I like it. If I have time I will test it this week.

That's a very nice skin

I have applied it to one of the blogs in my testing area.

http://neukol.org.uk/b2/animatus/index.php/photoblog

There's some nifty stuff going on there. I'll just have to look under the hood and see how you did some of it. :idea: ;)

I noticed that some of the stuff is very specific to your site (eg top left hand menu) so it would need some customising before a user could just use it "out of the box"

stevet,
now I'm looking to see the skin using at another blog, I also see the 'difficulties'
I'll work on it further this week.

There is a lot of 'demand' for 3 column, but filling those 2 sidebars with just 'normal' things is not easy.

Can anybody else come with examples of 'filling' ?
So I can make a template that can be uses 'out of the box'

Topanga,

I have some ideas for making it universal if not always the skills to impliment. I'll come back after I've finished a two day trip.

I was interested in your use of an "included" file not normally seen in a skin set ie www.php - I think including additional content in this way can be quite powerful. What if you were to include the contact.php file so that people could edit their own details into a page that linked with the skin and had the colour scheme etc

Topanga wrote:

stevet,
now I'm looking to see the skin using at another blog, I also see the 'difficulties'
I'll work on it further this week.

There is a lot of 'demand' for 3 column, but filling those 2 sidebars with just 'normal' things is not easy.

Can anybody else come with examples of 'filling' ?
So I can make a template that can be uses 'out of the box'

Examples of "filling" abound in all commercial blogs, but please note that all of them use unequal column width which is much easier on the eye. There is a reason for NOT making it equal, an old rule coming from Rome and the Greks about a "golden region" that prescribes things to be NOT in the center, and there is a mathematical explanation for that with Fibonacci numbers... anyway, if you want examples of how a three column layout is filled, check these out:

www.liewcf.com <--- this one is a 3-Column Kubrick for WP, the guy has it for download, perhaps EdB can quickly add the third column to B2evo's Kubrick. I posted a thread here about this several days ago but nobody answered; you guys should check it out, it's Kubrick's appeal plus perfect three column layout and even forum integration. The guy also has for download the nice tab menu system, which is superior to the little boxes currently found on B2evo's Kubrick version.
www.gawker.com
www.engadget.com <---- standard, but extremely useful layout
www.wonkette.com
www.thesuperficial.com <---- very nice
www.gothamist.com <---- this one is almost equal weight, but quite nice, easy to the eye because the blog is actually flushed left, so that even when it has a central column with equal left and right columns, it is pleasant to the eye. There is something unnatural (IMHO) about a perfectly centered blog with a central blog and two side columns of equal width... the Romans and Greeks were right...

If anybody wants to check out the application of Fibonacci to design and other things including the "Golden Section" that advices for the columns not to be equal and centered, check out:
http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/phi2DGeomTrig.html

thanks for that extra stuff strozanoff. I'm using topangas skin and developing it a bit for my own purposes. I'd like the centre top be a bit wider than it is but I'll come back in a while to that.

Meanwhile - Topanga - take a look - I've altereted it and applied to my default blog http://www.teesblog.co.uk nobody posts to this blog but me and I just blog about the other blogs so it kinda cataloguesd them. I'm going to make it more "out of the box" and the when it can be used by my members I'll make a copy and customise some more for this particular use.

before I take things out that may end up being useful can you tell me what "poem of the day" does or "things I like to read" how are these things fuilled - is it just hand coded stuff by you.

I also don't know what to do about your "email this post" thing cos it goes to your server and I don't understand much of what it's doing cos it's in german

The 'things I like to read' is just a linkblogcategory.
I have a blog that is full of links.
I devided them in categories, but not all categories are usefull on every page/blog.

So the category with links to blog I read on a daily basis, I put in 'things I like to read'.

Only the title of that block is handcoded, for the rest it is just this thing (category 168, blog 10 in my example)

<div class="bSideItem sidebox">	
        <?php  $linkblog = 10; $linkblog_cat = '168'; require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_linkblog.php' ); ?>
		<div class="boxbaseline"><?php echo T_('Things I like to read'); ?></div>
    </div>

The story about 'poem of the week thing' is this :
Every week on Wednesday, I publish a poem.
Every week on Thursday, I write a recipe
Every week on Tuesday, I write a quote

But since I want that poem, quote, recipe to be visible all week, I show it in the sidebar as 'poem of the week'.

