Wed 5 Nov 2008
Wordpress Requests
Posted by David under All Things EphBlog at 11:16 am
Following some discussions with the Board, your crack EphBlog technical team is currently looking to change our Wordpress theme. Any suggestions? President Dick Swart ‘57 ‘56 thinks that a three column theme is the best approach. We also want to implement Soph Mom’s idea for an permanent Open Thread that readers could easily add comments to. Our search box also needs improvement. Are there are other Wordpress widgets that you would recommend?
Apologies in advance for any technical snafus that result. We hope to have the new version up by Friday.
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33 Responses to “Wordpress Requests”
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Dick Swart says:
Just that. with all respect for the great Class of 1957, I am a member of the great Class of 1956!
November 5th, 2008 at 11:31 amdsuo says:
Here are our two finalists:
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/nearly-sprung
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/mts-journey
Please keep in mind that they look much, much better when filled out with EphBlog content. Opinions? Any further suggestions for 3 column layouts?
November 5th, 2008 at 12:31 pmkthomas says:
On quick viewing, Nearly-Sprung looks tighter in composition and not to mix sans-serif and serif; MTS Journey appears to have higher sizings and may be a bit more readable for those of declining eyesight.
Thanks for the work!
November 5th, 2008 at 1:07 pmPareskyLawnBowler says:
Wow, those are both pretty hideous – YMMV.
How about going the pro route – somebody willing to buck up less than $100?
http://diythemes.com/thesis/
Plus, the theme name is “thesis” – bonus!
Also, for better archive browsing
http://www.viper007bond.com/wordpress-plugins/clean-archives-reloaded/
November 5th, 2008 at 1:46 pmRonit says:
Nearly Sprung is absolutely hideous. MTS Journey could work with a few tweaks.
I’d like to recommend this for a simple 3-column theme with tabs and lots of room for widgets:
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/disciple
One of the tabs can be used for “Open Discussion” or “Forum” or whatever… Keeps it central to the site but separate from the blog…
Can we start with a simple theme and then let someone work on making it visually EphBloggy? I’ll gladly volunteer to do CSS tweaks as long as there aren’t too many sci-fi intrusions built into the theme.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:48 pmPareskyLawnBowler says:
Another couple of nice, free, clean three column designs from the same designer.
http://www.briangardner.com/themes/silhouette-wordpress-theme.htm
http://www.briangardner.com/themes/vertigo-wordpress-theme.htm
Is there some sort of stylistic aesthetic you are shooting for here?
November 5th, 2008 at 3:16 pmDick Swart says:
Yes!
http://1956ephs.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-yes-there-is.html
November 5th, 2008 at 3:42 pmRonit says:
I like both of the themes in comment #6.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:43 pmlgeorge says:
Is there any way to make EB like WSO so that can see a thread list showing when the last comment was and by whom? I think a lot of us who can’t be checking EB all the time are missing out on many threads; they get swallowed on the side list the one that shows the threads and who has recently commented on them) by threads attracting a lot of comments.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:53 pmPTC says:
I have been unable to post for several months now.. not sure why. Any way that could change?
November 5th, 2008 at 5:01 pmDavid Kane says:
Something that looks good and our readers like. I have the worst aesthetic sense imaginable, so my judgment is useless. One request I have received is that the site look as a similar as possible, i.e., that we keep the same picture and W symbol at the top as now.
Do others agree with Ronit on the niceness of the themes in #6? (Ronit is one of the board members most likely to add special hacks to the theme going forward, so I am biased in favor of picking a theme that he likes.
I agree that this would be nice. But keep in mind that this fix-up is not the rewrite-EphBlog-in-Drupal-so-we-can-do-anything exercise that I had hoped to do last summer and still hope to do in 2009. This fix-up is the add-stuff-already-built-by-someone-else-in-Wordpress exercise. So, we need to find a widget that does this. Suggestions for this (or other widgets)?
November 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pmlgeorge says:
Was hurried when I wrote #9. Too many typos. What I meant:
Is there any way to make EB like WSO so that one can see a thread list showing when the last comment on the thread was posted and by whom? I think a lot of us who can’t be checking EB all the time are missing out on many threads: they get swallowed on the side list (the one on the right that shows the threads that have most recently been commented on and who has recently commented on them) by threads attracting a lot of comments.
An alternative that might help if it is available would be to be able to click on the recent comment list and open up an expanded list of hot-linked comments, so that one could glance over a much longer list linked to recent comments.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:03 pmkthomas says:
Testing. Testing.
November 6th, 2008 at 11:52 pmkthomas says:
Sorry about that. How about this way?
Darn. Where have the numbers gone?
