Suggestions and Criticism on the Drupal site

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 2006-01-14 15:42.

I'm still working on building the layout of this Drupal site. And I haven't decided yet whether I'm really going to switch. I'm going to give it a try for a week or two, though, to find out if I like it and if you like it.

Please tell me what works for you and what doesn't. Give me suggestions about stuff I could add, or remove, or move around, that would make your experience here better.

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Drupal feedback
Submitted by Sunni (not verified) on Sat, 2006-01-14 17:57.

I don't much care for it, but part of that might be because I'm not enough of a technogeek to "get" Drupal. I don't like any site that requires some kind of registration to get feedback from me (as your poll does). I also don't get the distinction (if there is one) between blog entries/categories and the forums. Are "em" and "strong" replacements for italics and bold, or do they render something else? And what does that red asterisk beside the "Comment:" header mean? It doesn't link anywhere, and I couldn't find it anywhere else on this page. On the plus side, this is the first time I've gotten your RSS feed to work.

I like stuff that works. I like stuff that's easy to use, especially if it doesn't require anything like "joining", "signing up", or the like from me. I think Drupal sucks weed.

Add another thing: I've been trying to add line breaks to get a break between paragraphs, and it doesn't seem to be working, at least not in the preview screen I'm seeing. I hate mashed-together paragraphs!

I noticed the same thing
Submitted by David Goodyear (not verified) on Sat, 2006-01-14 18:52.

I noticed the same thing about the line breaks. I even tried inserting extras in case there was some re formating thing going on...

Weird...

The red asterisk denotes a
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 2006-01-14 20:37.

The difference between blog entries and forums is that each person who has a blog owns their personal blog. Posts in that blog are by that person only. At present, I'm the only person with a blog, but if others want them, I can arrange it. Anyone can post comments to an existing forum topic. Any registered user can create new forum topics. If the forum gets popular, we'll need some other categories for it, but I doubt that will happen. More likely, people will use the comments and the forums will mostly remain unused.

Yes, <em> is italic (emphasis) and <strong> is bold. The HTML documentation I've read recommends using those to allow style sheets to change them. But I am also accustomed to <i> and <b>. I added them as allowed tags as well as <u> (underline).

The red asterisk denotes a required field.

I changed the permissions to allow unregistered people to vote in polls, but that allowed them to quit and restart their browsers and vote again, so I changed it back. If you don't want to register, you won't be able to vote. Or you could send me your vote by email or post it here, and I'll add it to the poll myself. It appears that polls keep track of totals, and I can change them, but they do not track who voted which way.

I fixed the CSS to make the space between paragraphs in comments larger. It was already fine in stories, so I hadn't noticed the problem until now.

I just noticed, Sunni
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 2006-01-14 20:46.

I just noticed, Sunni, that you wanted to vote "Drupal sucks weed", so I added that vote. Of course the real decision here is whether this is better than my old, only-interactive-via-one-comment-box-per-day method. It was simpler.

And somehow, Sunni, I
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 2006-01-14 21:00.

And somehow, Sunni, I missed you in my blogroll this morning. Fixed.

Hmmmmm....
Submitted by FishOrMan (not verified) on Sat, 2006-01-14 22:06.

So, if I say "drupal sucks weed" do I get a link on this sucking weed blog too???

J/K Actually, I think it could work fine. Slightly more color differences between this column and the sidebars might help... or just a darker line separating this column from the sidebars... I don't know... whatever... I didn't come here for my opinion, I came here for yours. Make my vote "whadda you care what I think?"

Hehe. 'fraid I don't visit
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 2006-01-14 22:15.

Hehe. 'fraid I don't visit your blog very often, FishOrMan. Last time was when you posted on the Claire Files board about your court case.

I entered your vote. I also have been playing with colors. For the life of me, I can't make the site name at the top turn blue. But I did bring back the hint of pink I used to have on editthispage.com.

Amazing how much difference color makes, eh?

But content is where it's at. I look forward to finishing with this layout and design stuff and getting back to content.

Re: Suggestions and Criticism on the Drupal site
Submitted by Dave Polaschek on Sun, 2006-01-15 10:10.

Bill St. Clair wrote:
Please tell me what works for you and what doesn't. Give me suggestions about stuff I could add, or remove, or move around, that would make your experience here better.

Well, the site generally works for me. But I also looked at drupal, and I'm a geek, so there's nothing that confused me.

It seems to me that you're making longer, more verbose posts. Maybe that's what you intented or maybe not. I'm betting it's an unintended consequence, and as such, I find it interesting.

But what the hell, it's your blog. You're welcome to do it by chipping your words into stone tablets. Might cut into your readership a bit, but if it makes you happy, knock yourself out.

More verbose, eh? I
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 2006-01-15 10:31.

More verbose, eh? I suppose. Most likely, it's because I'm spending lots of time thinking out loud about the project of setting up Drupal. My guess is that I'll get back to more usual posting style once I get used to the new tool.

Yea, I like it, except...
Submitted by jomama on Sun, 2006-01-15 11:01.

...I agree with Sunni. But you're one of the few I would register with to be able to comment. Hate that registration shit.

Just something to think about, IF you want more comments.

Site looks more attractive and better laid out than old one. Easier to read.

You don't need to register
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 2006-01-15 11:06.

You don't need to register to comment. Only to create new forum topics or vote in polls. And I intend to investigate fixing the poll bug, so that it will record IP address for anonymous votes, making it a little harder to vote twice. Or I could just trust people to vote only once, but that means you'd have to remember which polls you voted in. Wouldn't happen for me...

Anyway, welcome to my new site, jomama.

Prefer Drupal
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2006-01-15 12:59.

Just wanted to say I really like the drupal blog better. It loads a lot faster for me (although with a cable modem, it's not like the other one took a long time). Maybe it was a little easier with the old blog to take everything in at once, but that might just be blind loyalty to what I was familiar with.

better
Submitted by putrimalu (not verified) on Sun, 2006-01-15 14:10.

I like this design better.

guestbook
Submitted by Karter (not verified) on Tue, 2006-06-20 11:14.

i think you need to install a guestbook. There is some gbooks with spam protection so don't worry about it :))

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