Laboratory for experimental modification of web application features and functions before incorporating into anything serious.  Disorganized and unkempt, just like the poor lad himself.

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Recent Items
 
What, No Parachutes?
 
Preparing for “Kiln Sitter’s Diary”
 
Confirming Image Uploading
 
Time for Big Changes
 
Adjusting Blog Style Information
 
Changing from XHTML 1.0 to HTML 4.01
 
Solving a Text Size Problem
 
A little reality check ...
 
... Reaching the Distant Shore
 
Stepping Onto Uncharted Territory

  

visits to Orcmid's Lair pages

The nfoCentrale Blog Conclave
 
Millennia Antica: The Kiln Sitter's Diary
 
nfoWorks: Pursuing Harmony
 
Numbering Peano
 
Orcmid's Lair
 
Orcmid's Live Hideout
 
Prof. von Clueless in the Blunder Dome
 
Spanner Wingnut's Muddleware Lab (experimental)

nfoCentrale Associated Sites
 
DMA: The Document Management Alliance
 
DMware: Document Management Interoperability Exchange
 
Millennia Antica Pottery
 
The Miser Project
 
nfoCentrale: the Anchor Site
 
nfoWare: Information Processing Technology
 
nfoWorks: Tools for Document Interoperability
 
NuovoDoc: Design for Document System Interoperability
 
ODMA Interoperability Exchange
 
Orcmid's Lair
 
TROST: Open-System Trustworthiness

 

What, No Parachutes?

I have accomplished the following steps for all blog but this one:

1. Established a common blog template format.  This post is in a variation of that format.
     
2. Republished those blogs for which the format is to be changed on all prior posts and archives.
     
3. Posted “hiatus” messages indicating that the blog is now separated from the Blogger service and will be silent until a new blog engine is put in place.
     
4. Backed up the hosted forms of the blogs on the web sites where they had been published, up until now, using Blogger FTP publishing.
     
5. Exported the Blogger content for the blogs.
      
6. Deleted the blog from Blogger.

With completion of this post, I will carry out steps (5-6) for Spanner Wingnut as well.

The next post you see will be from attempts to use a new blog engine installed on my web site itself.

Labels: blog development

¶ posted by orcmid at 5/01/2010 01:39:00 AM

from:

 

Preparing for “Kiln Sitter’s Diary”

I have now changed the color scheme here.   The just-previous template change was based on the current template for nfoWorks: Pursuing Harmony.

Now I am adjusting the appearance for what I will use as the basis for Kiln Sitter’s Diary.   This is the most-important blog for matching and then improving on the template as I migrate to a new blog engine, because it is related to Vicki’s artistic expression.

To arrive at the new color scheme, I looked at those established under the CSS-based template for these pages.  Then I tried out samples of various combinations, resulting in this table of “swatches:”

color: #9E5205 bg: #f5deb3	color:#660000 bg:#f6f6f6	color:#660000 bg:#f5deb3
color: #9E5205 bg: #f5e39e	color:#800000 bg:#f6f6f6	color:#800000 bg:#f5deb3
color:brown	color:chocolate	color:#800000 bg:#f5deb3
color:#800000 bg:beige	color:sienna	color:#800000 bg:#f5e39e
color:#660000 color:brown bg:beige	color: #9E5205	color:#800000 bg:tan
color:#660000	color:saddlebrown	color:#800000
color:#999966 bg:beige	color:#666699 bg:beige	color:tan bg:beige
color:brown bg:orange	color:brown bg:darkorange	color:darkred bg:beige
color:darkred bg:orange	color:darkred bg:darkorange	color:#990000 bg:beige
		color:#cc0000 bg:beige
color:beige bg:#663300

I should have done this sort of thing before now.  It beats repetitive previewing of the full template.   Also, I could have used the FrontPage color picker more efficiently than I did by trying out color names instead. 

After narrowing down on some selections, it is easier to then confirm with a Blogger template preview, see what doesn’t work, and then look for more combinations.

