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| texasjefe42 |
 Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:23 am Post subject: How do I open up the left-side sidebar? |
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Joined: Sep 13, 2006
Posts: 15
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The tagboard I put in I actually put it into the body of a post, to create "an open thread." Blogger said it had html errors though i had it post anyway. i think it does not load properly the first time or for computers with lower memory. But then it seems to work.
Anyhow, I would ideally like to have the tagboard in a left-side sidebar. How do I go about "partitioning" such space on the blog?
And Shawn, if you read this, I remain very interested in trying to build in a real message board into the blog.
Thank you! |
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| Rose |
| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Shawn |
| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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Posts: 327
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Hello again texasjefe42 
Sorry a little busy as I am the webmaster for several sites plus web hosting - it keeps me busy that’s for sure..
But to answer your question the first thing is to maybe consider a web host, as its only a forum you want I can offer you web hosting for $4.99 per month which is cheaper then any other competition..
With that you could install a forum board of your choice with one click through the browser interface!
Once installed we simply edit the HEADER and FOOTER.TPL files to match your blog!
We can even help you modify the forums CSS style sheet to fully blend in giving the forums and blog the same look and feel, hyperlinks mouseover etc!
You would need to simply register a domain name only; I recommend Namecheap or GoDaddy as their most reasonable online.
Once you have that we could get you set up on our server, the plus side of remotely hosting your own forums is - it always going to be available, no matter if blogspot isn't..
The other thing is personal email, and full administration of your forum board if you should ever have to ban a troll or abusive user..you can as you have total control over your entire account and forums
Let me know what you want and we'll get started from there!
PS, to review my hosting site click the link in my signature 
Shawn
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| texasjefe42 |
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:09 am Post subject: |
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Shawn, I am very interested, and I appreciate the offer. Probably Tuesday I will have time to start exploring the next steps.
Rose, the tagboard I used is 'NeoBoard' at http://www.neoworx.net/blue/index.php
The big question on my mind, going into this is -- whether Blogger is the right blog platform to do this with. Blogger's workin' fine for members posting who have at least 512 MB of RAM. I have 2 GB of RAM. But users with 256 MB RAM are definitely having issues with their dashboard and posting windows.
I just chose Blogger because because it was my first foray. But my blog is only 1 month old, so I'm still early enough to manually migrate if that's the way to go. If we're going to build in a message board, is Blogger adequate, or should I be looking at Blogger Beta, Typepad, Wordpress, etc... As with a lot of these things, I'm willing to pay nominal monthly charges, but if there are free platforms of quality, I like anyone am all for that.
Thanks! |
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| Rose |
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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Well that all depends on what you are looking for. I always recommend using your own domain to host your Blog because it offers more flexibility. Wordpress is an excellent platform and it offers a great deal of plugins. Also with your own domain you would be able to install a forum such as the one here. We do offer website hosting if you should decide to go that route. I’m using Wordpress for four of my blogs. 
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| texasjefe42 |
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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ok, so if I read ya'll right, Shawn and you work together. I commit to you hosting a website for $5 per month. We build a board on the page -- and -- migrate the blog away from Blogger to the web page, using WordPress.
I just have to go to GoDaddy and get a domain, which is only a few bucks.
Is that right?
In my vision -- splitting the page in two columns -- the left half would be the blog, and the right half would be the message board. If we need to carve out a bit of the left side for a sidebar, that's fine too.
Is that all doable?
Also, I like the layout of this board. It's got a user-friendliness and simplicity to it, in contrast to the business of many other boards out there. |
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| Rose |
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Shawn |
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Rose |
| Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| texasjefe42 |
| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 11:45 pm Post subject: |
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Hiya! I've been learning Adobe Premiere Elements and editing video the past two weeks, hence my recent inactivity here.
Thanks for the link. Amazing. And if we can get a Wordpress developer involved, that would be wonderful.
Quick Wordpress question: (Not counting the masthead) does the Wordpress blog main page have to be all text and links? Or, can the graphics of posts be main-(or front) paged as in Blogger?
Shawn -- on a website with the blog and message board, is it possible to put a fairly blank login page ahead of it?
The Scottish Blogger/Wordpress stuff looks really good. I'm still very interested in the platform I've described earlier. The left half of the webpage would be the blog, with a front-page for graphics and posts -- and -- the right half would be the message board.
So, now that I've learned and was really enjoying Blogger, looks like I've got to learn Wordpress, because on the first pass, it seems like a different interface. |
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| Rose |
| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 1:33 am Post subject: |
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Don’t hold your breath on getting a Wordpress developer involved. LOL
Quick Wordpress question: (Not counting the masthead) does the Wordpress blog main page have to be all text and links? Or, can the graphics of posts be main-(or front) paged as in Blogger?