I do that with this code (category 5 in blog 3 in my example):

<div class="bSideItem sidebox">
        <?php $BlogBList = & new ItemList( 3,	 $show_statuses, '', $m, $w, '', array(5), $author, $order, $orderby, $posts, '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '1', 'posts', $timestamp_min, $timestamp_max );
		while( $Item = $BlogBList->get_item() )	{ ?>
			<a href="<?php $Item->permalink() ?>" title="<?php $Item->content(1,false,'#','#','#','#','htmlattr'); ?>"><?php $Item->content( 1, false ); ?></a>
		<?php }  ?>
		<div class="boxbaseline">php echo T_('Poem of the week'); ?></div>
    </div>

Email post is this handy trick from Scott : http://www.randsco.com/index.php/2005/05/01/email_blog_entry

There the explanation is all in Englisch and not in Dutch (not german ;))

:oops: sorry - I had thought it was Dutch but when I babel fished it as German To English it worked (kind of)

strojanoff, having read your post more closely I seem to have misunderstood you. My eyes find stuff agreeable that you do not and vice versa. I actually like a well proportioned look and hate pages that sit off to the left

anyway - Topanga, I've just about implimented your skin and I'm quite pleased with it. I amy in time put a more geographicaly personal image in the header but It's quite close as it is.

I just need afew more tweaks

I can't understand the code going into the "recent poosts"

I'd like to show the 10 most recent posts into ANY blog on teh system so I spose that's the 10 most recent posts in blogall - blog #1

any suggestions

Hello Topanga, I was looking at your three column skin again, and it's really a very, very good job... excellent skin, probably the best I've seen with three columns in either B2evo or WordPress...

Has anybody tried to hack B2evo so that more than one bog can show up on the same page on different locations in the template? Right now you have more than one blog on the "Blog All" page, but what I am thinking is to be able to have different blogs (you can think of them as "posting threads") on the same page, so that each blog would be a different feature within the blog, like main news, sidebar article, boxed teaser for an article, etc.

This system would be useful in a design like Topanga's three-column, because one have different blogs assigned to different places of the three column layout, could be useful. Because as B2evo stands now, you cannot use your two sidecolumns for actual posts...

Strojanoff,

Please don't post the same thing multiple times. It clutters up the boards with lots of the same question over and over again.

http://forums.b2evolution.net/viewtopic.php?p=21867#21867

strojanoff wrote:

Because as B2evo stands now, you cannot use your two sidecolumns for actual posts...

But it is.
I am using it that way...

got your skin working the way I like it Topanga http://www.teesblog.co.uk it's the default blog for a blog system - I'll deploy variants of this soon to two other blog systems. I've just gotta get that email posting thing working offa our server and in English

The mail thing is here : http://www.randsco.com/index.php/2005/05/01/email_blog_entry

I'll include the english variant in my definitive skin.

I've got the email posting thing working too - it was very easy with clear instructions from scott.

Actually for no obvious reason I did my php hacking in Dreamweaver today instead of textpad which was a little easier with colour coding and stuff

used your skin again topanga http://www.wearblog.co.uk

Topanga

I'm wanting to use your recent posts code from this skin in another skin to show the recent postings of four blogs.

http://neukol.org.uk/teesblog/index.php/MIDAS

I almost have it working (not all posts will appear for everyone because many postings from the 4 groups are protected status)

in the file _recent.php I have altered like this

//blogs to show in "recent posts"
if(!isset($recent_blogs)) $recent_blogs = '16 32 33 56';
//NOTE: If you set the $recent_blogs to 1, and select the categories that you want
// to show, then the "recent" links will be ordered by date, most recent first.
//If you select some blogs, however, you can sort them by blog first, then date.

However the postings list still contains postings from other blogs that I don't want to appear.

What am I missing ??

Stevet,
Is there no reference to $recent_blogs in the _main.php file ?
If I remember correctly, I did a little trick with that variable.

Topanga,

I see two pieces of code in the _main.php

<div class="bSideItem sidebox">
		<?php $numposts = 5; require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_recent.php' ); ?>
		<div class="boxbaseline"><?php echo T_('Recent Articles') ?></div>
	</div>

AND.........................

<div class="bSideItem sidebox">
        <?php $BlogBList = & new ItemList( 3,	 $show_statuses, '', $m, $w, '', array(7), $author, $order, $orderby, $posts, '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '1', 'posts', $timestamp_min, $timestamp_max );
		while( $Item = $BlogBList->get_item() )	{ ?>
			<a href="<?php $Item->permalink() ?>" title="<?php $Item->content(1,false,'#','#','#','#','htmlattr'); ?>"><strong><?php $Item->title(); ?></strong>
			<?php $Item->content( 1, true,'' ); ?></a>
		<?php }  ?>

I think it's the second one I need to hack so I'll have a go. Bit tricky as I don't understand it.

What I am aiming for is only to show posts to four particular blogs which I have selected in the _recent.php

[EDITED TO ADD} .........................................

I see that I have omitted that second piece of code on my versions of your skin at http://www.teesblog.co.uk and www.wearblog.co.uk but these both work fine - what I wanted was 30 most recent posings in ALL the blogs ie blog#1 to show up which they have.

I have added the second piece of code to http://www.midastva.co.uk but it still does not limit the selection to teh four blogs I have selected