Sunday 25 January 2009

Spring Mid-summer clean


Over the next couple of days I'm going to be making a few changes to The Hand Mirror, to hopefully spruce things up a bit, update the blogroll, and generally do some housework I've been putting off for ages (just like home then!).

Hopefully I won't stuff anything up, or if I do I'll be able to fix it quick smart. If something isn't working the way you'd hope do feel free to email and let me know (link in my profile).

(Possibly starting out by striking through everything in the blog by failing to close brackets properly is a bad sign!)

Update at 11.53am Sunday - NZ Women portion of Blogroll has been updated and converted to a feedy thing that shows the most recent post and date of last update. There were a few blogs whose feeds I couldn't get to work, so they may have updated more recently then listed (or it may have no update listed at all). If your blog is wrong, or isn't listed, please let me know and hopefully between us we can work out how to get it working.

Update at 1.07pm Sunday - Have now finished tweaking the side-bar. The pictures all now link to a category. Next big job is a layout tweak, but that'll probably happen tomorrow. Sorry if things have been a bit funny, hopefully I'll be able to do the remainder in Preview mode instead of needing to do it live.

Update at 1.28pm Sunday - Ok because I am a saddo, and because the baby is still asleep, I made a start on the layout tweaks. Some of the changes I'm trying to make don't seem to be sticking, so I think it is time to walk away from the keyboard and enjoy the sun! Feedback/suggestions most welcome.

Updated completed, 11.53am Monday - Few things I couldn't get to work, so haven't changed, but here's the full list of changes/updates:
  • Blogroll - added numerous new blogs (and removed a few defunct ones) to the Women's section (now title Other NZ Women in Blogland), converted that portion to most recent posts listing, checked and updated Other NZ Blogs, checked and updated Foreign Feminists.
  • Tweaked colour scheme, front page presentation, and fonts
  • New header, now with pic!
  • Followers added to the sidebar, feel free to Follow us if you have a Blogger profile
  • New pictures inserted in the sidebar, each linked to a category of our blog posts
  • Updates to our About stuff - rejigged this section of the sidebar, updated comment policy, blogroll explanation, and The Kindness of Strangers
Do let me know if anything isn't working or annoys you. Particularly if it means you can't read stuff! Thanks for your patience throughout the tweaking.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love watching blogs while people are updating them; there's something very alive/organic about it :)

But in case you really do want suggestions, the "links to this post" have always perplexed me – they don't seem to actually be links to the post, and I don't know how to trackback/pinkback so that thinkgs I write which do refer to yous all appear in the list.

Julie said...

Definitely do really want suggestions!

The Links to this post thing has long been a trouble to me.

Take for example, Maia's post about women, children and innocence in Gaza, which I know got a few links from outside (including your site), yet they don't show up.

Then there's recent posts which always have a lot of pingbacks from the blogs that list our most recent five posts at any one time (No Minister, Homepaddock, thanks!). Like this one from yesterday, which will be back to no links I guess in a few days.

If anyone out there in Blogland can help that would be much appreciated.

Anonymous said...

This post from 2007 explains why links don't work properly in blogger and how to work around it. This article implies it hasn't been improved.

Incidentally, just like he says, you're also not generating trackbacks for anyone else (so people not on blogger don't magically get a comment/trackback/link thing stuck on the bottom our posts). I've been adding them by hand when I realise you link to something on our blog.

Julie said...

Thanks Anita, I'll have a look at the links tomorrow and see if I can work it out. I suspected we weren't generating trackbacks either, which is a pain in the arse.

Nikki Elisabeth said...

Looking good Julie!

stargazer said...

thanx julie for all your work on this. it's looking great!

Julie said...

Thanks folks!

Anita, I couldn't really work it out from the links you gave, but will put it on the to do list to try to fix in future. In the meantime I'll feel less rude about link whoring in the comments to others' blogs when we have linked to them.

Anonymous said...

I really like the new design and the links showing most recent post + date.

Julie said...

Thanks Kimberley, and I've added you to our blogroll, sorry I missed you earlier :-)