You lost me there? I don't understand what you mean? My blog is http://www.rosedesrochers.com
I'm using Wordpress, but I do not have a forum on it.
I do not recommend doing what you want to do. I recommend splitting the page top and bottom.
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| texasjefe42 |
| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 8:17 am Post subject: |
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Ok, thanks for linking to your blog. I see that graphics can be placed on the main page. (When I flipped through random WordPress sites yesterday, I saw next to no graphics on posts, except for the graphic for the title box at the top (that's what I meant by masthead).
Now, those blog posts with the graphics on the main page, is it true those graphics could be made bigger? Could I have a YouTube video there?
As for forum placement, we've debated that. Unless it is programmatically difficult, we feel that we want both the blog and the forum board visible at the top of the page, meaning, a left-right split. The blogs appeal to the artists and phot-essay producers. The forum appeals to the everyday conversationalist, which seems to be the bulk of my target audience. In other words, the blog has not drawn in as many of the target people (people I do know). The blog has been intimidating for them to jump into, whereas I want to test the theory that a forum board is something they would have more comfort participating in.
Now, one other direction we would mull is to just have a full-page forum board, as long as the posters could make posts with html capabilities, such as embedding videos and audio in their posts, not just the standard image uploads. So, any suggestions about that would give us more options.
A note about Blogger. One of my friends complains that when's he's drafting in compose mode, he gets all this junk html on the html side, and the published post has these weird underlines. I was having no trouble posting, but yesterday, I definitely got some unintended html junk in my posts, and the published formatting was different than what my preview showed. So, we're probably ready to migrate out of Blogger.
Thanks again. |
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| Rose |
| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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Yes Wordpress has a Youtube plugin. They also have a WordPress/YouTube Video Gallery Plugin and a Video Blogger Plugin.
You were most likely browsing Wordpress hosted blogs, there is a huge difference between Wordpress hosted blogs and those like myself using Wordpress somtware, but hosted at our own domains.
Again slitting the site the way that you want it is a bad SEO move.
I don't know of any forum board that would allow users to embed videos and audio in their posts.
Is this going to be a group blog if so why not use WordPress MU?
If you are going to migrate away from Blogger you better do it soon before they move everyone to the new blogging platform.
My other Wordpress blogs are
http://www.rose-desrochers.net
http://www.rosedesrochers.net
You know how BloggerTalk loads articles and then forums right under it? I still recommend something like that.
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| Shawn |
| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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Hello texasjefe42
Sorry I am completely swamped at the moment I don't even know where my own head is lol!
But I agree with Rose, splitting your page in to 2 using Blogger and then a hosted solution to pull in your forums is a bad idea from search engine view and user friendliness!
Reason, to accomplish what you want you would have to use IFRAMES to pull in the forum! Meaning it won’t be indexed by search engines properly or maybe not even at all!
Try searching why not to use Frames in Google! You will see what I mean..
Also creating the navigation in the forums to work or co aside within the IFRAME would be a nightmare due to the many functions that a forum has!
Now it’s not that it can't be done! But to accomplish what you want would be time consuming and costly to have a web designer and programmer to do this to ensure it works fully!
There’s many factors to consider here, like notification system that’s built into the forums, and Private Message notification not to mention the login and redirect headers that brings the user to the proper forum ID once they have replied or been notified of a reply!
By default their not set up to handle frames but the actual path and URL of the domain their hosted on!
I would really consider and think it over on what you want as it also has to be something you can eventually manage on your own, unless you got the time and a fair bit of $$$
Hope this helps!
Shawn
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| texasjefe42 |
| Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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update:
My Blogger blog has become unstable. For a couple of us, posts no longer publish in proper formats, there are always errors, and for a friend of mine, his text is always published with underlined words that act like embedded url links, but there are no links. Crazy stuff. Does that sound like me and my computer, or, does that sound typical of Blogger?
Anyhow, to migrate, tell me if this is the right order of steps.
1. I register a domain.
2. I purchase your referred host service.
3. I download Wordpress MU. If I read ya'll orrectly, the wordpress software with a host gives the admin everything blogger gave me and more. I'll be able to format headers, sidebars, template etc... as I wish
4. As for the forum, I think ya'll have convinced me to give up the split page. If we do a forum, I'll just put a link with large letters in a prominent place on the blog page, linking them to the forum on a different page.
Also - I'll be able to replicate the minima black theme that I have in Blogger.
Blogger can be imported to Wordpress, but I see I'll have to clean up some posts manually. (There are currently 130 posts on my blog).
Does all that sound right, or are there other steps?
Thanks. |
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