Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Skinning and designing Serendipity (CSS, HTML, Smarty)
Harald Weingaertner
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Harald Weingaertner »

Thanks Don and onli. I don't change anything. I was just wondering.
Harald Weingaertner
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Harald Weingaertner »

Don, do you think it is possible to add a "Youtube feed-URL." to the Social-Links in one of the next versions?

Maybe Youtube is not pure "Social" but on my blog it makes sense. For me i've changed the unused pinterst button in index.tpl to youtube-play button. But maybe you think it's a good idea to offer Youtube in the admin?

Best regards, Harald
Harald Weingaertner
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Harald Weingaertner »

Sorry Don, i have another idea for a next release of the clean blog theme.

The Navigation-Bar on the top is in white characters and transparent background. On some of my bg-header images i cannot see the white letters, because the background image is also white on the top.

Do you think you could but the white characters in a darker <div> box? Like you do it with the Navigation bar, when you scroll up?

Also the titles are in white characters. Do you think the stylesheet could be changed to something like this for the title? http://www.html-seminar.de/outline-schr ... shadow.htm

I'm sure some could do it with changing the stylesheet or by just using a darker header image. But maybe you agree to one or two points?

The longer i play with it, the more i love it. :)

Best regards, Harald
Don Chambers
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Don Chambers »

Great job of using the clean blog theme. I will consider your ideas for a short time before making any decision.

I do understand the desire for a youtube button, but where do we draw the line? There are dozens of social media sites... with new ones coming along, and old ones becoming obsolete all the time.

The navbar idea is pretty good... that would be quite easy to implement as an option.

Do we accommodate every option (feature creep) or do we just include a few options which people can learn by example, then modify to their own needs?
=Don=
Harald Weingaertner
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Harald Weingaertner »

Thanks Don.

I guess you received my PM with the Blog-Link. I also guess you do not need the 2 lines i've changed in the css to get the Navbar and Shadow-Thing done? ;-)

Anywhay: I used background-color: rgba(55, 55, 55, 0.6); for .navbar-custom
and text-shadow: 0 0 5px black; for .intro-header .site-heading h1

Maybe these two values work fine for you too. In my opinion this shouldn't be an option. It should be standard, because for me it makes more sense to darken the navbar with white characters. You never know, what bg-image admins use. This should work for all bg-images.

Youtube is maybe the only Social Media, that i personal would include in "Standard" Social Media Services. Or maybe one emtpy field where you can add Text/Link/FA-Icon?

Tank you for all your work!

Harald
Don Chambers
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Don Chambers »

Yes, I saw your PM, and if I implement your suggestion as a theme option, I will use those css values or something quite similar.

I have another idea for the social media icons... will let you know how that works out.
=Don=
NeilW
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by NeilW »

Harald Weingaertner wrote:Don, do you think it is possible to add a "Youtube feed-URL." to the Social-Links in one of the next versions?
Hi Harald,

I don't think that editing the Clean-Blog template to include a static "Youtube feed-URL" on the pages of your blog would be too hard.

But probably the best utilisation of YouTube would be to embed a video directly into your blog that relates to the subject matter of your blog.

There are probably a number of ways of doing this, but while you are experimenting have a look at the serendipity_event_entryproperties plug-in that you needed to install to run the Clean-Blog template.

At the bottom of the configuration area there is a field where you can create custom fields that are applicable to each blog post.

I have found it really great for customising my Clean-Blog installation and it works very well.

Hope this helps.

- Neil
Harald Weingaertner
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Harald Weingaertner »

Hi Neil, thank you. My wish was to have a Youtube Button at the bottom of the blog. Like i did it in the attached screenshot.

Sorry if i did not explained it better.
Attachments
yt.JPG
yt.JPG (12.5 KiB) Viewed 45925 times
NeilW
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by NeilW »

Hi Harald,

That looks great and glad you got it working for you.

As I mentioned below there would be a number of ways to use the standard Configuration fields in s9y and Clean-Blog to achieve your aim. (Don't always believe the field labels :wink:)

- I was just giving you some other options, if you wanted to expand it further. 8)

I use Clean-Blog on my site and love it - after some great help from Don and onli.

The ability to widely customise without having to learn to create your own theme is exceptional.

I am still to finalise a few things on this page, but if you go to http://mybusiness-mylife.com/global/pr/blog.php you may be able to pick up that the following can all be customised for each individual blog post by using the serendipity_event_entryproperties plug-in;

1. The meta description tag
2. The meta keywords tag
3. The Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ meta tags and images
4. The Author Bio Byline
5. The Social Media Share buttons
6. The Disqus comments (that also allows My Business-My Life members to use their membership to post)
7. The three quotes below the blog post
8. The affiliate adverts to appear at the bottom of each blog post

So as you can see, virtually anything from the top to the bottom of the blog post can be readily customised.
Harald Weingaertner
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Harald Weingaertner »

WOW!

