As many of you have noted, I have some coding glitch that forces the FRL comment box to slide go way, way, way down on the page. I’ve temporarily addressed the problem in part by reducing the number of books displayed in the right-hand nav bar, a change which should show up this morning after I rebuild the site. I had set books I’ve read to 20, which is a lot of graphics to load on this page anyway. Now it’s five, which at 47 seems like a good number for representing “in recent memory.” The comment box should appear higher up, though something related to the right navigation bar continues to push push it down somewhat.
The wandering comment box is not the only coding glitch on this page by far; Movable Type takes me way past the limits of my design skills. During the semester, I don’t have the time to prowl the Six Apart support forums and discussion lists, and Six Apart wisely does not answer HTML/CSS questions. So every six months I make some changes, and FRL and I limp along in between. I would betcha that coding glitch is a one-liner, but my test blog was hosed in a recent experiment and it will take a couple of weeks before I get the time to reestablish it.
Speaking of wisely, I try never to implement a change on my live blog I haven’t tested elsewhere. That bizarre moblogging post some of you saw earlier this week, with an enormous image that blew up my aggregator’s reading pane and puzzled some of FRL’s readers, was a rare and stupid exception.
The wise step for FRL would be to move to Typepad, but I admit to a certain interest and pride in installing and maintaining blogging software, even if the result is primitive. Every time I upgrade the site, I learn a little more. Eventually blogging software will develop to the point where I want the slick features I can’t implement, and I’ll capitulate, but for now I’ll put up with a blog that looks as if it were drawn in crayons.
Off, off, off I go, to publish MPOW, retrieve my car from the mechanic (I’ve had four great mechanics in a row: is that good carma?), and then head to the spring LITA meeting in, brrrr, Chicago. Expect one blog review tomorrow as a little TGIF gift. (Even though, with the board meeting, I’ll be SWOS–Still Working On Saturday.)
Posted on this day, other years:
- Change is a hurricane or a door - 2016
- Channeling Winston - 2016
- Mellen, Sky River: what a mighty big waste... - 2013
- Free books, as in free beer, and more - 2009
- Grandmother, tell me again about the year you fooled your editor, your publisher, and the New York Times - 2008
- Jean from Weber - 2007
- How To Lose Your Tech People - 2006
Commenting on commenting on comments–scary. In any case, I hate to disappoint, but using TypeKey here with IE, the box is still wayway(like the third row in a station wagon) down.