Hmm... I actually heavily base KernelTrap's theme on another (by heavily, I mean I just change a few font colors and make a few tweaks here and there -- I'm not a theme writer, and I know it). I didn't realize that the font changed from the 4.0 version of the theme to the 4.2 version of the theme.
Anybody out there that's good with css, you're more than welcome to take a shot at coming up with something that looks better. The current css file can be found here.
Wouldn't it be possible to move the "log in" and "poll" boxes to the right, along with the rest of the boxes?
Because they are on the left, the middle column, with the actual articles and such, gets pretty small, especially with lower resolutions. I liked the fact that normally you would have a nice and wide column for the articles.
I intend to keep the default theme with three columns as it is -- though I'll spend some time shrinking down the side columns so the middle one can be larger.
However, I'll add another theme with just one side column (as it used to be), which you can log in and select if you prefer... I'll try and get to that in the next day or so.
Okay, users can now select any of the following themes:
- KernelTrap (default, three column theme)
- KernelTrapLeft (two column theme, blocks only on the left)
- KernelTrapRight (two colulmn theme, blocks only on the right)
- text (simple text-based theme)
Just log in then go here to select your preferred theme.
Note that you can also turn on/off most of the boxes there, too.
> I intend to keep the default theme with three columns as it is
So far nobody has stated that they like the three column theme, why not make a vote about it? If most people dislike it, make the 2-column theme default and keep 3 columns as an option. I had to create an account just to get rid of that extra column, good thing I started visiting KT before the change so knew the content makes up for the trouble of registering - had I come here the first time just now I probably would not have come back. Just like in real life first impressions matter a lot, dont scare off potential readers with a bad layout.
Yeah, I noticed that issue with many of the older stories, too. I'm surprised more people haven't complained about it. Anyway, it's very high on my list of issues to resolve... (This new version of Drupal is displaying nodes differently -- I just need to figure out how to make it display the old way, at least for the older stories)
BTW, I do appreciate the work you are putting in here,
and the site is an excellent source of info, but I have
to vote "worse than before".
I don't like the two sidebar theme, so I need to log in
to select a different theme. But I read KT from home
and work, and Drupal only seems to remember that I'm
logged in from one place.
That's really irritating.
Slashdot lets me log in on multiple machines, LWN lets
me, so surely Drupal can too?
That was a design decision, to only allow logins from one IP... It's been a while since I've looked at that code, but I'll see if it's something easily modified.
I don't think the forums are a great idea - while I'm sure this site has a big community, it's just not big enough for forums. I think most people which need help will go to LNO, LJR, LinuxQuestions, BSDVault, bsdaemon etc.
IMHO it's a bad idea and a waste of screen space, hd space and bandwith.
If you decide to keep them anyway, I think you should make less sections, so not 1 section for each kernel tree.
That way, the content would be more centralized instead of a few topics per section, which makes the forum look inactive -> people leave and go to more active forums.
As for the chatbox, maybe you could put it on one of the known networks, OFTC or Freenode, and put the irc server + channel in the FAQ? I think it's a good idea, it just needs more publicity :-)
One more thing: on http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/674 you say this:
"With a free KernelTrap user account, you'll also be able to go here to vote on whether or not these submitted stories get posted."
> I don't think the forums are a great idea - while I'm
> sure this site has a big community, it's just not big
> enough for forums. I think most people which need help
> will go to LNO, LJR, LinuxQuestions, BSDVault, bsdaemon
> etc. IMHO it's a bad idea and a waste of screen space,
> hd space and bandwith.
You may be right.... We'll wait and see. In any case, I like it as it's a convenient place to put stories that otherwise wouldn't be posted. (ie, tracking all kernel releases, etc)
> If you decide to keep them anyway, I think you should
> make less sections, so not 1 section for each kernel tree.
> That way, the content would be more centralized instead
> of a few topics per section, which makes the forum look
> inactive -> people leave and go to more active forums.
