Be honest please :)

[bobzilla]

As I mentioned elsewhere I've been blogging for a good few years now but only recently turned to wordpress (I secretly used to hate the software and wouldnt go near it until my old site turned into a bandwidth hog).

So anyway I've been chopping and changing my template for a while now and theres alot of things I'm not happy about but I'd be very grateful if you guys could have a quick look at it and let me know where I could make some changes and what works for you.

The Apochrypha (http://www.theapochrypha.co.uk/)

[ses5909]

The first thing I would do would be to get rid of the meta (login, etc) and just keep your rss feed placed prominently at the top. I would recommend using a small feed icon to make it easy for people like me (who look for the icon to subscribe) to find your feed in case they want to subscribe.

Then I would recommend getting rid of your calendar. Listing your categories would be a better alternative. Here is a thread about it:

DO you use a calendar? - TBE Blog Forum (http://www.theblogexperiment.com/blog-forum/showthread.php?t=179&highlight=calendar)

Also, you have a tv-guide page on your blog. What exactly is its purpose?

[bobzilla]

I tend to treat my blog as my homepage on any PC I use. I've only just recently discovered sites like del.icio.us so my blog contains all the links I use on a daily basis. With the TV guide the idea was to keep track of the shoes I watch and at the same time allow people an insight into what kind of TV I enjoy. It is one of the things thats on the list to be cut though :)

The calendar I never use but all my years on LJ has made me accustomed to seeing it there. I'll take your advice with that one.

The meta should actually be at the very bottom of the right hand column but it keeps jumping to the top whenever I edit my widgets and I just gave up moving it every time until I'm happy with the layout. I do need to make the RSS links more noticeable though.

The one thing thats annoying me most is the digg/slashdot links at the end of each post. I cannot get them to line up properly. I think I'll actually get rid of them as they dont actually serve any purpose.

[shyflower]

Your header image doesn't extend in a 1600 wide resolution. I guess I'd feather the left-right edges and put it on a background color and make the margin "0 auto' to keep it centered in larger browsers.

I'd bump up your text size a notch.

Where's your RSS feed button? I'd put it at the top of the sidebar.

Either make the color of your headings a light shade or the background of your headings a lighter shade. The orange on teal is hard to read.

Why no search box?

Put your social bookmarking icons into a division that either centers them or leaves more of a left margin.

I'd also take the META out of your left sidebar.

[bobzilla]

Never actually had any readers that have used that resolution until now. I guess I'd better look into that one.

The RSS feed link is in the Meta section which I'm currently moving about as suggested by Sara and I've never had need for a search box until now. Another thing to add to the list.

The colours were always just slightly to harsh for me but it was consistant with my old site where it worked quite well. I'll play about with that and see what I can come up with.

Thanks :)

[splitbrain]

I really like it - clean and friendly design.

I wanted to raise similar issues as Sara and Linda already did. Add some short explanation at the top of your TV-Guide site and fix the margin for the social bookmark icons. The twitter box seems to have too much left padding.

What I didn't like was the big difference between your blog and the photoblog. It would be nice if the photoblog would use the same overall design as the blog. Eg the same colorscheme and the same header. I also wonder how your flickr feed and the photoblog relate. Why having both?

[ses5909]

I use the 1600 resolution as well. I wouldn't say you need to delete the tv guide, just as andreas said, make note of why it's there :). I watch several of the same shows as you so I found that interesting :)

[shyflower]

Here's how your site looks at 1600 in my browser (firefox):

http://shyflower.com/temp/images/apoc.jpg

[bobzilla]

I really like it - clean and friendly design.

I wanted to raise similar issues as Sara and Linda already did. Add some short explanation at the top of your TV-Guide site and fix the margin for the social bookmark icons. The twitter box seems to have too much left padding.

What I didn't like was the big difference between your blog and the photoblog. It would be nice if the photoblog would use the same overall design as the blog. Eg the same colorscheme and the same header. I also wonder how your flickr feed and the photoblog relate. Why having both?
The photoblog has sort of took a backseat recently and hasn't been updated to fit in with the new scheme yet. Don't want to touch it until I'm happy with the design of the main blog.

As for why both photoblog and flickr? I share my flickr account with my partner and we put all our photos up there where as the photoblog is an attempt to show the good photos I take. It doesn't make sense to have both on the blog though.

[Bob!]

Bob, to fix the problem that Linda is getting open up your style.css file and add max-width: 1256px; into the body section, that way the body will never go bigger than that excellent image your using as a banner :)

Other than that I don't see anything wrong with how it looks except the meta needing removed like Sara mentioned. I never gave this a thought until it was mentioned to me, but it does make the site look better in my opinion :)

[bobzilla]

Not had a chance to get in and play about with the CSS as I've not actually been near a PC with FTP access. Only just realised today I can do it via the admin panel though so we'll see what I can do over lunch if I get 5 minutes.

The Meta problem has long been a bugbear for me. I'm always accessing the site from PC's that aren't my home PC but I can never remember the admin panel address. Leaving the Meta widget on the page has always been the easiest option for me until now.

