zvi likes tv

I'm so far behind on the 21 questions meme, I don't know if I'll ever catch up.

However, I do have something to offer people who are interested in Dreamwidth.

/* max-height for syndicated journals on reading page */
.page-read .journal-type-Y .entry-content {
max-height: 75em;
overflow: auto;
}

ETA, since several people pointed out it was useful.

/* max-height for syndicated journals on network page */
.page-network .journal-type-Y .entry-content {
max-height: 75em;
overflow: auto;
}

The bit of CSS above, when added to your custom CSS will keep syndicated feed entries to about 60 lines. If the entry goes longer than that, browsers should provide an internal scrollbar for the entry.

The one exception I have found so far is Dolphin HD browser, a very good Android browser, which simply cuts the text off once it reaches its max-height. Because the lines are shorter, entries reach the max-height very quickly on my phone, especially if they have pictures.

I wrote up some info about using the styles wizard, because the last big discussion we had on styles showed that a lot of people didn't realize all of the things that you can do just with the wizard. I wrote up this walk through, but, at this point, I can't tell if it (a) makes sense or (b) is useful.

Let me know if there's anything too confusing or that's really unnecessary, let me know if there are any blatant errors. I'll post it to getting_started once I'm satisfied with it, and offer it to the docs team as the basis of a guide. (I don't write for official Dreamwidth docs because the official style guide has some stylistic decisions I can't support.)

---

A good while ago, there was a discussion about how to organize Select Styles. Reading that discussion was pretty disheartening, because so much of what people were asking for is already available with most official styles.

I'm going to walk you through selecting a style, so you can see how you can use the style selector to choose a theme and use the wizard to make a style your own.

( A few introductory notes )

( Picking a layout )

I'm going to use Tabula Rasa as the example for walking through the wizard. As I said above, 95% of the styles implement 95% or more of the options I discuss below. Some of the styles have extra options, a few of the styles have fewer options, and none of this applies to Zesty.

( We're Off to See The Wizard )

That's the basics of what you need to know to modify your style. As you can see, a lot of the ways people would like to search for styles don't apply (e.g. columns, modules available) don't apply, because they are selectable through the wizard or they are standardized for all of the styles.

There is one option people are very interested in which is dependent on style. Unfortunately, we don't have a way to search to tell you where in the entry the style displays the icon. There is a bug to make left or right side of entry something one can select in all approved styles, but it's slow going because the CSS can be fairly complicated and we haven't made people submitting new styles supply this feature.

The other option people expressed interest in searching for was fixed width versus flexible width. All of the official styles are fluid width layouts.

---

One thing people expressed an interest in doing that the style system makes somewhat difficult to do is preserving a particular set of wizard changes. There is a way to (more or less) do that, but it is a hack and requires being a little bit adventurous.

( How to save the Wizard )


( Some vocabulary. )

Put some padding on the the main body of your story. Just 1 em, hell, I'll take half an em. But don't put the text up against the absolute edge of the window. It doesn't look good, I promise you. Just a little white space to let your eyes rest, I'm begging you.

I mean, I have a bookmarklet that gives me useful margins, but I think we'd both be happier if you just put in margins to begin with.

I'd be happier, and, as we all know, it's all about me.

I just applied for a Dreamhack. I just want to roll my own style patches, because this thing where people keep asking fu about changes to make to Easyread is getting on my goddamn nerves. (Not that afuna has been less than awesome, or that it doesn't make sense to ask the person touching the code what's the what. It's just fucking annoying.)

Also, apparently every theme you make gets you two months paid time. I have made a lot, but, uh, my journal is a seed account, and the comm paid features are still pretty anemic, so I'm going to give it away.

I don't want to do random paid account fairy, because I want to make sure it's going to someone who uses Dreamwidth. So, the people in my circle who use Dreamwidth and have free accounts, I've put on my mental list. But there are people subscribed to me on Dreamwidth who are active users that I don't know about. (P.S. Billy, do you want paid time? I didn't put you on the list because I didn't think you would use it, but let me know.)

So, tell me how many entries you've made (to your DW journal or in DW comms) in the past three months and how many comments you've made, and I'll give a couple months' paid time to the most active free people. Comments screened.

Oh, and if you're not subscribed to me, you can still comment. But, uh, be aware that there's probably only enough paid time to give to ten people outside my circle, and there's hundreds of accounts subscribed to me. (Although, no way of telling if those accounts are actively reading DW or not.) In any case, many may enter, few will win.

P.S. The quick and dirty method for making a color change theme.

I submitted some themes and was surprised as to which wound up in dw-free and which wound up in dw-nonfree. Is there a list somewhere which would tell a person who doesn't want to set up a dreamhack or cvs which layouts are free and which are non-free?

Also, would any of you have interest in me telling you the quick and dirty way of creating a color only theme layer? (And, yes, I really do mean both quick and dirty. It's not ideal, but it works sufficiently well that I've written up, er, six or seven in the past couple of days, mostly when it's very late at night but I don't quite feel like going to bed yet.)