I did have to do some full previews before I obtained something I was willing to operate with for now.  I will now take this template over to Kiln Sitter’s Diary, eliminating the last of my unsuccessful attempts to use a completely CSS-based template.  This will also allow me to have the Diary in better shape for however long it takes between when I shut off Blogger and have the replacement blog engine working over there.

[update 2010-04-30T03:45Z There were some fine adjustments needed in the title block at the top of each blog page and in the bottom block beneath each page.  I wanted that flat before replicating the template on Kiln Sitter’s Digest.
 update 2010-04-30T03:04Z I needed to update the template so that the beige background under posts showed through.  Then I need to set the default background of the swatch table to white so that beige wouldn’t show through where it wasn’t expected.]

Labels: blog development

¶ posted by orcmid at 4/29/2010 05:40:00 PM

from:    orcmid

 

Confirming Image Uploading

The next thing to confirm here is the uploading of images directly to the blog section of the site from Windows Live Writer. It is done this way with the Blogger-published blog because an FTP-published Blogger does not have a Google-provided place to store images and I want the images on my self-managed site in any case.

This is actually pretty easy, so long as I remember that the Username is one I created. It is tied to the location of the web log in the FTP account. The FTP host will automatically have the log-in from Windows Live Writer rooted at the wingnut blog location on the server because that is what the rules are for that Username. That is why the image folder appears to be at the root. It is the root for that account on FTP, not the root of the FTP host. The URL is where the pictures are actually carried, relative to where the orcmid.com web site is imaged on the server. The names and folder structure within that folder will be generated by Windows Live Writer. These materials are not intended for deep linking, as you will learn if you use that URL to be nosy. One challenge with this structure is keeping the images/ subdirectory backed-up. The structure that LiveWriter uses is ungainly and not something that is useful for me to mirror on my web-development site or attempt to preserve in VSS. Instead, I collect all of the image/ material into a single Zip file and I back that up in VSS and keep an image on my hosted-site image and the hosted-site itself. The versions I keep backed up on my local web-development machine will also be backed up on the Windows Home Server that supports my SOHO LAN. I have no idea if the same or different structure will work with the blog engine I migrate to. How this one migrates will provide the worked case for migrating the images associated with the other nfoCentrale blogs. [Update 2010-04-29T04:54Z OK, I didn’t catch that the width on the cell was also set. It should all be floating now, with it getting tricky when the browser page width is so narrow that the image itself is squeezed. That’s good enough for now. Update 2010-04-29T04:48Z I put the image and the text with it in a single-celled table so that the additional blog item material below would not flow up alongside the image if viewed in a wide browser window. What I need to remember when I do that is that Live Writer gives the table a fixed with (800 pixels, it seems). I don’t want that. The table should be the appropriate width for how the page is being viewed and that will be just fine. This update remedies that be taking the fixed width out of the <table> element.]

Labels: blog development

¶ posted by orcmid at 4/28/2010 07:48:00 PM

from:

 

Time for Big Changes

Spanner Wingnut is having its moment of fame.

This blog has been updated to have a template and web-site organization that matches that of all other blogs under my command.

The special purpose of Wingnut is that it will be the laboratory for experimental conversion of the blog from Blogger FTP publishing to a different blog posting engine hosted right here on the site (actually, nfoCentrale.com).

The special purpose of this post is to drive out use of the new template, one based on the current personality of nfoWorks: Pursuing Harmony.  It’s disappointing in a way.  There were features of the previous Spanner Wingnut blog that I liked.  Maybe some other day.

Meanwhile, let’s start the new post format.  Here goes. …

[update:2010-04-29T04:00Z With that working, as much as I miss features of the previous format, I am reposting this to have categories (labels in Blogger) working.  I will assign this post to a category to ensure that the special category archives are being created properly on Spanner Wingnut.  Then I’ll post a comment to ensure that is working too, even if only for a one-two more days.]

Labels: blog development

¶ posted by orcmid at 4/28/2010 06:00:00 PM

from:    orcmid