July 01, 2012

• Welp, I tried adding a comment and a new post, both showing properly in Preview mode, but when I hit the ol' "POST" button: "internal service error". Just don't try to blame this on Amazon Web Services or a 'Leap Second Bug'. And if I can keep my energy level up during the next week, I may start on some basic CSS for that generic-looking thing.
• #2 is playing with the CSS right now but I would dearly love a pretty new theme - so have at it! I have found so far that you can get errors, but when you go back to the main page whatever you had tried to do has actually happened. Don't know if that applies to posts/comments though. Did yours turn up on the front page despite the error message?
• The "I like this" button will put a teeny banana next to a post. I'm excited about that particular feature.
• log into beta site: error message but logged in OK add comment: preview successful, posting got error message and no output new post: preview successful, posting got error message and no output
• Righto.
• Won't let me log in, says I'm 'not found' :(
• Logged on ok and same results as Mr. Foop with posts and comments. Love the idea of a banana dispenser. Hope we're keeping the sidebar.
• Oh noes mothy!
• Finally remembered my password! It werked fer me, too.
• We plan to keep the sidebar, yes. That'll come later once the basics are sorted. I would have added a featured post thing but it would probably become The Homunculus Sidebar.
• #2 has fixed some issues - login seems to work properly. Have a try at looking at someone's bio: how to we want to show posting history and commenting history? Similar to mefi or is there something different we could try?
• I can log in and "like it," but I don't seem to have administrator rights. I assume this is merely an oversight on the part of the tracicraken or another of her sea-monster development team, who pollute the benthic realm with their monstrous, inky ullage and whose infernal screams make every honest sea-goer palpitate with horror. Vote ♯1 quidnunc kid for new sea monster.
• Admin rights will come with a future upgrade. I'm sure. Possibly. Have a banana?
• I will not trade my dreams of utter domination for some fruit. Can't access my comments from my user page (probably a good thing), but I can get my posts (some of which, I quite enjoyed seeing again. Good times, dude. Good times). Also the new niche seems to have difficulty with some html (small tag wouldn't preview for me in a post I just made) and I am seeing some weird characters where I should be seeing just slightly unusual ones, like accented letters or the octothorpe in my comment above. This could be me though, I have a new computer which I don't actually know how to use (hello, Apple fanbase). Also is there a search feature on the new thing, or what? Finally, how the fuck is everyone? How are you, tracicraken?
• Tags could be your weird Apple computer or the site might need the UTF-8 doohickey which I might be making up to sound fancy. No search yet but give that one time - probably we'll add google search again like with this one. Posts are definitely up but we haven't added comment history yet until we've had a conversation about how that can look since it'll quickly get big and ugly. Many people in history have traded utter domination for fruit: that's why you've never heard of Attila the Hun's cousin Urkuk the Peach-Eater.
• If only Hitler had enjoyed the sweet, nutritious taste of guava to the forbidden thrill of that damn holocaustin'. Somebody send Bashar al-Assad a fruit basket while there's still time, for chrissakes.
• It's working for me, except for mislabeling the age of my comments to the age of the post. It's not a bug, it's a marsupial!
• Wait, did you remove img tag capability or is that just a buggette?
• The dreaded login monster has been slain for me, so I could check it out. However I must decry the low level of loquaciousness of #2. Ar ewe keeping the old logo, or can I come up with a quirky one for v2.0?
• Speaking of logos, I was messing around with one of my favorite fonts when I should've been working on CSS for MoFi or my own sites and came up with this... Then I started working on a silhouetted monkey with a tail that resembles one of the swashes when my not-photoshop crashed on me. But I may pick it up later. As for the type: Love it? Hate it? Too '70s? (Because that was when Bookman Swash got WAY overused)
• I'm really in love with the current logo of the monkey going after low-hanging fruit.... Remove the img tag????
• One reason I went for that font IS that it has many places for monkeys to hang by their tales, but my artistic skillz may not be up to making it happen.
• I will not trade my dreams of utter domination for some fruit. How about a nice mangel-wurzel, a sturdy rutabaga or crunchy Brussels sprout?
• I'm quite fond of the 'Monkey Reaching for the Moon' image in the original MoFi logo too and Foops font suggestion would certainly lend itself to its addition.
• I like that font, foop! Not sure about the ligatures from the k and y meeting though... Ages ago someone (maybe gomi) did a beautiful image of how the front page could look with a big picture of a monkey - maybe it was a watermark? I can't remember. Does anyone remember it? Don't panic, the image tag will not be lost - MoFi wouldn't be the same without it. It's obviously just not on there yet - some coding will be needed to ensure that no one can sneak some scripty code in via a jpg.
