Something's... different... ~ Chalgyr's Game Room

Something's... different...

May 17, 2012 15 comments

So, basically - I got bored earlier on my lunch break, and I decided to go with a new, brighter theme for spring (so I'm a month or two late, minor details). Anyway - I've been toying around with the idea of coming up with three or four different Blogger layouts for awhile now.

Basically the design and functionality is almost completely unchanged, but the background pictures and the color schemes are obviously quite a bit different. If you hate it and want to see the old one come back? I've got thick skin (or is it a thick head? I always get those two confused) and want to hear about it. If you like it? That would be cool too. If you're indifferent? Well, that's fine by me. But if people do seem to dig it, I may fiddle around with making two more to occasionally cycle through.

It was just way too nice of a day outside today, and seeing that darkly themed blog just seemed out of place - so this is the result. :)

coffeewithgames17 May, 2012 18:19
Gotta get used to the font. It's "bolder" I think, so the "i" first appeared as an "l" to me in the titles.

So, maybe a font change? Not as bold, but same font? Not sure.

Other than that, the back image is a nice touch, and the simple fact you are brave enough to change your theme is nice.
My issue, is that I have uploaded LOTS of pictures, and if I change a theme, some don't look right unless they are sized the "default" size, and that throws off all my pictures/text in posts, because some images are aligned "center" or "left".
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Chalgyr17 May, 2012 18:27
Hmm and comment type is goofed up too I see. And yeah, I'm not sure what's going on with the font - it's the same type but slightly bigger than what I was using before, but it's like there was a shadow effect being applied to it, even though the HTML called for no style change. Well, off to fix comment color at the very least, lol
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Parko17 May, 2012 19:00
I actually can't ready any of the text unless I highlight it. It appears to have a faint outline with a transparent middle. The Comments section looks fine to me though, and I do like the rest of the theme.
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Chalgyr17 May, 2012 19:04
Yeah... sad. :( I must not have saved a couple of my changes back when I was at work. the comments section should have a light background w/ dark text. The text on the actual posts was too bold earlier, but in trying to fix that, I goofed up the text. Go me! :) *keeps poking at it*
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Matt Sainsbury17 May, 2012 19:27
I like the blue, and I much prefer black text to white-on-black.

Great changes! :)
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Chalgyr17 May, 2012 19:37
Thanks Matt. Still need to tweak the text. It's either really bold, or really light - not much middle ground. I think the old one will come back, maybe for fall before Halloween. :P Ideally I'll get this all figured out and have like 3 or 4 rotating ones every several months. Plus, good learning experience for me.
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Chalgyr17 May, 2012 20:42
There. that took more than a little finageling, but I think I got a better handle on the overly bold text. Any additional thoughts? :)
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Rob17 May, 2012 22:46
I like the lighter theme, and the Mario background picture is a nice touch! The font does look a little blurry on my end though, it's definitely readable, just not as sharp as it used to be.
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Chalgyr17 May, 2012 23:59
And what's odd is it's the exact same font. I need to tweak it a bit further I think. What's really interesting is that all I did to change it up from earlier when Coffee commented, was scale back on the color from pitch black to dark slate gray, and that seemed to thin out the letters quite a bit.

If I can hammer this template out though, I can pply it to a couple of future ones. I kinda of want to rotate background pics too now and then. Just something to keep me occupied at work on lunch breaks, that sort of thing.
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Chalgyr18 May, 2012 09:00
And my timing matches that of Super Phil nicely as I was also working to add Disqus to my comments section. They say it can take up to 24 hours for old comments to show up and things to be synced properly - so we'll see what happens. Thanks for hanging in there and I would love any additional suggestions.

I tweaked my background image to be a bit wider and shorter and then anchored it and adjusted the fonts of the tags/archive/blog roll as well to be a bit more visible. I've definitely been having some fun with this :)
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coffeewithgames18 May, 2012 22:36
For some reason, I thought you had already added Disqus at one point...and then took it off, but I couldn't remember for sure.
Crazy timing for sure though...irony, it's the word of my life!

I do like the anchored background image and have toyed with a few before, but never went "live" with them, as I think it creates more of a flowing scroll.
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Chalgyr18 May, 2012 23:48
Nah - I had talked about adding it once, but just never followed through on it. But the old comments section was a bit broken in the prior format, so this was the perfect time for me to put Disqus in I figured. I spent most of lunch today tinkering around with a 'green'/summer color scheme and playing with a variety of potential background images I can swap in and out as my mood changes. :P
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Robert23 May, 2012 02:23
So I go away for a few days and you change the theme and *FINALLY* add Disqus. Damn!

First off, it's awesome adding disqus. If for nothing else I really enjoy being able to reply via email even though there are other features. (and the sync with standard blogger comments is nice too so current rss feeds all work the same)

The theme: Really like the light blue, but the font does take some adjusting. Looks slightly bigger, slightly bolder and somewhat blurry like a drop shadow kind of thing. I've looked at the source and the developer panel in chrome, but didn't immediately see anything.

The background is also cool *IF* my browser is opened wide enough. Otherwise I completely miss it. With my current font size I miss most of it and barely catch the vine on the right and the edge of the green stuff on the left. Maybe I need better eyes..
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Chalgyr23 May, 2012 14:20
I think the moral of the story is you shouldn't vanish anymore. ;) Yeah, I am liking Disqus, just took me forever to get around to applying it. Man, if you see why it has that shadowed look, I'd love to know. I kept my font settings the same as what I had before, just changed the color. It was really bad when I made it straight black - it was like bolded and bleeding a bit - not sure what's up with that.

Yeah, my backgrounds are all sized to 1920 (I've got several that I plan to rotate through from time to time, just to keep things interesting). :)
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Robert28 May, 2012 15:29
Shame on me for going, I know..

I think I found the text issue. There is a 'text-shadow' css property that is being inherited from the #main-wrapper DIV. In the chrome developer console (shift+ctrl+I i think) I changed it to 0px and it went back to "normal". My eyes are thanking me. :)

As always: disqus rules!
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