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I'm in the process of upgrading the site from Drupal 4.0 to the recently released Drupal 4.2. You can expect many changes over the next few days, as I continue to tweak configurations and install new modules.
Note that the site will continue to be slow for a while, as it continues to be hosted on a slow desktop computer connection with a DSL line. Fortunately, however, the new server is in-transit to its new home, and I hope to complete the site's migration to this new server by the end of next week.
Please try out the new site and let me know what's broken, or what could stand to be improved... There are plenty of items currently on my todo list, but don't be afraid to speak up if you notice anything odd. :?
Font size too small
The old site's font size was just fine. Now it's a bit
too small.
BTW, this is Moz 1.4 on Linux with my 'normal' propertional
font set to Bitstream Vera Sans at 13pt.
Other than that, it looks OK
Re: Font size too small
You can try to make the default font size to be 14, that way, the text will appear nicely.
Sigh...
Slashdot looks OK, lwn.net looks OK, www.kernel.org looks OK
with 13pt.
So you suggest that I should change my global settings to make
one site more legible? Especially one site that just changed
its layout, _reduced_ its font size and asked for feedback on
the change?
In any case, I've just switched to using the (minimal) "example"
theme, which has a normal font size.
Well, I said you can try. I d
Well, I said you can try. I didn't say you must try. Just a suggestion :)
re: Sigh...
How is it now?
What seems to look good to other people always looks massive to me... Some day I should sit down and figure out how this 'cascading style sheet' stuff works.
Too big? Too small? Let me know... (I'll make my own custom theme that works for me... ;)
Jeremy, it looks fantastic he
Jeremy, it looks fantastic here. I'm using Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030713 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.
re: it looks fantastic here
Good! :)
Hopefully this will be a shared opinion from the many different browsers out there...
IMHO the current font size is
IMHO the current font size is ok. ;-)
Mozilla/default font settings 1280x1024
Just say no to tiny fonts
The font size before was just fine, why make it smaller? Wouldn't it make more sense to just respect the way the viewer set the fonts in his browser?
re: Just say no to tiny fonts
Is it better now?
Might be better now
I don't remember exactly what it was like when I posted, but it looks ok to me now. My point was really just that the size of the main text on a web page should *always* be left alone. Users can set this up the way they like it and it's not very polite to impose your preferences for small/large type. You specify the content, let them specify the presentation.
netscape 4
as a netscape 4.7 user it's now time to say good bye to your site. it gets too hard to view it, now :(
was nice checking out your site the last 2 years or so.
re: netscape 4
It looks that bad, huh? Anybody have a link to Netscape 4 for Linux?
netscape 4.77
I have an old version somewhere, netscape 4.77. I can make a screenshot.
screenshot: 1 | 2
Netscape 4.x has almost no CSS support.
re: netscape 4.77
Thanks. Wow, it really does look bad.
I can only suggest that anyone that really needs to use Netscape 4 should login then switch to the 'Example' theme. That should work with any browser.
Re: netscape 4
Maybe you should user a browser that isn't broken. There is a wide variety to choose from.
ditch it
Netscape 4.x is ancient. It has no decent support for even CSS1, which dates back to 1998, IIRC. That's already half the age of the internet back, I think it's about time to upgrade... Most major sites are pushing CSS since 2001 or so. It's not reasonable to expect people to be backwards compatible with quirky and often proprietary html and not use CSS, which makes things so much more easy.
Normally I'm pretty much pro any-browser sites and pages that maintain backwards compatability, but it's about time you at least use something that has decent CSS support, which is about any browser that is still being development, including some text browsers.
Besides, kerneltrap definitely won't be the only site you have problems on.
What platform are you on?
re: ditch it
To anyone requiring the ability to use Netscape 4, you'll need to login and select the 'Example' theme. It's quite plain and should should work on any browser -- even lynx.
libc5 :(
Hi
I use "homebrew linux". with most software I'm maybe even more up to date than redhat :)
The only problem is I'm still using libc5. The latest netscape version is 4.76 (btw, the screenshots above look great. I get black fonts on black background. I need to highlight everything with the mouse to see something). Mozilla doesn't run there. It hangs, suprise suprise, in libc.so.
I don't want to change the system because right now I can do everything I want. Emailing with rmail, news with rtin, music with xmms, writing with latex, coding with gcc-3.2 and other languages. that's my world.