Hmm... My favorite part is all the many categories... ;)
Granted, things are pretty barren right now. But it's a catch-22. People don't come unless it's busy. It doesn't get busy unless people come...
I'll give it a few months trial at minimum and see if they're being utilized at all before I make a decision.
BTW: It would be easy to add links allowing a person to view a combination of multiple forums. For example, to see all Linux kernel-related forum topics, go here.
> As for the chatbox, maybe you could put it on one
> of the known networks, OFTC or Freenode, and put
> the irc server + channel in the FAQ? I think it's
> a good idea, it just needs more publicity :-)
Interesting. I'll look more into a full featured chat service perhaps. However, I don't personally hang out on IRC channels, so I may not be inspired. It's a lower priority for now.
Old link. It should be http://kerneltrap.org/queue/. I updated that story. (mod_rewrite should have rewritten the link automatically... I'll add it to my list of things to check into... ;)
> Granted, things are pretty barren right now. But it's a catch-22.
> People don't come unless it's busy. It doesn't get busy unless people come...
true, but you can imho also make it _look_ busy, by making less sections (at least in the beginning). If you have 100 topics, and 20 sections, it looks totally inactive. If you have 3 sections (for example GNU/Linux; *BSD; Other stuff) it will make the forums look much more active. A trial for a few months is a good idea though.
> Interesting. I'll look more into a full featured chat service perhaps.
> However, I don't personally hang out on IRC channels, so I may not be inspired.
> It's a lower priority for now.
I thought the chat service was already linked to an IRC server :)
The advantage of using IRC is that can connect to them using IRC clients, which is much easier. Some good & free (in all senses of the word ;)) web-based interfaces would be phpopenchat and cgiirc. I don't think it should be very hard to replace the current chatbox with one of those.
Currently, the chatbox is empty - using IRC might change that :)
> BTW: It would be easy to add links allowing a person to view a
> combination of multiple forums. For example, to see all Linux
> kernel-related forum topics, go here.
This is really useful, why not adding this link to the forum section, e.g., if click you in the main navigation bar on 'forum' and then choose 'linux' in the list of forums (at the moment that only gives you a limited view of only linux related forums).
> This is really useful, why not adding
> this link to the forum section, e.g., if
> click you in the main navigation bar on
> 'forum' and then choose 'linux' in the
> list of forums (at the moment that only
> gives you a limited view of only linux
Okay, please try the 'view all' links that I've added to the forum pages. Better?
Which refers to Linux forums AND stories... Another thing about that is that it's not "direct" for new KernelTrap users: they just don't know the site so they expect to have the latests on everything in the main page...
Yes, I have a new site-design in mind. Of course, I'm not a web designer, so it takes me longer than most to do it.
Essentially, there will be a "front page" which has "features", "highlights" etc, changing more on a week to week basis instead of a day to day basis. Then there will be a "Linux" page which will include news stories, forum discussions, blogs, etc -- all Linux stuff in one place and updated more frequently. And the same for FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc...
Worse than before, actually.
Worse than before, actually. The default font is - honestly - quite horrible.
--
schnee
re: Worse than before, actually.
Hmm... I actually heavily base KernelTrap's theme on another (by heavily, I mean I just change a few font colors and make a few tweaks here and there -- I'm not a theme writer, and I know it). I didn't realize that the font changed from the 4.0 version of the theme to the 4.2 version of the theme.
Anybody out there that's good with css, you're more than welcome to take a shot at coming up with something that looks better. The current css file can be found here.
Fonts
Do you mean the font or the font size? I'm glad that the font sizes aren't using fixed sizes like points and pixels anymore.
Log in and poll boxes
Wouldn't it be possible to move the "log in" and "poll" boxes to the right, along with the rest of the boxes?
Because they are on the left, the middle column, with the actual articles and such, gets pretty small, especially with lower resolutions. I liked the fact that normally you would have a nice and wide column for the articles.
re: Log in and poll boxes
I intend to keep the default theme with three columns as it is -- though I'll spend some time shrinking down the side columns so the middle one can be larger.
However, I'll add another theme with just one side column (as it used to be), which you can log in and select if you prefer... I'll try and get to that in the next day or so.
re: Log in and poll boxes
Okay, users can now select any of the following themes:
- KernelTrap (default, three column theme)
- KernelTrapLeft (two column theme, blocks only on the left)
- KernelTrapRight (two colulmn theme, blocks only on the right)
- text (simple text-based theme)
Just log in then go here to select your preferred theme.
Note that you can also turn on/off most of the boxes there, too.
> I intend to keep the defa
> I intend to keep the default theme with three columns as it is
So far nobody has stated that they like the three column theme, why not make a vote about it? If most people dislike it, make the 2-column theme default and keep 3 columns as an option. I had to create an account just to get rid of that extra column, good thing I started visiting KT before the change so knew the content makes up for the trouble of registering - had I come here the first time just now I probably would not have come back. Just like in real life first impressions matter a lot, dont scare off potential readers with a bad layout.
Yes I honestly think it's that bad.
better, but worse
Better: Text is cleaner, smaller, more to my liking.
Worse: click on, for instance, Interview: Alan Cox to see a giant block of totally unreadable text, the equivalent of unindented/unformatted code.
Fix that, and I am all for the new setup.
RE: better, but worse
(btw, I am using Mozilla-firebird (the artist formerly known as Phoenix))
RE: better, but worse
Yeah, I noticed that issue with many of the older stories, too. I'm surprised more people haven't complained about it. Anyway, it's very high on my list of issues to resolve... (This new version of Drupal is displaying nodes differently -- I just need to figure out how to make it display the old way, at least for the older stories)
Hopefully I'll have it fixed tomorrow.
RE: better, but worse
It should be fixed now. :)
Multiple logins
BTW, I do appreciate the work you are putting in here,
and the site is an excellent source of info, but I have
to vote "worse than before".
I don't like the two sidebar theme, so I need to log in
to select a different theme. But I read KT from home
and work, and Drupal only seems to remember that I'm
logged in from one place.
That's really irritating.
Slashdot lets me log in on multiple machines, LWN lets
me, so surely Drupal can too?
re: Multiple logins
That was a design decision, to only allow logins from one IP... It's been a while since I've looked at that code, but I'll see if it's something easily modified.
two sidebars
I also dislike the two sidebar theme.
It looks particularly bad at 800x600, since the middle column shows up very thin.
Slashdot does okay with two sidebars b/c on the comments page the sidebar stops where the comments start.
forums, chatbox, voting for content
I don't think the forums are a great idea - while I'm sure this site has a big community, it's just not big enough for forums. I think most people which need help will go to LNO, LJR, LinuxQuestions, BSDVault, bsdaemon etc.
IMHO it's a bad idea and a waste of screen space, hd space and bandwith.
If you decide to keep them anyway, I think you should make less sections, so not 1 section for each kernel tree.
That way, the content would be more centralized instead of a few topics per section, which makes the forum look inactive -> people leave and go to more active forums.
As for the chatbox, maybe you could put it on one of the known networks, OFTC or Freenode, and put the irc server + channel in the FAQ? I think it's a good idea, it just needs more publicity :-)
One more thing: on http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/674 you say this:
"With a free KernelTrap user account, you'll also be able to go here to vote on whether or not these submitted stories get posted."
That link (http://kerneltrap.org/module.php?mod=queue) isn't working though (and yes, I am logged in :-)). Is that disabled or a problem?
re: forums, chatbox, voting for content
> I don't think the forums are a great idea - while I'm
> sure this site has a big community, it's just not big
> enough for forums. I think most people which need help
> will go to LNO, LJR, LinuxQuestions, BSDVault, bsdaemon
> etc. IMHO it's a bad idea and a waste of screen space,
> hd space and bandwith.
