Post Publication Edit: As today’s traffic is already rising sharply, My good friend, and sometime blog contributor, PM reminded me that I should tell you that it’s not impossible the site goes down a few times, each for a few minutes, during the day.
The Blog’s template is a bit buggy and some php scripts can run amok and use up the host’s server over my alloted CPU limit. When this happens, the blog goes offline for 1 minute and comes back after. Sorry for the trouble… we’re working on hacking a new theme…
Following Johnn Four’s publication of his Weekly newsletter, a lot of new readers are dropping by to have a look.
Welcome to my overly chatty abode!
I usually post 4-6 articles a week, mostly on RPGs, sometimes on unrelated geeky stuff.
I have 2 post formats. The usual articles run between 700 and 2000 words (Average 1000) and I have mini-posts (500 words or less) when I have Gym days or am running low on time.
Like most bloggers, I love comments and am usually quite quick to read them and answer.
I will point you toward a recent post of mine that points to a sample of the 20o odd posts I did so far on this here blog.
This week on my menu is an Adventure Prep post (since we have a game on Friday), a Trope post (I hope one or both Daves chime in with their selection) and a couple of mini posts on some Fluff or Crunch I’m pondering on.
Enjoy….
TheLemming says
Hi Chatty,
I’m looking forward to read a lot of interesting posts here – think you’re doing a fine job so far and happened to be one of these readers that stumbled here due to a newsletter …
Good idea and I hope you’ll share some of your insights, ideas and (honestly I hope it’s a good source for inspiration and design here).
take care,
Markus / Lemming
ChattyDM says
Welcome Lemming!
I hope you enjoy your stay and find things that you like here.
James McMurray says
Hi, love the site! Entertaining and useful. 🙂
Since you’re looking at putting together a new theme, would it be possible to make sure that everything fits in one main column? As it stands, the navigation bar on the right gets pushed to the bottom of my screen (1280 x 1024). This means that when I print an entry for later reading I get 3-4 extra pages of nothing but navigation links.
Not sure how into web design you folks are, but an even nicer option would be to add a seperate css style sheet included only for printing. It would basically make everything but the article and comments invisible.
Keep up the great work!
ChattyDM says
James,
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Graham is already on it it seems 🙂
Graham|ve4grm says
That… is weird and should not happen.
The layout is only 860 pixels wide. There is no way it should have trouble displaying on a 1280 wide screen.
What browser are you using, that it shoves the sidebar down to the bottom?
As for printing, for now you can always just select the article and “Print Selection”. But I think we’ll add a print button with the update. It’s easy enough to do, and there are premade plugins for that.
For now, the sidebar has been shortened and cleaned up a bit. Perhaps that will help somewhat.
James McMurray says
Thanks! I hadn’t thought to use the Print Selection option.
When I view it at 1280 from work (IE 6.0) I the total width of the article section seems to be enough to bump the navigation bar down. If I look at it from home with the same resolution via Firefox and IE 7 I don’t have the problem.
It could be a CSS issue. I’ve had problems in the past with the minor changes IE makes between iterations. Their different definitions for what constitutes widths inside div tags is also a pain.
Here’s a screenshot if it helps: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/jmcmurray/chattydmscreenshot.jpg
Graham|ve4grm says
Hi James,
Thanks for the screenshot.
Just to let you know, the resolution is not related to the problem. The problem is IE6.
You are correct that it is a CSS problem. IE6 does not seem to like the “float” attribute all the time, and this template uses float to position the sidebar.
I will see what I can do with the new template to accommodate IE6. But with IE7 out, it’s hard to justify spending too much time accommodating old versions. Unfortunately, businesses seem to be resistant to upgrade sometimes.
This will be taken into account, however. Thanks, James.
James McMurray says
No problem. I convinced an IT guy to let me install Firefox, and it’s working great. I probably never would have noticed it if I didn’t work for a monolithic company terrified of change. 🙂