Site Name: Peace, Love, & Bubblewrap

URI: http://sally.lunaescence.com/project/PLB2/layout.htm

Category: Personal, Blog

Dates Used: Not Used Yet

Design Type: Site Template (WordPress)

Description: I wasn’t happy with my first attempt at a “Peace, Love, & Bubblewrap” layout. I took the general idea and attempt something completely different.

This is an experimental design for my personal blog. I wanted to test the limits of my ability to create an iconic, vector layout in Photoshop and Illustrator.

It’s still a work in progress, but the basic design and layout is complete. A very fluid design, the sidebar should neatly become a second footer at smaller resolutions.

Credits: Fonts used include Century Gothic and Verdana. Butterfly vector created using this stock photo by Kayne-Stock@DeviantArt.com as reference.

Introduction
The one basic problem with Web design is that each and every browser is different. The way they render HTML or parse CSS differ depending on both browser, browser version, and all the other things “under the hood.” I don’t know the number of times I’ve had something looking really fantastic and then one browser decides it isn’t going to play nice. That browser could be Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, or any of the others.

At this point you have several options. In this article, I cover basic browser detection using a simple PHP script. Browser detection isn’t always a good idea, mainly because it isn’t foolproof and can be seen as a lazy way out of the problem. However, I have had requests to help people with browser detection.

So let’s start with what we need: We need a way to tell what browsers our visitors are using and display specific content based on what they’re using.

One really nice thing is most browsers declare themselves to the Web sites they visit. We only have to ask for the information and it will usually be supplied. I say “usually” because there are some caveats, of course. As I said above, this isn’t foolproof.

To use this method, you must have a Web host that supports PHP. This probably won’t work on a free hosting service like Yahoo! Geocities, Quizilla, or Tripod.

Description: Places a mandatory limit on how long a summary can be. If the summary exceeds the limit, the user is kicked back to the preview screen with the notice that they have to shorten their summary.

Summary length is controlled in your admin settings, under “Submissions.” If a limit is in place, a small notice appears above your summary field on story submissions notifying your users of the limit. If you turn it off, nothing appears.

To turn it on, simply type in a length. (I suggest at least 750 – 1000 characters.) To turn it off, set it to 0.

This was originally a 2.0 mod, but frankly — it’s a much easier, neater, and more sophisticated mod on 3.0.

As usual, my line numbers are only there as a reference to put you in the general ballpark. They will likely change as you progress through the mod.

This always bears repeating: Please be sure to backup your files and database before you begin this or any other mod.

Requirements: eFiction 3.2.1

Difficulty: Easy – Intermediate (Depends on how well you follow my instructions.)

Files Involved:

• admin/settings.php
• includes/storyform.php
• stories.php
• languages/en.php
• languages/en_admin.php
• 1 Database Modification

Modification History:
- 22 March, 2007 — Mod Released

Modification & Support: eFiction.org

Instructions:

It would be so much easier to keep my project RSS feed up-to-date if I actually updated every time I released a mod, instead of doing it 3 – 6 months later. ^^;

What’s sad, is that it seems to be getting a lot of use. Pretty funny for something I rarely think of. Anyway, still working on moving my eFiction mods here for my portfolio. I got that horribly long story disclaimer mod added this morning and

I wonder if I should include my fanlisting script? That’s entirely stand-alone, though not the prettiest in terms of code. It’s something I made just to see if I could do it, so it’s technically my first script that’s 100% mine.

Need to figure out how I’m going to hook up the screenshots in my portfolio too.

Description: I originally had this bright idea to write up a detailed guide to putting php in your TPLs, but my schoolwork is keeping me from doing anything decent.

Please note that I have not had the chance to try this out, but according to the Template Power web site it is possible. The keyword throughout this entire post is “should” — meaning theoretically, it should work.

At any rate, there are two ways you can do this easily. The way you do it depends on how ambitious you’re feeling. This should work in 3.0 and 2.0 but again — don’t quote me on that.

As usual, please be sure to make backups in case I’m wrong. ^^;;

Requirements: eFiction 2.0 or greater, Template Power 3.01 (should already be included)

Difficulty: Easy

Modification History:
May 31, 2006: Released untested instructions for eFiction 2.0
March 21, 2006: Determined that these instructions should also apply to eFiction 3.0

Instructions:

Ugh, it’s amazing how quickly a night goes when you have homework due and the deadline is ticking down. ^^;

It’s suddenly 3:00am. I swear just 20 minutes ago it was midnight.

I found the coolest plugin, so now I can host all my modifications here too. I already have Last Visit 3.0 done. So that’s going to be really cool.

Anyway, please bear with me. I have some final things to fix tomorrow and this layout should be complete.