Now all I need to do its work out how and where to get my search box back on the page.

As for the image in the banner Bob...I'd have been surprised if you didn't recognise it considering wheree it was taken :)

[bobzilla]

Or I would do it over lunch if my server wouldn't continually crap out on me :(

[Bob!]

As for the image in the banner Bob...I'd have been surprised if you didn't recognise it considering wheree it was taken :)

To be honest Bob, I'm not sure i do recognize it. It looks so much like Ailsa Craig that I'd almost stake money on it, but I've never seen the isle with land behind it so i can only image that you were in a boat behind it looking towards the coast. I never actually seen it that close either if it is Ailsa Craig so really not sure :D

[bobzilla]

You'd be right with what the photo is of :)

It was taken just north of Ballantrae but the only problem is its been flipped so the island on the left is actually Arran and the land in the background is Kintyre. We were driving back from Stranraer and it was actually tiny in the photo. Cropped with a couple of filters it looks not bad :)

Feel a bit of a cheat for flipping it though.

[Bob!]

Got you now :)

I have a couple of shots of it but they are from Troon and Girvan and you don't see any land behind it which is where I was getting lost a bit http://friendsforever.foren-city.de/images/smiles/a084.gif

[hotsaucedaily]

...The Meta problem has long been a bugbear for me. I'm always accessing the site from PC's that aren't my home PC but I can never remember the admin panel address. Leaving the Meta widget on the page has always been the easiest option for me until now.

You have a very nice, clean, fluid theme... I like it!
Beautiful header image, and looks like it blends well with the theme's colors... and this from a color-blind guy! :tongue:
Awesome photos, too, btw.

You've seen the great comments about design, etc.
I'd like to offer this: Use Your Spell Checker! And watch out for capitalization issues like "christmas" and punctuation "nomatter"... etc.

Glad to see you've taken some comments and acted on them, like removing the Meta box, etc.
I found a great snippet of code that allowed me to have an "Admin" Tab, that only I see, for quick access to the Admin panel. Here's a screen shot:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2382/2074185185_1666768156.jpg

Here's the snippet of code:

<?php
global $userdata;
if ($userdata->ID > 0) :
?>
<a href="/wp-admin/">Admin</a>
<?php endif; ?>


I used:
if ($userdata->ID ==1) :
to ensure that only I would see the tab.

To drop this code in the navigation tabs, I placed it in the header.php within the existing <li></li> items.
Thanks to Sarah at Stuff by Sarah (http://www.stuffbysarah.net/blog/2007/11/14/user-content-control-in-wordpress/) for this great tweak!

[bobzilla]

My punctuation has long been a major problem for me. Thankfully I've managed to install a spell checker plugin for firefox which picks up most errors. I'm usually in to much of a rush to get my post published that I miss errors. It's not until I go back over it maybe an hour later that I catch the rest of the errors that I've made. Lesson number one I think should maybe be rather than publish just save the post and when I go back to check over publish it once I'm happy with it.

[freediver]

Very nice looking blog. Thanks for that useful snippet ;)

[bobzilla]

I found a great snippet of code that allowed me to have an "Admin" Tab, that only I see, for quick access to the Admin panel. Here's a screen shot:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2382/2074185185_1666768156.jpg

Here's the snippet of code:

<?php
global $userdata;
if ($userdata->ID > 0) :
?>
<a href="/wp-admin/">Admin</a>
<?php endif; ?>


I used:
if ($userdata->ID ==1) :
to ensure that only I would see the tab.

To drop this code in the navigation tabs, I placed it in the header.php within the existing <li></li> items.
Thanks to Sarah at Stuff by Sarah (http://www.stuffbysarah.net/blog/2007/11/14/user-content-control-in-wordpress/) for this great tweak!

Thanks for that. Managed to slip the code in whilst having my breakfast at work and it's exactly what I'm looking for.

[Grandad]

One very small point... You have an error in the coding for your Apochrypha link.

<centre>
<a href="http://www.theapochrypha.co.uk/photoblog/index.php?showimage=70">
<img src="http://www.theapochrypha.co.uk/photoblog/thumbnails/thumb_20071202203947_picture%20016.jpg" alt="Incey Wincey Spider" title="Incey Wincey Spider" height="75" width="100">
</a>
</centre>You have spelled 'centre' correctly. It should, of course be mis-spelled 'center' :bigsmile:

[bobzilla]

thats always one that I miss :(

[gosfgiants]

you need to get rid of that drop down menu for the categories and have them static so the search engine spiders can follow through them. The way its structured now everything is too hierarchical. If you have categories it can follow then the pagerank will be more evenly distrubuted from the front page.

[bobzilla]

I'm planning on upgrading to WP2.3 in the next week so the my categories are gong to get a major overhall at that point. I only have them as a drop down because there were so many of them.

Tags ftw and all that :)

[Evan]

Hi Bob,

I had a quick look.

I don't read these sort of blogs that are effectively private diaries. I'm very purpose/project driven in my approach to blogs.

The layout looks great. And you write quite well.

Evan