Some of you may have noticed something strange happened last night. Surprised us as much as you, since it occurred when we weren’t working on the site. However, we’ve upgraded to a new wordpress installation and it seems our customized theme doesn’t work properly anymore. I’m going to work on it this weekend so it doesn’t look terrible anymore, and in the meantime enjoy this new (temporary) look.
Update 5/9/09, 5:07pm PST: I’ve started rolling out bits and pieces of the new look, though there are likely still a lot of bugs to be discovered. This is actually a much more sophisticated template than the old one, so you’ll notice some differences in how the site functions.
Author: Caldor
Jason Damas is a search engine marketing analyst and consultant, and a freelance journalist. Jason graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and a minor in Music Industry. He has regularly contributed to The Boston Globe, PopMatters.com, Amplifier Magazine, All Music Guide, and 168 Magazine. In addition, he was a manager for a record store for over two years. Currently, he focuses on helping companies optimize their web sites to maximize search engine visibility, and is responsible for website conversion analysis, which aims to improve conversion rates by making e-commerce websites more user-friendly. He lives in suburban Boston.
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Do work on upgrading the theme (this one oozes generic)
Yeah, this is just a temporary one. I hate having to use it but it can be thrown up quickly and at least work properly so the site is accessible. It is definitely going away…
I look forward to the next update.
It was fine when I went on it between 9-10am (EST) this morning, so it had to have been sometime after. Anyway, this unfortunate error can only pave the way for something even better than before.
Yeek! Please fix, I liked how everything was accessible from the old format. But I trust you guys. =)
@Debbi,
It’s never going to look the same unfortunately (the old theme used a lot of outdated code) but I’m working on something right now. Believe me, this horrid generic template is not staying!
The good news is we were probably due for a refresh anyway.
I so appreciate the time and effort you guys put into this blog! I can tell that it’s truly a labor of love, and I love that you do it.
Wow, I knew something was up! Hmm…in a week or so Labelscar is turning three.
Looking forward to new updates…
@Caldor Yay, it’s looking better already! Like this version much better!
It actually looks a lot better already. The column to the right of the page is more organized in my opinion. One thing though, I wonder if the advertisements would look better on the right side of the column than on the left. Plus I wonder what the site would look like with an orange background and the text area white.
I hope my screen reader can read the new format as well as the original. JAWS can be moody on some sites at times do to the way the site is incoded.
Hay Caldor!
Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy the site & to say THANKS for all the hard work you & Prangeway have put in to it over the past three years.
I hope the new format works just as well with my screen reader JAWS. Sometimes JAWS has trouble with sites that contain unstable pages. Either it repeats what it reads or “dumps” itself.
I do know that it is the way the site is incoded that causes that unstableness to accure.
Just noticed something else.
Where the heck did the comments for the “Help Us” go off to?
@Mr.D, Fixed. Thanks for catching that. There was no DB call in the page template for some reason.
Always a wealth of knowledge whenever I visit!
Now, about the search feature in the top banner… Just a Bug alert or if you know it’s down, ignore me.
@Menutia, I’m having trouble getting the banner to be linked back to home without it overriding the search function. It should be working now, anyway, but the banner doesn’t link anywhere. There’s a “home” link right under the banner so maybe it doesn’t matter anymore but I feel like for continuity of usability, the banner should link. Oh well.
Thanks for kicking on it guys… you’re helping me identify the trouble spots a lot more quickly!
I’m loving the Reply feature. Helps things stay organized. Too bad there’s no Quote button.
Also, how are we supposed to change the little avatar over our names now?
OH, and an Edit button, ahaha.
Also, could you increase the numer of Recent Comments to 7 or 10? I’ve missed a few important comments due to the limit being five.
@AceJay, I actually don’t want to clog the sidebar too much with that many recent comments (I did have it at 10, but it got REALLY large unless I sliced the character count down significantly). You actually might want to subscribe to the comments RSS if you use an RSS reader at all, since sometimes we get more than 5 or 10 comments all at once–especially when I approve a bunch of things from the moderation queue.
I’m considering doing something different with the recent comments in general, so its possible that would fix things but I’m really just in experimental mode right now. It’s totally crazy! Anything could happen!
@AceJay, Not entirely sure about the avatar; I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. I thought it might tie to a WordPress account but I haven’t been able to find any corroboration to this. If I can’t find a way to allow people to edit them–and I want to, because I think it’s neat–then I might try to shut them off. Still playing around with some of the new features, but I agree with you that the threading comments are a huge upgrade.
@Caldor, Avatar? I’m going to sound stupid but what the hell is an avatar!
Oh, we can register now. Cool.
http://www.labelscar.com/wp-login.php?action=register
Also, I found something for avatars:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/localised-comment-avatar/