• some coding will be needed Great, and slip in a few quidnunc admin rights when you do that coding, wouldya? Thanks.
• Monkeybashi: "I like that font, foop! Not sure about the ligatures from the k and y meeting though..." How about the ligature extending instead from the k's tale to the inside the top outer curl of the y's descender?
• In the off-the-shelf font, the "k" and "y" tails partially overlapped so I played with the kerning to make the overlap look cleaner and more 'intentional'. (Also note the "f" semi-absorbs the dot over the "i") I could kern it all wider to avoid the overlaps entirely, but anything more elaborate would require some photoshoppery that, well, my attempt I mentioned above to give a silhouette monkey a 'swash-like' tail has shown it to be beyond my current cramped-claw capabilities.
• #2 has been busy recently with real-job stuff, so things have been quiet on the development front. Don't think we've forgotten though! I think it looks great foop, moreso since I wouldn't have the foggiest about such things.
• It occurs to me that someone clever (obviously not me) could do something cute with the hanging leg of the 'n'.
• The "M", the "n", the "f" and even the "r" all just seem to be waiting to have a monkey - or something a monkey's reaching for - hanging from (which was why I was trying the tail photoshoppery).
• Righto people...I just had a talk with #2 and he said the next step is style! So if anyone is keen and knows CSS (I can do n00b-level stylesheets but it is slow and painful and probably also ugly), have a go at a simple starter stylesheet for MoFi.
• I'm working on style... and on a way to make my work in process accessible via Dropbox so #1 and #2 and any other interested #s can see it and pass judgement... but I let myself get detoured into a search for a monkey 'mascot' to go in the logo. My initial goal was something like the silhouetted monk on the old logo, in a clearly Public Domain but not seen-a-million-times design - then I found some cartoon monkeys and a sock monkey that made me go "awwwww", so I'm showing off everything I found... So, okay guys, let's Filter some Monkeys...
• The last--hanging from the branch.
• I agree - the last one is reminiscent of our current monkey.
• found some more monkeys for your review... So if we use a hanging monkey, which letter should he be hanging from? Also bananas for favorites? like 1 or 3 We could even have brown bananas for downvoting ... just kidding... I'll get back to work on the CSS now... I should have a mockup page online in a dahy or two...
• I still like the hanging from the branch monkey. I will call him Errol. And three bananas, please.
• I like either of the hanging from the branch monkeys and the bunch o' bananas.
• I love the bananas...they're like a tally but with three instead of five, and then we can all sing "Come Mister tally-man, tally me bananas".
• Oh, great. Thanks for the earworm, trac.
• Muppet assisted version.
• Dan, you rat! Now that's two days in a row. Cute video though. I'd never seen it before, and I'm astounded how young Belafonte was when he was on the show. I used to listen to his records when I was 13. Makes me feel old. Yeah, earworm and old, ruin my night why don't you?--you really are a rat.
• sorry for the delay... ladies and gentle-monkeys, One Swell Foop Net Works (with the very useful cooperation of Dropbox) loudly presents... MonkeyFilter 2012 (version 0.1), for demonstration purposes only, this is a static html page with no connection to the MoFi database and the only working link to another part of the site is to this demo single-post page. Here's the CSS. You'll see a big block of 'reset' css at the beginning and some orphan code at the bottom that I chose not to delete in case it's needed elsewhere. Based on all my web design preferences and obsessions (as well as my almost exclusive experience with WordPress blog theming)... You will notice the absence of the "Recent Posts" on the sidebar, in favor of a different background color for the Recent Posts on the front page... I'm sure your coder will loathe me for dropping that turd on him, but think about it... it's cool! And not THAT hard to code (just add class="recent" or id="recent" to items selected by whatever mechanism that generates the list). There will be some other html changes that this format requires before plugging it in, but mostly a few more classes and container divs. (If you know what a container div is, you're halfway there!) Also, I added a "tagline" to the Header which can be changed easily (or even do the ol' random tagline generator thingy). On single-post pages it's replaced by the Post Title which otherwise would appear only at the top of the window (and on Chrome, not at all) - titles should be limited to under 60-70 characters, which most people (even me!) already do. And the date can be put in there for Archive pages. And you'll see I set it up for the Like/Favorite/Banana functionality for both comments and posts, with the three-banana pic accompanying the current number of 'likes' and the single banana for the 'add a like' link. I still have the brown banana, if you want to add it for a 'flag this'. I kept some of the color theme, but colors are easy to change. The fonts used are all from Google Webfonts, and the one on the Header is called "Happy Monkey"... I HAD to use that! This format validates in the latest Chrome, Firefox and IE for Windows, but I couldn't use browsershots.org for a massively-multi-browser test, so let me know where it breaks for you (Fingers Are Crossed!) Let me know early and often what you think. Remember, everything is just a suggestion, but please don't reject everything...
• ohemgee I am in love with that logo and tagline! I like the different colour for recent posts...and I think that would work well - we could be fancy and graduate the colour as the post gets further down the page or is that too much/too tricky?
• Not too much for me... it's a matter for the coder, not the designer, except for defining IDs to put in the CSS. The "Recents" as currently defined is based on the "last logged in" cookie (which I've been having trouble getting to reset with my multiple browsers on multiple machines - I often just go into Firefox's cookie maintenance tool and kill the cookie - does that make me a cookie monster?) Anyway, an "aging" post/comment function shouldn't be that fancy if the database interface allows; then it could even be used by "not-logged-in" and "not-member" users... if you dare. More later. I'll also be hanging out at the #mofirc chatroom this evening, if anyone wants to confront me directly.
• Man it's forever since I looked at the sidebar. Does anyone actually use it for anything ever?
• I use it to create art.
• That's why I have the brown banana... Also why I rewrote the first blurb in the sidebar. "Metafilter clone" just does not do MoFi justice. Now, what could be a fun exercise for MoFi 2.0 is figuring out something interesting (AND DIFFERENT) to do with the sidebar (NOT GOOGLE ADS). One fun thing I did with my old blog was put a Google ad way down the sidebar with written above it: "Google believes these are relevant to my content and your interests. Silly Google." maybe the sidebar needs: "Monkey of the Month"... what does it mean? any number of things... hmmm...
• Most of it I absolutely lurv, lurv, lurv, especially the logo, with the added more informed sort of blogging statement. Banana yellow is absolutely the munkey's nuts, although I'm sure some people will desire to have some (any!) other color. However, *shakes out list* One of the things I like about the old logo is the genteel size. The new logo seems a bit big and in your face. Could we shrink it a bit? The page is a bit busy--what about dumping the box around the date, making it the same font size, and having it an understated black? The sidebar proportions seem a bit off to me (too narrow) I tried ctrl+ and ctrl- on the page to enlarge/shrink it, but there was no size that where the sidebar felt in proportion to the rest. The monkey count is nice, but why can't we say XXX# Monkeys, and leave off the so far? Or put an invite to join us underneath the number. I'm the one that stood up and waved my hand first claiming the bunch o' nannars as a favorite. Now I'd like to back up the banana cart. How about a bunch to favorite the post, and a single nannar to favorite a comment? Post favorite--add a ))) ~ x# bunches comment favorite--add a ) ~ x# bananas If you're looking to add something to the side bar, is it possible to randomly cycle through the users and either show their pic/avatar, and/or a comment? Sort of like this: oneswellfoop Unmitigated Punster How about a WYSIWYG window and a quick popup to copy paste html code into the post? Then all you'd have to do is insert the link or type in what you wanted italicized or bolded. And I can haz unlimited bananananas, too? OK, take it all with a grain of salt. Foop, thank you for the work. As usual, you are a gentleman and a scholar and a pearl beyond price. *air kisses*
• Oh, forgot to add if we did a Monkey of the Month, it would always come up homunculus!
• The WYSIWYG is at our end - and yes, that will happen :-)
• Check out the three sizes of headers I have temporarily put on the main page (with some additional experimentation for the positioning of the navigation menu - partly in response to changes in size/proportion) I also made the date headings less 'stand-outy'... I could go into a whole self-debate over whether we even need the date headings or should just keep the dates in the post 'footers'. And check out my implementation of BlueHorse's suggestion for banana display on the single-post page... remembering that anything I change I can change back just as easily.
• Looks good. One thing I notice though is that the hanging monkey on the left needs longer arms like they have.
• Ooooh, very nice. I like the middle size header. Not too big, not too small, juuuust right. The dates are there, but unobtrusive. I like having the dates above the day's posts and helps to break up the page visually. Yeah, I'd not have noticed the monkey's arms, but now I'm lookin' at 'em funny--and he's such a cute lil' hanger, otherwise. I meant to tell you two bananas up for removing the MetaFilter clone blurb--that's annoyed me all along. What about the rhinestones? Don't we get rhinestones?
• Okay, I settled on the slightly-smaller-than-before header... that's my header and I'm sticking with it (unless vetoed by tracicle). I did another change to the bananas on the single-post page, with an explanatory rollover popup for the banana/fave/like and adding the brown banana for flagging. I want to tweak the sidebar some more, give the text some breathing room and find an excuse to drop in another little monkey or two. And check out the arms on the "M" monkey on the logo now... but not too closely... the original pic had the monkey holding onto a branch that was much thicker than the hook of the letter, so when I cut off the branch, his arms did look a little short. I cloned on some 7px arm extensions, but I'm not real happy with how it looks (which was why I didn't do it earlier). Eh, close enough for the WWW.
• More monkey arm surgery... (some things I just can't let go) I went back to the larger scale original with the branch and used a couple sections of the branch to make more natural shapes for the arms... WHO CARES?!?
• Splendid work, Mr. Foop! Love the logo!
• Great stuff. Don't touch the arms again--they're perfect monkey. I meant to say the idea of the brown banana was a doozy. I certainly don't think you should go to any more work with the nananars, for one, because we seldom have deleted posts, but in the future I shall always envision a blackened peel next to the word deleted.
• Remember we do have a special page for "Eeked" posts - I may do a black banana for that page, but the extra touches for secondary pages will wait until #1 and #2 decide what MoFi 2.0 will include. (Totally unrelated, I just remembered I interviewed one of the first "twitter celebrities" who was a celebrity ONLY ON TWITTER: goes by the nickname of @badbanana. Nice guy for an advertising man.)
• I'm curious to know what others think of the colour scheme. It feels a little dated to me now because I generally go for minimalist - some colour on a white background. But I don't know if that's just me. Foop, I'm not asking you to keep tweaking it eternally because I really do love it. If others are happy then that's all good because it's everyone's site.
• I confess, I'm rather old school web-design-wise - in the MeFi controversy over Anil Dash's "professional white background", I came down strongly on the side of "Jeffrey Zeldman Orange": Just look at this old blog. As you can see, I have been a notorious webpage clutterer so your design is about as minimalist as I can get. But I don't mind doing further tweaking because this little project was the first time I'd gotten my hands really dirty in CSS in over two years... I remembered a lot I thought I'd forgotten, had to relearn some stuff I really had forgotten, and did more than a little catching up. My goals were to keep it relatively simple and clean, but to turn up the Brightness and Contrast from the old design. (And more fun fonts and more monkeys. Definitely more monkeys.) Still, the colors of different sections are among the easiest things to change - right now I have lightened up the colors a little more, see? (GO LOOK) Maybe we should open a new thread in which I can show alternate color schemes and fonts (Google Fonts do provide a BUNCH of options - 521 to be precise) and get the widest user consensus of it. But my main concern right now making sure the small changes in the html I did hook up correctly with the new back-end (I think I'm going to add some more comments to the html to say "HEY! PUT THE POST BODY HERE AND THE AUTHOR HERE AND..." even if they aren't really necessary - I've been a proponent of self-documenting code ever since my first programming class almost 30 freaking years ago!!!)
• I like a bit of colour on sites as long as readability remains paramount. There usually aren't a lot of images on the front page so a subtle colour scheme adds some visual interest. MoFi is a pretty casual and quirky place so the "professional white background" would seem a little out place in any case. Maybe we could have a few user-switchable themes to keep everyone happy. I haven't done any CSS for quite a while but if I get some time I might give it a go.
• MoFi's old system has had user-switchable themes for a long time. Go to Profile and scroll down... "So Blue, Slight Green, Yellow-ish, Monkeypedia, Dark Monkey, Blue on Black, Brown by Gyan, Bare Bones", with a couple of "no images" options, all on separate css files. I had forgotten about that until you mentioned it, islander. So come on in! The more's the merrier!
• And your design's colour scheme happens to be the exact one I set MoFi to on my computer, fyi. Is it the "Yellow-ish"? I can't remember and I don't want to mess around with them right now.
• Limited color scheme with elegant tints?
• Confession: I've had My MoFi set to "Yellow-ish" so that was part of my inspiration. Because "good artists borrow; great artists steal" (attributed to Pablo Picasso).
• Meanwhile, the font I picked for text type from Google Fonts has just become "Adobe’s first open source type family". See? I know how to pick 'em. (Of course, now it means it'll becomes a much-overused font - at least among those of us who DON'T hate Adobe)
• Foop, with the time you've put into this, we ought to be treating you to a banananana split. With poptarts, of course.
• Sorry, I don't do websites with pop-ups.
• (reads foop's comment, looks for a "like" button to push)
• Here. Click this. Not yet functional, but that's what it's going to look like (at a smaller scale)
• Oh, I don't know. Something like this as a popstart might get a wakeup.
• A MonkeyFilter pop-up would have to look like either this... or this...