I don't care for the WWW too much, anymore. I visit daily a news site and a few computer news sites. so far I didn't have any problems with my favorite sites.
I thought it should be quite simple to have a "linux blog site" like this. all you need is something like
article 1
article 2
...
Cheers
re: libc5 :(
Please try the 'example' theme and let me know if that works for you.
(You'll need to login, then adjust your user preferences)
Half the age of the internet?
You said "That's already half the age of the internet back..." I highly doubt it. The Internet goes back to the 70s. Maybe you meant the WWW?
Half the age of the WWW
You are right. Stupid mistake. :)
Not entirely happy
Would be nice if there was only one sidebar of blocks, looks a bit cramped this way. [Add an option to] move them all on one side, or give us the option to disable them (you can disable some, but not "Latest updates" or "Top Nodes" for example).
re: Not entirely happy
Sure, I'll add a theme that has only one column that you can choose as a user. It'll be a couple of days before I get to it, but I'll drop another comment here when it's done.
re: Not entirely happy
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.
Great, it's much better now.
Great, it's much better now. Thanks for listening to your readers and an even bigger thanks for maintaining this kickass site. I really like reading and learing new stuff about the kernel, KernelTrap and KernelTraffic make that possible without having to sort through the 1000+ messages LK mailing list generates every week.
claustrophobic
aka "Attack of the boxes".
I feel a bit claustrophobic having boxes both left and right, taking over the space in the middle (which is pretty small now, especially on the front page). I have a 1024x768 resolution... Is everybody having a higher resolution than me, or am I... just... weird? :)
I'm at 1400x1050, and even I
I'm at 1400x1050, and even I think the middle's cramped.
More nagging
Also note how the middle part continues way below the boxes on the left and right. Perhaps one single column left or right would be better (if that can be modified, I don't know anything about drupal).
re: More nagging
I intend to keep the default theme with three columns, as I'll be adding many more blocks over time. I do agree, however, that it takes up a lot of space. I'll see about shrinking the side columns a bit to grow the center... Hopefully we can find an acceptible medium. (That's why I tried to shrink the fonts down...)
And of course I'll add another theme for users that really only want to have one column. (Yes, Drupal can do that. It's tremendously modular and customizable.)
re: claustrophobic
Select a different theme. 'KernelTrapLeft' or 'KernelTrapRight' are probably more to your liking...
Ack! Tacky smileys!
Is there a way to disable the emoticon icon images? The AOLization of the 'Net continues!
re: Ack! Tacky smileys!
Heh, I'm just testing them. But so far I feel about the same way that you do, so odds are this test won't last much longer.
One suggestion
Is there some way to generate more descriptive <TITLE> tags for KernelTrap's pages? One thing I've noticed is that nearly every page is entitled "KernelTrap", and thus navigating the site via the Back button's dropdown isn't very helpful.
re: One suggestion
Currently it looks like the only custom named pages are the individual stories. I'll look into patching other sections of the site to also feed custom names to the theme, but I'll probably not get to this for a while.
Looks good, but some issues..
Jeremy,
As a whole, the upgrade looks good. Just my $0.02, but I think you should make "KernelTrapLeft" the default theme.
Another couple of nitpicks:
1. If possible, please turn off the 'post new comment' section at the bottom of reading a comment page. The 70 column textarea down there forces the page wider than it would otherwise have to be, making me use the horizontal scrollbar.
2. Why is "country" a required field on the user edit page? I am now from the country of "None".
3. User profiles have limited time zone support. It does not support daylight savings time or GMT+5:30 (India). This is not a new problem from 4.0, so I guess this is more of a RFE.
Thanks for your work on the site.
-molo
BTW, img tags are allowed in comments?
re: Looks good, but some issues..
> but I think you should make "KernelTrapLeft" the
> default theme.
I intend to leave the current default as default, as I intend to use the extra screen real estate. It grows on you.
> 1. If possible, please turn off the 'post new comment'
> section at the bottom of reading a comment page. The
> 70 column textarea down there forces the page wider
> than it would otherwise have to be, making me use the
> horizontal scrollbar.
Easy enough. I was hoping it would encourage more comments, not realizing it would have the affect you've described. Anyway, fixed.
> 2. Why is "country" a required field on the user
> edit page? I am now from the country of "None".
It's a required field from all new users, and anyone changing their profile. Simple curiousity on my part. We're a worldwide community, so it makes it interesting.
