If you’re one of the 5,000 Cranky subscribers out there, you probably don’t see anything different. But, if you’re one of the tens of thousands of others who come directly to the site, you’ll notice a new, cleaner look. Many will say it’s about time.
The width is a bit wider, and the header is a bit smaller. I’ve switched fonts around and made colors a bit softer. I also have some new flexibility with the sidebars that should come in handy at some point. Overall, I think it’s a good look that’s just an update on what already worked well. So why’d I change?
Well, the last version broke. Seriously. I couldn’t fix the single post pages, so I just started over with a new theme that’s been heavily modified.
The one potentially controversial move is the addition of threaded comments. Now you’ll be able to reply directly to a specific comment and have it appear directly beneath that. In fact, you can go up to 5 layers deep, so I think this will help facilitate conversation. Others may disagree.
Take a look around, press buttons, and then let me know what you like or you don’t like. If you really hate it, well, you can always become a subscriber instead.
Send the good, bad, and the broken to cf@crankyflier.com. Hope you like it.
24 comments on “A New Look for Cranky”
Tops, Cranky – much nicer.
“Written by Bobber about -17615 seconds ago.”
That time ago looks like a bit of a glitch. Otherwise, I agree.
I’m having trouble with this one. I’ve changed it to the date, but I can’t get the date and time without breaking this. Here’s the relevant string:
print __(‘on’, ‘Arjuna’).’ ‘.get_comment_date($d);
Anyone know what the code needs to be to fix it?
Looks great – a nice “re-fresh” – and for what it’s worth – emminently more readable! Cheers from here…
I like the changes and I think threaded comments is a positive thing. The posting time update (with seconds) is a bit strange though.
Looks good, except that everyones comments come up as thousands of seconds ago… could you make it into min/hour/moth/year?
Ok, and how do I get a picture next to my post?
gravatar.com
I was using another username, I believe this should work…
The “read more” link at the bottom just takes you to the comments, right? Why not call it “comments”, then? It would also be a good idea to repeat the number of comments at the bottom, so that when I’m done reading a post I won’t need to scroll up to see if anybody commented.
Also at the bottom of each post, I see to icons — looks like the tags are next to a folder icon, and there’s also a tag icon with “none” next to it. Weird.
At the bottom of each page, you have “previous page” taking you to newer posts and “next page” taking you to older posts. Very confusing. Better change the links to “older posts” and “newer posts” (don’t use the terms “previous” and “next” because they’re ambiguous between the posting order and the viewing order — viewing order is often the reverse of posting order, but not always).
*Replaced read more with comments and put comment #
*Removed extra tags icon
*Changed wording to older post/newer post
I didn’t have a problem with the old page, and I don’t like change for the sake of change. (I’m not getting any younger ya know.)
I do like the threaded comments. Why would that be controversial?
Now, the time stamp on the comments is simply MM/DD/YYYY with no HH:MM:SS on it. Bring back the times please?
In my browser (3.0.18), the color of text that I am writing in the comments box is a dark gray on top of a light gray. I don’t like the contrast. Black on grey would be much better (like my name and email address.)
Fixed the comment colors
I like the new look. But don’t get me started about comments. OK, do.
I’ve given up on allowing comments on my own blogs. I’m just tired of reading idiots, inanities, inaccuracies, smears, sniping, and terrible grammar and writing. My life is just too short to bother with that anymore. Nonetheless, I do read and enjoy a few blogs (yours, of course). And I will occasionally comment about something (so I guess I’m glad other bloggers still have comment sections). Still, the game is getting old and tiring. Good luck with the growth of The Cranky Flier.
I think it looks great! And as for comment changes, the best rule is always “Do whatever you are most comfortable with.” A blog is not a democracy.
Well done, Mr. CF.
All right, here’s another bug: the comment fields are pre-populated with “Your name|email|website|comment”, which doesn’t go away when you click, and gets posted even if you don’t touch the field. A slight annoyance for commenting, and it also explains why almost all commenter names are linked to http://Yourwebsite/ ;-)
I like the new look, by the way — do iron out the bugs, though.
This is fixed, I think. Next time someone posts who isn’t logged in, we’ll find out.
It may be my computer, but I noticed that when you put a hyperlink into the middle of your posts, the link is green. But it doesn’t really stand out. I have to roll over it to be sure it is a link. Again maybe it’s just my comptuer, but that green color doesn’t stand out.
Hmm, I tried to use a higher contrast green. Anyone else having this problem?
I’m just outraged…a, what was the question again?
I like the new look. But when I viewed the blog in its new format for the first time in the latest version of Firefox (released yesterday), nothing appears in the grey boxes for Leave a Comment and nothing appears to the right of them, so it’s not clear where to enter your name, email or web address. It’s just a bunch of greyed out boxes. The comment fields are *not* pre-populated with “Your name|email|website|comment”.
Familiar with your format, I knew what to type in. But others might not.
Ditto in Safari. Mac OSX.
Oops, got a little aggressive with the cleanup. It’s fixed now.
Far more easier on the eyes, modern, (Post-Modern?), however are Blogs just getting thinner or is it me, Captain Dave (FL390) is almost one column, but a thumbs up from me.
I like the new look…it’s a lot cleaner