Earlier, Alan & I were talking on another thread about allowing users to register to the site, upgrading the blog core files, and making it look nice. It’s starting to get a bit hard to follow, so I thought I’d use my new-found powers and write my first post about it.
To summarise, I asked Alan if we could register so that we could follow our own comments easier and suchlike. Within a few hours, he’d agreed and checked all of the boxes to make this happen. For the moment, the link is /wp-register.php, but a site meta box is something I’m hoping to add somewhere to make it easier to login/logout/register.
Then I started talking about what version of WordPress Alan was using on here, was it the stable version, or the very pretty AJAXed beta version that;s due to come out soon. Alan responded by upgrading the blog core, which has lead to improvements such as threaded comments (so you know what comment responds to what) and a better looking dashboard for those choose to register.
A few more hours went by and I noticed a couple of small visual flaws caused by the new features, like a bullet-point appearing next to the comments, and I offered my help to Alan. Now, I’ve been promoted to an ‘Administrator’ level, and I can edit the template files online. I’ve already fixed the bullet-point issue, and have plans to shorten the indents of the threaded comments as well as ensure that the alternate colour shading works as it should.
So, why start a new post?
Well, I figured I wasn’t the only person who could see things on the blog that weren’t quite right somehow. So, if you see something that needs to be fixed, leave a comment down here and I’ll try my best to fix it. When I’m done, I’ll reply to your comment (if it doesn’t look fixed, try pressing Ctrl+F5).
erm a couple of things – you might want to check the timezone info – it seems to be a couple of hours off (i assume its UK time?)
also, how do you change the avatar? mines some weird green blob… :s
yep the time is way out on the server. Fixing that now and setting up NTP to keep it right. The avatars use a Gravatar if you have one and generate a little monster from your email address if you don’t. The point is to ensure that someone else can’t impersonate you because they don’t know your email address and if they claimed to be philwc they would have a different little monster.
lets see what time it thinks it is now
hmm, an hour out. At least the minutes are right now. The console gets the time right so it must be a zone thing somewhere.
found it I think, on the wordpress settings menu there is a timezone control with this comment:
Unfortunately, you have to manually update this for Daylight Savings Time. Lame, we know, but will be fixed in the future.
I must say it is quite exciting to turn the blog into more of a community forum, congratulations on your first post, and thanks for the improvements you have made.
I quite like my avatar.
haha, sounds fun!
Thanks for the info about avatars, i may go and get a gravatar now!
Quick question – how do you generate the monsters? do you have a list of monsters, or parts? or is it all generated on the fly?
it is a Monster ID http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/monsterid put together from parts.
Yeah, erm, it’s nice to post on here.
I’m wondering how long it’ll be until ubuntu webbooks take off en masse and they all find this blog? At that point, I think you may start learning phpBB…
Thanks for the info on Gravatars – I’m off to make one!
As for site improvements, no problem. As you’ll see from http://www.medicaladmissions.co.uk/blog/ I’ve had to create a very very customised theme for total integration. Next task for that one is to add the threaded comments functionality of 2.7!
Just an update, in case Alan and everybody else was wondering why nothing has changed (yet)…
Having put the new comments loop onto my own blog – http://www.medicaladmissions.co.uk/blog/ – I’ve figured out editing things is not quite as simple as I’d like it to be (at least not when my own theme pulls from the site’s master css files…)
My plan is to now figure out what I’m doing with my own blog, and work out how to write the css for it, and what does what. Then I’ll bring some of the ideas onto here for Alan.
That reminds me, Alan, what colour would you like all of your comments to be? I can make any named author comments a certain colour if you choose (once I’ve done this, for example, all of mine and my colleagues posts on http://www.medicaladmissions.co.uk will be the white text on a dark blue background)!
Hi Alan & Matt,
Thanks for setting this up. Hopefully I’ll be able to see what’s new since my last login now, instead of having to check all the different areas.
I’m not sure how to atm though, The frontpage shows new comments, but there’s no easy link to the blog entries inspiring them. Is that possible?
Cheers anyway
That’s part of the WordPress admin interface, and without access to Alan’s server, there’s nothing I can do. Having not played with the admin php files before, I can’t say I’d want to on somebody else’s blog, either…
Maybe what we should have is a box on the homepage of the site with recent comments – might be more useful than a monthly archive?
I would agree that the monthly archive doesn’t add much value, I want the home page to be useful and friendly to someone arriving at the site for the first time, hence the list of articles in descending order. A recent comments box would be good to have there.
Alan,
Will you do me a favour and update to the latest nightly build please?
I would use the automatic updating system, but it would appear to want and ftp username and password…
A few things have changed on the admin side, and I’d like to see them – also comment handling has had one or two minor tweaks!
The comments box now behaves properly!
You’ll notice that it moves up to the comment you are replying to if you have javascript enabled. If you don’t, it now shows who you are replying to in bold type.
I’ve spent the last half-hour trying to follow where Alan amended the code to make it 2.7 capable in order to find out where the mis-copy took place.
My suspicions were right, in that it was the call in the header that fetched the script, which I changed immediately. It then took me 5 minutes to check the comments file, and 20 minutes to figure out why nothing had changed – remind me never to install WP Super Cache. And sorry, Alan, but I had to wipe all of your cached files!
As you can plainly see now, the colour-coding is looking more like something is happening.
The blue/white alternation is working, except one small problem, post author comments are in a gray shading, pingbacks are yellow. Alan still hasn’t picked his favourite colour!
Another update:
We have recent comments (of a kind) on the home page, and I’m going to try and get a hold of the “proper” code to make it look like a normal WP recent comments lists.
I’m wondering now if people want a tag cloud to maybe feature as banner across the top of the homepage – to show what Alan is blogging about most often?
And secondly, a lot more obvious are the “Login | Register” or “Logout | Site Admin” links on the top right of every page. I’ve added them because people were always asking how to register – well, there you go, click the link! Lol.
Hi all
Thought it about time I actually registered !! I’ve posted a couple of bits on here before, just signed as Tony
Cheers