New Theme!

May 18, 2010 by Ian
Filed under: Announcement

You’ve probably noticed the big change. After three years as a two-column blog, Free Keene has moved to a more modern theme with some pretty cool features including Gravatars, which allow you to have a picture next to your blog comments! The new theme also displays each blogger’s name more prominently and we’ve switched to full names instead of first names or handles. Full names and the forum handles of our bloggers were always listed on our Bloggers page, but now each article will be easily attributable to each blogger. You’ll notice some items are gone from the top menu, but are still available on the right “Free Keene” menu, which is rich with lots of content that we just can’t fit up top. (Anyone know how to put one of those fancy drop-down menus into WordPress?) Also, the search box has moved all the way to the top right of the site, and can no longer be found in the sidebar. More RSS-based info regarding recent comments and forum topics and posts has been added in the new third column, and the site is wider than before. Finally, facebook liking has been integrated onto each post’s page to assist you in sharing our content. Hope you like it!

So, if you comment on the blog, please get your Gravatar! Thanks for visiting Free Keene!

http://apathyonline.net Abbie

Yay! Gravatar!
James Schlessinger J

wow, fancy!
http://destroythering.wordpress.com Trifith

Nice. I like it.
http://libertypictureframes.com/ Kurt

Beautiful!
Keith

The text is a little small and it is hard on my eyes. Maybe I can configure one browser to show print extra large and just use it for this blog. Any other suggests so that I may read this blog without such problems? Likely, many (millions?) of people are going to have similar problems.

Also, there is a ton of extra space not used on the page now. The margins are massive.
http://libertypictureframes.com/ Kurt

Oh, and I can't get my gravitar working but thats not FK's fault.
SuJin

Let's see if mine changed.
SuJin

Nope. grr… But we'll give it some time.
Larry The Dwarf

It needs some contrasting or separating elements between the columns and outside the margins. It's not horrible, but without defining these areas better, the page feels a little jumbled.
http://freetalklive.com/ Ian Freeman

Font's bigger now. Better? As far as the margins, do you mean the right and left blank space on the page? There's less than before. The site is now designed for 1024w instead of 800.
Lord Metroid

I suppose it is alright, however the space for the posts feels a little bit cramped,
http://www.dooms-day-device.com Puke

I like it. Free Keene finally has the logo on the website!
http://freetalklive.com/ Ian Freeman

Lord,

I've lessened the cramping, and expanded the post area's width to 550w. It was 500. The old theme's was 530, so now there's more room. Thanks for the suggestion.
Keith

The text is bigger and doesn't hurt my eyes now. Good work. However, the comments are all bold and hard to read. Can you make them less black/thick/dark/bold?
http://freetalklive.com/ Ian Freeman

How about that?
Keith

Great work! I like it better.
SuJin

I like it so far. Keep up the good work and thank you for taking our thoughts and ideas into consideration.

By the way, do you guys have an idea why my icon/gravatar is not changing… I have changed it on the website and checked to see that it was changed on my wordpress page. Yet for some reason the only picture I am seeing is that hideous kissy face. >:(
http://ringingliberty.com Paul

Looks good!
SuJin

I got it figured out.

For anyone that was having the same trouble that I was check out the following:

http://en.gravatar.com/site/faq/#answer-1-5
Lord Metroid

Perhaps make the avatar icons a little bit smaller so there is more space for the text of the comments.
http://freetalklive.com/ Ian Freeman

There, I have expanded the comments area wider as I did earlier with the post area, therefore I did not have to reduce the avatars.
http://xrindustries.com xrazorwirex

You can do anything you want with CMS sites these days – it's so fun; let us know if you need any design help Ian.
http://xrindustries.com xrazorwirex

I just noticed the facebook 'like' link; you should add facebook connect features to the site; especially the forums. I'm using RPX on my website for socnet cross-connectivity but I don't know what plugins are available for SMF.
http://copblock.org adam

First of all those math problems are difficult… 8 + 3 dam.

Secondly, great site.. looks so fresh and so clean, clean. May I ask who did such nice work, I'm looking for someone to help me with CopBlock.org

Going to make my gravatar now, so cool
http://freetalklive.com/ Ian Freeman

Revolution Code Blue with some minor tweaks – error did the header graphic, I tweaked some other css.
http://www.revolutiontwo.com/
http://talley.tv Jason

Slick! Nice job everyone.
Lord Metroid

Yes, this is indeed nice. Works a good 'un.
Travis

Nice. This is way better. 960 is the way to go.

And Keith, if you're using Firefox or Chrome or maybe others too you can always press (Ctrl and +) or (Ctrl and -) to increase or decrease the size of fonts, images, etc. on any page.

And it gave me a gravatar automatically! Double nice!
Lord Metroid

I like to click on the top banner image to get back to front page. Navigating is so much easier that way and it is kind of expected as a universal standard for blogs that the top banner image goes to the front page.

Also it would be nice of the name and date of each comment was bolded so one could more easily distinguish the comments from each other in the flow of the text.

I am sorry I got so many complaints/recommendations.
http://freetalklive.com/ Ian Freeman

You can click on the FK banner to go to the front page – the other is a background. Not sure how to make that linked.
theKINGofKEENE

I agree with Lord Metroids' comments from May 19, above…Also, the gravatars are smack up against the comments…should put a little space in between them, for graphic clarity…It's new, different. Whatever. It's still appreciated!