> 3. User profiles have limited time zone support. It
> does not support daylight savings time or GMT+5:30
> (India). This is not a new problem from 4.0, so I
> guess this is more of a RFE.
Daylight savings time will currently be handled by the server hosting the site. (Though that has interesting repurcussions for countries that don't have daylight savings time -- like most equatorial countries, numerous states/territories in the US like some of Indiana, Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands,... -- or the fact that daylight savings time happens at different times in different places around the world.)
Hmm, I'll bring this up on the Drupal development mailing list and see what other developers have come up with on this. I'm sure it's already been discussed. At first glance, it looks to be a fairly big undertaking.
As for GMT+5:30, that should be easy enough for me to add.
> Thanks for your work on the site.
Always a pleasure.
> BTW, img tags are allowed in comments?
Unless people decide to abuse them with oversized tuxes... ;)
Easy enough. I was hoping it
Thank you, this makes it easier to navigate.
This sounds odd to me. If I select GMT-7 in that list, I would expect that to not change across DST changes.
Hrm... This seems to be a limitation of PHP. There doesn't seem to be any functionality to get a list of valid time zones. (PHP Date/Time functions) The system should already have time zone description files for the vast majority of time zones in use around the world. Take a look in /usr/share/zoneinfo. The problem isn't gathering/organizing the data, but rather using the data and framework that is already in place. Bad PHP.
Thanks, but there's no need on my part. It won't be right anyway, since India doesn't use DST. Note that southern hemisphere countries like Australia use daylight savings time from October-March, opposite our schedule. They will be doubly off by KT's clock.
Heh, just trying it out. I just hope some lamer doesn't abuse it by posting ad banners or something.
Thanks,
-molo
Links in FAQ broken
If you click on any particular question in the FAQ, it just brings you back to the homepage. It doesn't find the #3.3, etc. Just letting you know.
re: Links in FAQ broken
Thanks. I'll be rewriting the FAQ shortly, and will fix broken links at that time.
Monospace fonts
Now that the normal fonts are looking good how about doing something about the monospace font? It looks waaay small next to the normal font size.
re: Monospace fonts
As I've said before -- theme writing is not my strength. Feel free to submit something that works better. The currently used .css is available above...
(This looks fine on my monitor, so I'm out of ideas)
Suggestion
I took a look at your style sheet and it looks like the font-size attribute for pre and code elements is hardwired to 11 pixels. That might be fine for an average CRT at 72dpi, but on a 1400x1050 LCD with about 120dpi it looks tiny. Why not use a percentage (like you do for every other font-size attribute) instead of a fixed value? Or better yet, leave the size alone so that we get the font size we've specified in our browser settings.
Really, everything else about the site looks great now, but the tiny monospace font just sticks out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately it shows up all the time, since it's the preferred font for displaying newsgroup/mailing list posts on this site.
Suggestion
Okay, your suggestion is in place now. Better?
Suggestion
Much better. Thanks!
re: Suggestion
Cool, that was an easy one... ;)
'remember me' login doesn't work
'Remember me' login doesn't seem to work. I don't get a cookie, even though I check the 'Remember me' box.
The form posts two contradicting values for the same variable:
edit[destination]=http://kerneltrap.org/node&
edit[name]=wouter&
edit[pass]=IMNotStupid&
edit[remember_me]=0&
edit[remember_me]=1&
op=Log+in
... maybe that's part of the problem, I don't know.
re: 'remember me' login doesn't work
That's interesting... That doesn't happen to me.
However, I'm hoping to dig into that section of Drupal this weekend to add support for multiple browsers/IPs, so I'll be sure the "remember_me" logic is working at the same time.
login weirdness
I'm sorry, I *am* still logged in now. Only the front page just keeps on showing the login/password box, the 3-column layout (my preferences select a 2-column layout), no personal box with my name on top and links to my blog/settings, and no names in the "who's online" box. So it's only the main page that acts as if I'm not logged in...
PS: There are double values in the frontpage html code login form, though:
<input type="hidden" name="edit[remember_me]" value="0" />[...]
<input type="checkbox" class="form-checkbox" name="edit[remember_me]" value="1" />
re: login weirdness
Your page is cached. Hit <alt><reload>, or whatever forces an actual reload from the webserver with your browser -- the page will be reloaded and you'll see that you're actually logged in as you think you are.