, it's possible to provide a small link, visible in these things but not in regular browsers, similar to:
Go to Content
Go to Menu
I use this myself, at 20Six, though still need to add it to my blogspot. If you feel it's needed, then I can provide more detailed information (it's quite an easy template edit, CSS and HTML). Otherwise, please do ignore my rambling.

I am dizzily looking down from the elevated heights of what I assume is a minor mishap in the re-shuffling of your links. Please feel free to return me to the tradesman's entrance or the trashcan the next time you shuffle.

Anonymous said...

Looks good. I have a widescreen, too, but my browser is only at about 2/3 of the width.

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't a font without seriphes be more easily readible on a computer screen?

Mary said...

of course, resizing the window, how stupid of me.

*goes to stand in the corner*

The Goldfish said...

Thanks guys,

Bunnyman - You may have opened a can of worms there. ;-)

Having had you point this out about little readers., I realised that this also means that the Googlebots will read through my links first before they read the main content, so they might not get a representative idea of my content, as it were. Not that I have google-rankings to defend; I mostly steal the traffic for people wanting advice on how to care for pet goldfish.

Anyway, the easiest way to solve both these problems would be to shake my html document about such that the "Main" content, i.e, the posts, are at the top of the html document, even though you or I would see them exactly as they are.

This ought to be possible, but so far the closest I have got to is persuading the sidebar to start where it ought to be, but the text of the sidebar not appearing until the bottom of the posts present on the page.

However, that's where I'm aiming for - that way it will look just the same but will be more accessible to both little readers and the bots. Still fiddling...

Anonymous - I am interested what others thing about that issue, but personally, I find that I get on better with serifs. I find it helps me to sooner identify the letters and the shape of the word. This may be due to nothing more than the fact that I am so used to looking at those fonts, in newspapers and books. Do you find otherwise?

Anonymous said...

Me wonders whether an easily distracted Goldfish should be looking at this right now, but one possible suggestion to the sidebar issue can be seen over here.

Have only tried this particular solution in Firefox and IE6. It's possible that browser bugs may cause it to break in other browsers.
This particular layout problem is very similar to one I'd been working on already. And yes, I was both bored and curious, always a fatal combination :)

There are probably other ways to tackle the problem. This is just one sample suggestion.

The Goldfish said...

Bunnyman, I have e-mailed you to thank you for your CSS heroics. :-)