1 Topic by pluto198 (edited by pluto198 2006-11-25 06:04)

  • Registered: 2006-11-25
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Topic: macbasement.com: unified site running punBB and WordPress

I've completely unified my website, with punBB and WordPress running together.  I feel pretty strongly about my sites having a unified / simple feel.  As opposed to my punBB install looking different from my WordPress install, both looking different from my Dreamweaver HTML pages.

I've actually set up a template in Dreamweaver, so that when I change and save the template, it changes the main.tpl template for punBB and the index.php template for WordPress.  So I can make a change to the layout once, and it affects every page on my site.  I love it.

Most recently, I've eliminated punBB's style chooser in favor of a site-wide style picker at the bottom of every page. (currently I have two styles, I can always add more)...  The only downside is that the preference is saved with a cookie (local) rather than in the database (server), but I'm not concerned about it now.

I learned a lot of CSS in the process.  And I've fallen in love with CSSEdit 2.0, I wouldn't have had the time to do all of this without it.  CSSEdit is neat because you can override an online stylesheet with a local one on your harddrive, to preview and find problems live before you upload.

I'd appreciate if you'd take a look and tell me what you think, or if you find any major problems (*cough* IE *cough*):
macbasement.com

2 Reply by hcgtv

  • hcgtv
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Re: macbasement.com: unified site running punBB and WordPress

Glad you chose PunBB for your discussions.

One suggestion I would make would be to get rid of the box look of PunBB, make it more like the front end, where text floats on the background color. You can see it on one of my forums, it's a white background but you'll get the idea.

PHPCrossRef . TXP Make . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . We Love TXP

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  • sirena
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Re: macbasement.com: unified site running punBB and WordPress

I'd also suggest re-working your macbasementlogo.png image.

The transparency doesn't work in my Windows IE6. So what you end up with is a horrible looking light brown rectangle with 'macbasement.com' written it it, showing off all sorts of ugly jaggies around the font too.

Not a good look.

It's a known problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294714

Looks fine in Firefox 1.5 and Opera though.

Maybe a .gif would be a safer bet if you want that transparency to happen.

There is still a lot of IE6 about.

  • Registered: 2006-11-25
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Re: macbasement.com: unified site running punBB and WordPress

Thanks for the feedback...

sirena,  is it possible that you don't have javascript enabled in IE?  I have a javascript on every page that fixes PNGs in IE.  I've tested it on IE6 (XP SP2), and seems to be fine.  Even when you change the BG color with my style picker, the PNGs look fine on the new background.  That's very strange that it doesn't work for you.

5 Reply by pluto198 (edited by pluto198 2006-11-27 00:28)

  • Registered: 2006-11-25
  • Posts: 4

Re: macbasement.com: unified site running punBB and WordPress

Oh, and I forgot to check if it validated with w3c... I spent some time last night getting rid of over 40 errors.  Still looks pretty much the same, but at least now I can say it validates.  wink

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http: … ement.com/

Does anyone have a problem with the text?  Too much text? 

Too many different styles of text (serif, sans-serif, caps, lowercase, bold, italic...)?  Some other people were telling me to simplify the text a bit, but I thought the different styles helped to differentiate between the different elements of the page...

EDIT:  I've made majority of the text sans-serif instead of serif.  That should improve the readability a bit.

  • sirena
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Re: macbasement.com: unified site running punBB and WordPress

pluto198 wrote:

Thanks for the feedback...

sirena,  is it possible that you don't have javascript enabled in IE?  I have a javascript on every page that fixes PNGs in IE.  I've tested it on IE6 (XP SP2), and seems to be fine.  Even when you change the BG color with my style picker, the PNGs look fine on the new background.  That's very strange that it doesn't work for you.

Nope, javascript is running and working fine. IE6 on Win2k is what I use for my IE browsing.

IE does report the following (strange) script error though, FWIW:

Line:5
Char:1
Code:0
Error:Access is denied.

URL:http://macbasement.com/

which may be in your styleswitcher.js.

(I generally think it is not optimal to rely on a javascript to make simple images like this view properly, whatever the browser - just my point of view...).

The BG color changer works nicely, but doesn't alter the problem.