I hope, Don will add some features you use on your blog.

- I like the Drop-Downs on your Navbar!

Also, i would love to be able, to add custom css, without editing the Clean-Blog CSS, maybe in an optional usercss.css (or something like that).

But thats all for now ;-) I like the clean and 'simple' theme. This is the first blog, that is readable from my mobile phone. Also i love the ability to add a custom header image for each entry. Thats perfect, for the blog i use it for (a kind of diary).

But i think, that i will check your blog for some new ideas. Looks great!

Best regards, Harald
NeilW
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by NeilW »

Thanks Harald, really glad you like it. :D

What Don has created is a really brilliant use of the capabilities of s9y and Bootstrap to provide anybody, even with no or very little html and css knowledge, a modern, clean and fully responsive blog site.

From that point on, it then depends on your own depth of html and css (and perhaps a bit of php) knowledge as to how far you can take it

For me, I have very limited knowledge of those things, but have taught myself enough to be dangerous at best. :wink: I certainly would not even begin to scratch the surface of Don and onli's knowledge, but the point is that it really does not take a lot.

Don and onli really helped me significantly as my site is a membership based site and there is code in those drop down menu's that changes the selections depending on whether you are logged in and at what membership level. That was a whole challenge in itself to bring into s9y and Clean Blog.

So I guess what I am saying is that the basic Clean Blog theme is great for anybody who does not want to get any deeper into web site coding but still have the ability to customise their blog through the settings that Don has provided.

After that, if you wanted to "surround" the basic blog with your own ideas and features you have the option to "embed" Clean Blog into your own design.

If you wanted to go that way, and because Clean Blog is founded on Bootstrap, I think that would be the first place to start.

Things like drop down menu's (soooo 2013 :lol:) are available through the Bootstrap platform and there are many free templates available for it that may also suit your needs or give you ideas. For me, I just learn through pushing the limits as hard as I can and trial and error. (LOTS of error).

You can create your own custom css from the standard Bootstrap css, just by using the same css classes but adding your own styles to those classes. You can also add your own custom classes as well. (Never try to just edit the main Bootstrap css as your edits will get over-ridden by any updates and always fork your Clean Blog installation if you make any changes there.)

You then load your custom style sheet after the Bootstrap css and your classes will over-ride the Bootstrap ones.

To still keep it simple, and if you have a good text editor, you could do a similar thing now, as you suggest with your current installation, by just creating your own custom.css and uploading it and then editing the page/template to have it load after any other css.

Not knowing your own circumstances, I am possibly explaining the obvious to you here, but I - and I am sure Don and others, are happy to help you achieve exactly what you want.

Hope this helps and all the best,

- Neil
Last edited by NeilW on Mon Oct 19, 2015 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fabien
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Fabien »

Clean Blog is wonderful and really stylish.

I would like to use it, but I use several sidebar plugins and two of them are really useful for my readers : recententries that I use to show randomly one old article and comments. Is there an easy way to use these function avalaible with Clean Blog?

Thanks, Fabien
Fabien Chabreuil (blog)
NeilW
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by NeilW »

Hi Fabien,

Don Chambers would be the best to answer this for you, but from my viewpoint you can maintain a sidebar in a responsive design and with Bootstrap. On a desktop, the sidebar appears as normal, and on a mobile device it slips down underneath the main page section.

That may tend to spoil the look and feel of the Clean Blog, depending on your taste.

As an alternative, you may wish to maintain the look and feel of Clean Blog as a single page and then create a separate page that holds the information in the side bar and then create an additional icon to it on the main page.

Depending on the sidebar plug-in that you are using both of the above options could be achieve with simple edits to the css and the Clean Blog .tpl file.

Hope this helps,

- Neil
Don Chambers
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Don Chambers »

Fabien - the Clean Blog theme was designed so as not to use sidebars.
=Don=
Fabien
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Re: Clean Blog - a fully responsive, mobile 1st s9y theme

Post by Fabien »

Hi,

Thanks for your answers.

"The Clean Blog theme was designed so as not to use sidebars."
Of course! I don't want to add a sidebar, I just want to have access to some functions that usually are in a sidebar.

For example, it seems to me necessary that a person visiting my blog can see the last comments posted. I don't see the function on the Clean Blog demo. I agree with Neil suggestion to put this information on a separate page. It's already what's done with the category list and the archive list. My question is only how to do that.

Thanks,
Fabien
Fabien Chabreuil (blog)
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