November 7th, 2008 at 12:12 amkthomas says:
Evidently you’re going to have to implement them yourself.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:24 amKen Thomas '93 says:
Hello. You may notice that EphBlog has changed slightly. Please note that these changes are entirely experimental. Feel free to explore.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:26 amsophmom says:
I am trying out this new comment box.
sophmom says:
Also, the ‘Reply to this comment’ isn’t working on my mac. The box appears but then I can’t click into it.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:35 amKen Thomas '93 says:
It seems to have suddenly failed. Disabling…
November 7th, 2008 at 1:58 amKen Thomas '93 says:
Live previews? Testing…
November 7th, 2008 at 1:59 amLarry George says:
It seems to be picking my comments from my mac.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:38 amLarry George says:
Ahem. Cough. Cough. As we try to move away from being a site dominated by the vision of the founder (with grateful applause sent his way), maybe we could start a process of changing the header for a new Williams look. I could imagine a contest. Not just now, but let’s think about it.
The lack of comment numbers this morning as the technical people try to make changes reinforces to me how useful a tool they are in discussions.
As always, thank you very much to the wizards. Good luck with implementing desired changes without picking up undesired ones.
And because this is the Eve of the Game, I don’t want to miss an opportunity to say, “Go Ephs!”
November 7th, 2008 at 8:48 amsophmom says:
To Tech:
Some of the new options are really nice…but I am concerned about the reversal of comment sequence. I think it works fine for casual, light commentary, but is not conducive to a substantive post and argument.
As well, I think it will produce a lot of commentary that hasn’t taken the entire sequence into consideration, which will cause confusion (more than our usual!) in a running argument. Does the ‘Reply to this comment’ serve to keep that under control?
P.S. I know this is a work in progress, but just in case you haven’t yet noticed, many of the threads are out of sequence.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:55 pmLarry George says:
Agree with this recent comment by Soph Mom (no post # # are available today):
2008-11-07 12:55:42
To Tech:
Some of the new options are really nice…but I am concerned about the reversal of comment sequence. I think it works fine for casual, light commentary, but is not conducive to a substantive post and argument.
As well, I think it will produce a lot of commentary that hasn’t taken the entire sequence into consideration, which will cause confusion (more than our usual!) in a running argument.
Asking for the comment order to be reversed seemed good in the abstract, but the drawbacks I’m seeing would seem to outweigh the advantages. I keep suggesting that we look at mirroring what WSO does, in terms of having a thread list, with the thread most recently commented upon at the top (and showing who the last commenter was and how long ago it was made). Is that possible, or are we limited to what Word Press allows? The WSO format works so well for keeping up with multiple threads, not having lightly-trafficked threads overwhelmed, and keeping up with how active a thread is.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:30 pmkthomas says:
Here’s the reverse ordering. Better?
A WSO-like comments monitor would be great, but looks to be somewhat harder to implement in WP.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:49 pmsophmom says:
I personally think so, Ken, but look forward to hearing what others have to say.
Another note: What is the purpose of the separate pages, 1,2,3, of one thread? Will that eventually move to the bottom if you keep the sequence from top to bottom?
Also, the most recent comment in the comments strip on the front of the page, doesn’t take you to that comment.
Again, I hope I’m not jumping the gun with these notes, considering this is all a work in progress. If so, let me know.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:38 pmPTC says:
I like the current theme.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:25 amI do think you should make the “recent comments” section longer, and put a date next to the comments and give the ability to scroll to older comments, like you can with the webpage.
Larry George says:
Testing. Repeatedly have not been able to post since yesterday afternoon (running Safari on my Mac). No comment numbers. Comment order is scrambled and fluctuating on several threads.
Thanks for trying to make changes, tech folks. I’m sure it is frustrating.
And it’s the big day. Go Ephs!
November 8th, 2008 at 7:49 amLarry George says:
Looks like I can comment again. Thanks.
Is there any way to create a pool of past comments so that I could go in and see all the comments (needn’t be broken up by thread) that had been posted in the last 24 hours, all in one stream, rather than having to go into the archives and check thread by thread? Having a WSO-like thread list would be better, but this could accomplish much of the same thing, albeit inelegantly.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:55 amGuy Creese '75 says:
My request would be to go for readability and good looks. For a college that’s famous for its art department, it’s amazing that Ephblog has decided that a puke green background mixing with the purple at the top is a fashion statement.
November 8th, 2008 at 10:46 amhwc says:
OK. This threading thing is not working out. I saw in the recent comments box on the right that Guy ‘75 had posted a comment. So I come to this thread to see what he had to say and I had to search to even find it. It wasn’t first on the list. It wasn’t last on the list. It was buried in the middle of three pages of comments.
It seems to me that the most basic level of functionality is to be able to find the most recent post in a thread. Anything hindering that is a step backwards.
November 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pmLarry George says:
The puke green is gone right now. I like that.
I’d rather be beating Amherst, though.
November 8th, 2008 at 2:00 pmkthomas says:
Please keep in mind that all changes are entirely experimental.
I have eliminated paging, which broke permalinking/”magic links” to posts. ‘Recent Comments’ should currently take you to to the post itself. YMMV with further suggested innovations such as a WSO-style comment display.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:44 pm