General and Specific Questions about Improving a Blog Design and Layout
August 16, 2010 11:13 AM Subscribe
I have some questions about the layout and features of my blog (hosted on blogspot).
The blog is a place where I try to post a funny queer video a couple of times a week. Here are my questions:
1) An old version of the blog had an email subscription box where people could enter an email address and click a subscribe button to get updates. I've replaced this with an RSS button that takes people to a feedburner page where they can either sign up to subscribe to RSS updates or email updates. Would it be better to have this email box on the blog itself, or are most people not using email for updates these days? I only have a single sidebar, so I don't want to cram too much stuff in there.
2) A friend just redesigned the site for me, and although she made it look much nicer, there are a couple of things that I still want to update/fix, and I don't want to keep pestering her for help after she has already been so helpful.
- In the blog's right sidebar, the "Other Great Queer Sites" and "Interesting Queer Links" both have weird white lines extending out of the white boxes into the purple color of the sidebar (at least in chrome on os-x snow leopard). I'm assuming that this has something to do with each item in those sections being links. Any idea what causes this and how to fix it?
- Also, now there isn't any space between the entries when I have multiple posts on one day. For instance, if you go to the blog and scroll down to July 15th, there is an example of this. Any idea what I can change in the template on blogger, or is there something that shows up in the style sheet, for why this happens or how I can fix it?
3) Are there any other websites or blogs that you know of that are regularly posting funny queer videos? I know about the Towleroad Guide to the Tube.
4) While I'm generally inclined to have the start page of the blog display 10 or 15 of the most recent posts, I'm wondering if this could slow down the load time. Is there some number of youtube videos being loaded at one time that might hang up any browsers or os-es these days?
I'm not looking for any comments about the content or videos I'm posting, but if there is anything else about the design or blog layout that I should improve or change I appreciate the feedback.
The blog is a place where I try to post a funny queer video a couple of times a week. Here are my questions:
1) An old version of the blog had an email subscription box where people could enter an email address and click a subscribe button to get updates. I've replaced this with an RSS button that takes people to a feedburner page where they can either sign up to subscribe to RSS updates or email updates. Would it be better to have this email box on the blog itself, or are most people not using email for updates these days? I only have a single sidebar, so I don't want to cram too much stuff in there.
2) A friend just redesigned the site for me, and although she made it look much nicer, there are a couple of things that I still want to update/fix, and I don't want to keep pestering her for help after she has already been so helpful.
- In the blog's right sidebar, the "Other Great Queer Sites" and "Interesting Queer Links" both have weird white lines extending out of the white boxes into the purple color of the sidebar (at least in chrome on os-x snow leopard). I'm assuming that this has something to do with each item in those sections being links. Any idea what causes this and how to fix it?
- Also, now there isn't any space between the entries when I have multiple posts on one day. For instance, if you go to the blog and scroll down to July 15th, there is an example of this. Any idea what I can change in the template on blogger, or is there something that shows up in the style sheet, for why this happens or how I can fix it?
3) Are there any other websites or blogs that you know of that are regularly posting funny queer videos? I know about the Towleroad Guide to the Tube.
4) While I'm generally inclined to have the start page of the blog display 10 or 15 of the most recent posts, I'm wondering if this could slow down the load time. Is there some number of youtube videos being loaded at one time that might hang up any browsers or os-es these days?
I'm not looking for any comments about the content or videos I'm posting, but if there is anything else about the design or blog layout that I should improve or change I appreciate the feedback.
This thread is closed to new comments.
2) It's hard to diagnose without seeing the code. I've very little experience with Blogger, but I'm assuming there's a section where you (/your friend) pasted in a section of code? If so, have a look there and see if you can see something that looks a little like
a.something {
display:block;
border-bottom: 1px solid;
}
try changing the 1px to 0px and see if it vanishes. If so, then delete that line.
If you're stuck with this bit and would like me to have a look at your back end for you, to save pestering your friend, MeMail me and I will try to help (I have HTML/CSS skillz, but like I said almost no experience with Blogger).
4) I think 10 is more than enough, a motivated reader would happily click on 'next page' for more posts.
Just FYI it loaded rather slowly on my laptop Safari 4, OSX, 8MB cable, London, UK.
(And I skipped 3 because I've absolutely no idea!)
posted by sid.tv at 2:32 PM on August 16, 2010