Slashdot Mirror
Help Beta Test Slashdot CSS
After almost 8 years, Slashdot's HTML is finally getting an overhaul. For now the changes are almost entirely under the hood, as we migrate the current skin to CSS. Slashdot itself will migrate in the next few weeks, but for now, we'd appreciate it if people who understand CSS could take a look at Slashcode. If you use a browser that lets you select a stylesheet, you can take a look at that site with the Slashdot CSS Skin. Keep in mind that Slashcode doesn't look exactly like Slashdot, so there will be some differences between that site, and the final version that will appear on Slashdot. We're mainly looking for feedback on compatibility issues and blatant bugs. You can use our our SF bug tracker to submit bug reports. Thanks for your help. Once we move Slashdot, work will begin on a new look & feel. If you have ideas, you could start playing with the CSS stylesheets now!
Just about every site remodel has problems. I have just gone over the list of things I have issues with on our local public school's new website. Most of my comments have to do with broken capabilites. I'm sure that the folks at /. have tested this system in a non-production environment, but things are bound to go wrong at first. The unfortunate thing about my local school district's website has been access. How much of the /. staff resources are going to be committed to the rollout and how soon are problems going to be addressed?
Considering the fact that it took nearly two minutes for the form to arrive makes me think we are in for a bumpy ride!
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
CmdrTaco? I have exactly two words for you.
:-)
This. Rocks.
Kudos on finally bringing Slashcode into the 21st century! The Slashdot style over on Slashcode looks absolutely wonderful, with none of the chunky layout problems that plague Slashdot itself! What I'd love to know is, how much bandwidth are you saving by using CSS? Many of the experiments done to date suggest that you could cut your bandwith usage by 30-50%! Will this update usher in a new era of faster page loading? Inquiring minds want to know!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
for things like collapsing articles to header only and expanding them to full article? (And user options for the initial view)
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
Just curious -- not attacking or anything -- but why HTML 4 as opposed to XHTML 1 Strict? Is it because of the content type issues with a certain browser, strict XML compliance was too difficult, or simply that only purists ever seem to care? ;-)
After almost 8 years, Slashdot's HTML is finally getting an overhaul.
I'm more surprised that after 8 years, slashdot is testing something on a machine that isn't the main server.
Seriously, while you guys are changing things, how about changing it so ALL code changes go through regression testing along with some major user testing before you drop ut into the production servers. We all dislike 503s, and we have see a TON of bugs pop up (like last weeks 'unable to see comments' for several hours).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
finally, being as /. is such a tech site, it's about time to bring things into this century. Hell, I rework my site constantly, I still can't believe /. went so long with old/outdated/non-validated code. perhaps it could be a quarterly thing to update things in the future.
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
If you think about it, his theory would be totally unnecessary if they did.
Incidentally, I agree with him -- designing web sites for broken browsers is like giving illegal immigrants drivers' licenses: it's stupid and it doesn't fix the underlying problem.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Personally I design to standards and then detail the charges for the time it takes me to fix it on IE in the final invoice. Then the client knows exactly how much the use of IE is costing them as a percentage of the total cost of the project.
It doesn't cost them anymore than before, but it really opens their eyes.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Taken from A List Apart:
"Perhaps the biggest benefit of this particular example is the bandwidth savings:
* Savings per page without caching the CSS file: ~2KB per request
* Savings per page with caching the CSS file: ~9KB per request
Though a few KB doesn't sound like a lot of bandwidth, let's add it up. Slashdot's FAQ, last updated 13 June 2000, states that they serve 50 million pages in a month. When you break down the figures, that's ~1,612,900 pages per day or ~18 pages per second. Bandwidth savings are as follows:
* Savings per day without caching the CSS files: ~3.15 GB bandwidth
* Savings per day with caching the CSS files: ~14 GB bandwidth
Most Slashdot visitors would have the CSS file cached, so we could ballpark the daily savings at ~10 GB bandwidth. A high volume of bandwidth from an ISP could be anywhere from $1 - $5 cost per GB of transfer, but let's calculate it at $1 per GB for an entire year. For this example, the total yearly savings for Slashdot would be: $3,650 USD!
Remember: this calculation is based on the number of pages served as of 13 June, 2000. I believe that Slashdot's traffic is much heavier now, but even using this three-year-old figure, the money saved is impressive."
Using the layout as slashcode, it seems that the font is specified to be Serif everywhere... I much prefer to read on-screen stuff with a sans font, which is my default. Please dont specify the font and just use my browser's default... Please remove "font-family: serif;" from the body{}
Thank you,
Tester
...and use CSS to reposition the sidebar/navbar content below it. Half the point to using CSS for accessibility is to avoid going through navlinks at the beginning of every page. I hear these guys managed it across their site without compromising performance in IE 6 or spectacular hacks (and yes, it was tested in IE, Safari, Firefox, Opera and Konqueror).
For the curious, the left and right navbars are absolutely positioned and the central content has left/right margins which mimic their width, to achieve the same liquid layout.
The HTML4.0 thing is bullshit, plain and simple. Authoring tools like Dreamweaver work better when working within XHTML spec, just lose the XML prolog until The Brave New World of XML-parsing UAs is here and we can stop serving text/html. XHTML1.0 Transitional plays nice with every UA I've tested, from Netscape 4.7 up.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
I am glad to see this CSS refreshening of the Slash looks, but I was *very sad* to see that there is STILL no automatic detection for mobile browser support! I tried with my AvantGo, Pocket IE, my phone's Openwave UP.Browser and Netfront browsers and NONE of these are supported properly.
:(
To make things even worse the CSS version of Slashdot is not as compatible anymore with these mobile browsers as they are not so CSS-capable as desktop browsers are. In other words: sh*t.
What I need is a special mobile version of Slashdot that loads AUTOMATICALLY when the 10-15 most popular mobile browsers hit the slashdot.org site.
I don't just target IE. I give a complete breakdown of costs for all things on the invoice. But unlike most people instead of just detailing "web pages" or something, I break down what the cost of development was for each browser.
Again, it doesn't cost the client anything more than normal, and I have plenty of clients who come back for more business.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
let's see:
/. a while back, it goes through some of the steps of converting a static image of a /. page to XHTML and CSS)
HTML 3.2 - 1997
HTML 4.01 - 1999 (!)
XHTML 1.0 - 2000, revised in 2002
XHTML 1.1 - 2001
Welcome to the year 1999. The future is now. While I appreciate the efforts of the Slashcode developers, I would like to point out that it is still possible to write spectacularly awful code in HTML 4.01. Yes, it is possible to do so in XHTML, but it is more difficult. My one request to the developers (and believe me, you will thank me when maintaining this code base) is to use <div> tags, lists, and CSS positioning for layout instead of tables. It makes your code so much cleaner and easier to edit. In fact, to me it is the main benefit of CSS.
(If you remember this article, posted to