Today, I did a major overhaul on the right sidebar. As the observant bloggophiliac
will note, I added borders to all of the images in the side bar and adjusted the margins.
Now to the casual observer, this appears to simply be an aesthetic change, and in many regards, this is a correct assessment. However, the real and dramatic change has actually occurred in the seedy "underbelly" of this blogsite, within the code itself.
But let me first provide some context. Take the "Book List" which I have toward the bottom of the right sidebar. Originally, I had to enter every aspect of the element, from position to the size of the book cover thumbnail. And even with all of this work, it still looked like crap; the picture was smashed into the text without any margin. But the biggest pain of all in this stoneage way of programming was that the command string (or whatever they call it) was long and cumbersome. Sure, when I added new books I would "cheat" by copying and pasting an old command line and replacing the relevent portions. However, it was still quite tedious wading through a command line that is several hundred characters long, and surprisingly un-difficult to make mistakes that ruin entire days.
Fortunately for me, I have finally bitten the bullet and learned a smattering of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS is great because it allows one to set parameters for entire blocks of data. Once these parameters are set, any additions to the specified data block will automatically reflect the parameters. Not only does this offer ease of use, but more importantly is significantly cuts down on the length of command line strings. And as anyone who has ever even looked at the source code of a web page, less clutter=happy faces and delightful conversation.
Despite my success at applying style sheets to all of the various images in my right side bar, I am far from being anywhere within a reasonable proximity of competent. However, I do take hope from my minor accomplishment.
It's really like anything in life: you have to keep trying, even if you fail. Well, except for skydiving. You pretty much have to get that right the first time...
will note, I added borders to all of the images in the side bar and adjusted the margins.Now to the casual observer, this appears to simply be an aesthetic change, and in many regards, this is a correct assessment. However, the real and dramatic change has actually occurred in the seedy "underbelly" of this blogsite, within the code itself.
But let me first provide some context. Take the "Book List" which I have toward the bottom of the right sidebar. Originally, I had to enter every aspect of the element, from position to the size of the book cover thumbnail. And even with all of this work, it still looked like crap; the picture was smashed into the text without any margin. But the biggest pain of all in this stoneage way of programming was that the command string (or whatever they call it) was long and cumbersome. Sure, when I added new books I would "cheat" by copying and pasting an old command line and replacing the relevent portions. However, it was still quite tedious wading through a command line that is several hundred characters long, and surprisingly un-difficult to make mistakes that ruin entire days.
Fortunately for me, I have finally bitten the bullet and learned a smattering of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS is great because it allows one to set parameters for entire blocks of data. Once these parameters are set, any additions to the specified data block will automatically reflect the parameters. Not only does this offer ease of use, but more importantly is significantly cuts down on the length of command line strings. And as anyone who has ever even looked at the source code of a web page, less clutter=happy faces and delightful conversation.
Despite my success at applying style sheets to all of the various images in my right side bar, I am far from being anywhere within a reasonable proximity of competent. However, I do take hope from my minor accomplishment.
It's really like anything in life: you have to keep trying, even if you fail. Well, except for skydiving. You pretty much have to get that right the first time...
2 comments:
I'm so impressed with how viewer friendly and aesthetically pleasing your blog is. You've got some serious skills with code- perhaps a mentorship is in order... you've inspired me to strive for greatness in the presentation of my ramblings!
I too am impressed. How did you get the reading list to look so good? Would you mind sharing some code or something? I hate the way mine looks and I'm jealous. But not so jealous so as to sin...
Really, how'd you get the book list like that? I can't get the text to go on the other side of the book and my book pictures have dumb amazon stuff on them.
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