I'd like to think that my brilliant content makes up for my mediocre presentation, but I just installed Internet Explorer 6.0 and even the content looks bad now! I'm sure it's not just me; is anyone else seeing graphically screwed up blog entries and un-highlightable text? Any help with that would be greatly appreciated.
Glenn links to a post by A Single Guy In The South about creating a brand for a blog, and it's an issue I've thought of myself. It was hard to pick a name for my blog, and I wrestled with the decision of even having a name at all, or of just using my own name. In the end, I settled for a bastardization of both choices: the blog's name is "Master of None", and the URL is based on my real name. As a result, I get a mix of links -- some to "Master of None" and some to "Michael Williams". Since then, I've realized that I prefer using my own name, and so I added it to the heading at the top of the blog.
Yes, it's not that pretty; unfortunately, I have no real artistic ability. If anyone wants to create a spiffy banner for me, I'll be your best friend. What I'd really like is a sort of cartoony king with an overly large crown, tilted at a rakish angle and almost falling off, holding a scepter shaped like a question mark. Then again, I'd be happy to consider any design. My ideas tend to turn out goofy.
I like the question mark theme, so I've ditched the old sun burst that used to be up in the corner (and was intended as a place-holder anyway) and replaced it with a series of 50 question-mark images I stole from the internet. Thanks, internet!
Any comments about the layout, appearance, design, or content of the site will be well-received.
Update:
I've moved the sidebar and the blog area into a table, but IE still appears to render text improperly. Any ideas?
Update 2:
Ok, I think I've got all the display issues fixed in IE. If anyone sees anything else, please let me know.
Yep, I see the same thing on (just about?) every blog which uses MT. When scrolling, the main window isn't repainted properly and sometimes, even a refresh doesn't make things appear.
The appearance after a scroll (wheel, right mouse plant, scroll-bar, etc.) is that there are "drop-outs" in the main body of the text, but not on the blog-roll itself. (Kimberly Swygert's blog, "Number 2 Pencil", has a problem with the blog-roll, but not the main text body. Gut Rumbles only shows the problem in the comments window. Your blog appears to show the problem in both the main body and in the comments window. I would guess that all of these blogs have the same problem everywhere, but it's a question of what gets repainted first.
The best I can figure, it's a bug in MT and/or IE about when to repaint windows after a scroll. (FWIW, Windows Messages for scrolling can be tricky to apply properly and often, need some preprocessing of the message to get right -- it's a royal pain, IMO.)
I see no display issues, and I don't experience the problems described above when I look at MT blogs. If you are interested in knowing how your site appears on my Mac, (Safari and IE5 browsers), I posted screenshots:
http://www.mutatedmonkeys.com/temp/mw-safari.jpg
http://www.mutatedmonkeys.com/temp/mw-ie.jpg
Of course, as you can tell from the subdued gray-and-orange-with-no-graphics theme on my blog, I don't know much about design, so I can't advise you there.
Thanks, both of you.
I wonder why the latin phrases are so mis-sized for you, Beth? You're using a Mac, so maybe you're immune to the disappearing text problem.