You may be right.... We'll wait and see. In any case, I like it as it's a convenient place to put stories that otherwise wouldn't be posted. (ie, tracking all kernel releases, etc)
> If you decide to keep them anyway, I think you should
> make less sections, so not 1 section for each kernel tree.
> That way, the content would be more centralized instead
> of a few topics per section, which makes the forum look
> inactive -> people leave and go to more active forums.
Hmm... My favorite part is all the many categories... ;)
Granted, things are pretty barren right now. But it's a catch-22. People don't come unless it's busy. It doesn't get busy unless people come...
I'll give it a few months trial at minimum and see if they're being utilized at all before I make a decision.
BTW: It would be easy to add links allowing a person to view a combination of multiple forums. For example, to see all Linux kernel-related forum topics, go here.
> As for the chatbox, maybe you could put it on one
> of the known networks, OFTC or Freenode, and put
> the irc server + channel in the FAQ? I think it's
> a good idea, it just needs more publicity :-)
Interesting. I'll look more into a full featured chat service perhaps. However, I don't personally hang out on IRC channels, so I may not be inspired. It's a lower priority for now.
> That link (http://kerneltrap.org/module.php?mod=queue)
> isn't working though (and yes, I am logged in :-)).
> Is that disabled or a problem?
Old link. It should be http://kerneltrap.org/queue/. I updated that story. (mod_rewrite should have rewritten the link automatically... I'll add it to my list of things to check into... ;)
Thanks for the feedback!
re: forums, chatbox, voting for content
> Granted, things are pretty barren right now. But it's a catch-22.
> People don't come unless it's busy. It doesn't get busy unless people come...
true, but you can imho also make it _look_ busy, by making less sections (at least in the beginning). If you have 100 topics, and 20 sections, it looks totally inactive. If you have 3 sections (for example GNU/Linux; *BSD; Other stuff) it will make the forums look much more active. A trial for a few months is a good idea though.
> Interesting. I'll look more into a full featured chat service perhaps.
> However, I don't personally hang out on IRC channels, so I may not be inspired.
> It's a lower priority for now.
I thought the chat service was already linked to an IRC server :)
The advantage of using IRC is that can connect to them using IRC clients, which is much easier. Some good & free (in all senses of the word ;)) web-based interfaces would be phpopenchat and cgiirc. I don't think it should be very hard to replace the current chatbox with one of those.
Currently, the chatbox is empty - using IRC might change that :)
> BTW: It would be easy to ad
> BTW: It would be easy to add links allowing a person to view a
> combination of multiple forums. For example, to see all Linux
> kernel-related forum topics, go here.
This is really useful, why not adding this link to the forum section, e.g., if click you in the main navigation bar on 'forum' and then choose 'linux' in the list of forums (at the moment that only gives you a limited view of only linux related forums).
Thorsten
re: why not adding this link
I do plan to do this. Soon... ;)
added
> This is really useful, why not adding > this link to the forum section, e.g., if > click you in the main navigation bar on > 'forum' and then choose 'linux' in the > list of forums (at the moment that only > gives you a limited view of only linuxOkay, please try the 'view all' links that I've added to the forum pages. Better?
Better, although my KernelTra
Better, although my KernelTrap bookmark is allways:
http://kerneltrap.org/taxonomy/view/or/54,60,61,62,63,102,99,64,100,101,...
Which refers to Linux forums AND stories... Another thing about that is that it's not "direct" for new KernelTrap users: they just don't know the site so they expect to have the latests on everything in the main page...
re: Better, although my KernelTrap
> Which refers to Linux forums AND stories..
Yes, I have a new site-design in mind. Of course, I'm not a web designer, so it takes me longer than most to do it.
Essentially, there will be a "front page" which has "features", "highlights" etc, changing more on a week to week basis instead of a day to day basis. Then there will be a "Linux" page which will include news stories, forum discussions, blogs, etc -- all Linux stuff in one place and updated more frequently. And the same for FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc...
Simple enough.