Weblog Quotes

Over the weekend, I spent a few hours jiggling files about for the main website and projects area, which allows for easier management on my part.

Whilst I was doing this, I made a small number of changes to some of the files; which meant I had to up-date the tabindex attribute on most of the links. Ever since I began using them I have hated them. They are nothing but a pain in the rear to organise. Every time I add a link into the middle of others, the tabindex below has to be increased to avoid conflict. For some reason, I end up needing to add new links every now and then.

I do have an idea on how to avoid this level of up-dating, but it’s finding the motivation to edit the damn things again.

Also, if anyone knows of a way php can be used to auto-magically increment the number every time a tabindex attribute is found throughout a page, let me know! I had tried to do this some time ago, but failed. It would be nice to be able to use that idea instead.

Over the past few days, I have been working on a handful of up-dates for two of my Windows Live Messenger skins; All Woollie Sheep and Enhanced Live.

Enhanced Live simply reverts a number of changes, as well as a bug fix or two, with nothing new being added.

AWS, at this time, has also had one or two fixes; and one or two reversions, but I plan on up-dating compatibility to the latest version of messenger (9.0). I’m not sure on when this will be, as I will need to re-learn a few pieces; and actually up-grade;¹ and extract the resources; and see what 9.0 looks like; and plan on the best attack; and possibly other stuff. It will take a while.

I have also up-dated the screen shots for use within the projects, and made some thumbnails for light-box. That was ‘fun’.

¹ After this, I will cease designing for 8.5.

WordPress:

WordPress is now in the beta stages of 2.8, which should be a nice release. The team has been hard at work again to bring us users a great piece of software. A list of new features can be seen on the codex.

I have somewhat been waiting for the 2.8 release more than the others, but I have no idea why. :/

IP.Board:

A few days ago, the first release candidate for IP.Board 3.0 was released to customers for additional testing and bug finding. Having installed the release to test out features and fixes I’m a little happier with the work put in than I was previously. There is no e.t.a on the final release, but I’m starting to get excited for it, as I will finally be able to update the community forums; since they appear to be a little neglected at this time.

Over the following months I shall attempt to keep up to date with both of the above software’s, and maybe actually give a better opinion on them.

Two, maybe three days ago I set to work on finishing up/cleaning/updating the main style sheet used within the sites and weblog; since I often became side-tracked by other items and what-not.

Testing the fresher design locally, I was quite pleased with it, aside from one or two minor pieces that I would iron out a day or two later. Or at least I thought, until I updated the lightbox style sheet; and proceeded to upload both that one, and the main style sheet to the live server.

Oops.

Not what I had planned, but oh well; it looks great at the moment and can hold off a week or so for any tweaks I decide to make.

Each of the form elements; text areas, inputs, drop downs, etc have had a makeover; and are better that I thought they would be. It’s nice to have that feeling of accomplishment.

On top of the style sheet updates, I have started to use jQuery to achieve a couple of nice effects; most notably Lightbox and the toggle features available on the Projects pages. As I discover more plug-ins, I shall decide whether it’s worth adding or not; and I may also be using curvy corners in some places soon.

These where part of the minor tweaks I wanted to have finished first, before updating the site.

How unlucky can this be. I recently installed the latest version of our beloved, yet pain-in-the-arse blogging software, only to be shown there is now another update. Argggh!

I wouldn’t generally have an issue with this, but after the last weblog wouldn’t ever update (ever!); and the fact that there is no changed files download (only a full installation), it gets slightly annoying having to do everything from scratch.

I’ll have a look through the Trac page and see what files need updating, and just see what happens I guess.

If things look squiffy when you read this it all went wrong.

Update (Nov 28th 08): Nothing went wrong with the previous updates, after I had found the trac page again.

We have since been updated to the latest stable release aswell.