I did some tinkering with the stylesheet over the weekend. Inspired by Virusdoc and Radical Congruency, I think I'm planning to move to a three collumn layout. I'll then have the 'dynamic' links (recent entries, categories, etc. Stuff that changes) on the right, and the 'static' links (the links, subscribe, email me, etc. Stuff that doesn't change) on the left. I've got a bunch more links I want to put up, but I don't want to until I get this done. Then I can put all the static stuff in one file and use server side includes to put it in all the other files. It'll make it easier to add stuff to it later, too.
So in preparation, I revised the callender to make it slimmer so I could then make the left menu slimmer. I also made room for the nonexistant right menu.
So far so good, this CSS stuff is a bit mind boggling. It doesn't seems as rational and clear as my engineer's brain would like it to be, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. While this is going on, you may visit and find things in disarray. Wait a few minutes and hit refresh and it should come back in order.
I like the new site design. AND--it fixed the long-standing problem where your left sidebar overlapped the text on my home monitor. I can now read the entirety of your posts!
Erik,
Thanks. The main pages and category archives are done, I've still got some work to do on the monthly and individual archive pages. I also want to create an MT template the spits out the info in the right side menu (recent posts, monthly archives, callender, etc) to a file that I can then use a server side include to add to each html file on the site. Then I'll have a good start to a set of templates where common chunks of site data (like the links menu) are only in one place so I only have to update one file and it propigates through the site. I can't stand having to duplicate tasks. It's inefficient and I end up fogetting somthing or doing it differently in different places.
The text overlap had to do with the calender. Even though my CSS said the side menu was to be 200px, depending on the browser text settings, the text in the callender might force the menu to be wider. The main text collumn would start at 220px regardless of how big the right menu was, hence the overlap. Moving the callender to the right helped because the word wrap seems to take care of most of the expanding menu. I also changed my callender headings from 3 characters to 1 so the callender isn't so wide.
Some day I might even get back to posting some real content. :-)
Have you considered moving to Wordpress like the folks at RadicalCongruency did? It does sound like the WP template system--with on-the-fly page generation and no rebuilds--is closer to what you want. I considered it. Briefly. Then I realized I barely have enough free time to use the bathroom, and decided to stay with MT just to avoid the transition.
But with Zach sleeping through the night now, maybe I'll have more mental energy. Probably not.
I've thought briefly about WP, but I don't really want to deal with transfering either. Besides, I'm not sure I've really mastered or found any limitations to MT yet. I like the flexibility of the MT multi-template system. I'm not ready to pony up $70 for MT 3.0 yet, however. My wife wants to start a site too, so I'd have to pay to get a multiuser license.
BTW - thanks for you help with my CSS. I snagged yours for reference when I was doing this. :-)
If your wife has her own blog on a unique domain name (which you can add to your 1and1 account) in a separate MT3 install, you can use the free license. If you just wanted to piggyback her blog into your MT install, then I guess you would have to pay.
WHile you're remodeling, you should consider implementing the "Recent Comments" feature. It's nice for readers; they can quickly see if anyone else has commented on a thread they have been following.
Here's the code, which you add to your main index template:
Recent Comments on .html#">""It was on my 'to do' list here, and now it's done. Thanks for the code.
Doug--all of the links on your recent comments sidebar are showing up as "File Not Found" errors. There is a slash missing in the URL for the archive, between archive and the distinct file number. I don't know why this is occuring. Did you implement the code as I sent it?
Hmmm. Did you cut and paste it from your template? I used it much as you gave it to me, but the "/" was missing in yours as well.
I did forget to replace the ".html" with ".shtml" too.
Oh well, it works now.