Themes, templates, macros?
(Disclaimer: Nothing I’m saying here should in any way detract from the incredible progress that Dave Winer and the team at Userland Software are making with RCS, XML, web services and the tools for developers. The context of these thoughts is one of a satisfied, but struggling end user who has selected Radio as a way to develop and manage content at a single web site. I’m not suggesting for even a second that Dave or others divert their attention from the ultimate direction of Radio to give us “style.”)
Regardless of content, many writers prefer a unique book design or magazine layout to showcase their work. Weblogs are no different. We’d all like to have a template or theme that is unique to our site.
Russ said this today, “I hear regular complaints from folks who don’t feel their Radio sites look nice but don’t have the skills to do anything about it themselves.”
I may not be able to design as well as Mena, but I’d love to learn how to take a shot at it. I’m not into scripting and I haven’t been into hand-coding HTML, but I’d love to learn. Radio is my classroom. What I’m looking for are enough pointers to understand (ONCE I’VE BACKED UP MY WWW FOLDER) how to alter the look of my weblog. Do I need to handcode something and paste it into the main template? Do I need to lay it out with FrontPage and paste it into the homepage template? Do I need to find the *.gif file that is my permalink icon and replace it with another *.gif file of my choosing? If so, where? Is CSS vs. tables a big issue for me? Should it be an issue for me? Thanks in advance, Russ, for the 30,000 foot flyby. I’ve got my binoculars out in hopes of seeing some detail!
[Steve Pilgrim's Radio Weblog]
Unbelievable things continue to happen under the bonnet (hood to you transatlantic chappies), but my progress on nailing what all the bits in the templates do is painfully slow. And the Web designers I know don’t understand Radio templates, so I can’t commission the work.
I have the beginnings of a CSS-based design generated by Fusion MX, but what do I do now? Am I right in trying to take the supplied templates apart to see which bits I should paste into the HTML?
Can someone find a whole uninterrupted weekend for me to sort this stuff out and just to experiment offline? Hey, Dave, can we add time travel to the Radio wishlist???
Frustration!
Maybe Russ will put at least two of us out of our misery.
Related posts: