Hi,

I've done a great deal of web programming, and a lot of systems programming that spit out xml and html formatted data, so I'm really excited to finally have my own site. In fact, I'm especially proud of my most recent post ( "Orange: Making History in the Streets of Kiev" ), where I've learned to work in a few good images that go very well with the text and the theme of the post and the entire blog.

Only, it's a three column layout, squeezing the real content into the middle, and not giving the images enough room. Worse, the first column isn't even being used, it's completely wasted. I'm hoping somebody can tell me how to remove it, so I have more room for my content? The posts look much longer than they really are because the text is squeezed into a narrow column, and the last picture doesn't even display fully.

I'm already working on future posts, and have written new content, but I'm hoping anyone might be able to help me learn how to make better use of the screen space I have to work with?

Thanks!

Got a link John ?

It looks like a two-column layout to me (even the code, which is what I'm assuming you're referring to.)

The issue I saw is that your width is set to 660 pixels throughout. If you can increase that width by editing your CSS file (I'm assuming Blogger lets you do that) then you should be fine.

LNR: he's talking about http://alexandersarchive.blogspot.com .

John says he's refusing to do any SEO for his site to see if content really works. He announced his site over in the Google Forum, and apparently it's up to us to remember the URL. http://www.webmaster-talk.com/the-go...-web-site.html

The specific post seems to be this one: http://alexandersarchive.blogspot.co...treets-of.html

And for the record, she's cute!

Hey John, since I see you messing around with your blog, why don't you check out www.mattcutts.com/blog ? Matt's blog layout is similar to yours. Try using his values for width.

Thanks for the link, Adam! I've made some progress that I think I can live with, except I haven't tried different screen resolutions yet. But it's a big improvement. I'll post the code I'm still having trouble with below.

I've been almost obsessive! I'm writing three posts right now - one is just about finished, and the other two are going to take some time and be longer posts, so I like that I got a little more room for the text. Unfortunately, I think one of the posts is going be a little too political and controversial. Mideavil history has a way of polarizing us Americans, and I'm worried people will run me out, I might have to apply for political asylum in Canada.

I still haven't figured out how to hook the RSS feed up to webmaster-talk yet, either. Any guesses on that? I pasted in a new URL that might work, but it seems stuck on a few posts ago.

#outer-wrapper {
  width: 100%;
  /*margin:0 auto;*/
  padding:10px;
  text-align: left;
  font: $bodyfont;
  }

#main-wrapper {
  min-width: 450px;
  max-width: 810px;
  float: left;
  word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
  overflow: hidden;     /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
  }

#sidebar-wrapper {
  width: 220px;
  float: right;
  margin-right:25px;
  word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
  overflow: hidden;     /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

What if I just want the stuff on the right to take up as much room as necessary, and the content to get the rest of the space?

You'd have to remove the width from sidebar-wrapper for that (or set them both to width: auto

One thing's for sure...by the end of the month, you'll have a better blog than most people will in years.

I've never done anything with a blog, John -- so I don't know what codes you're allowed to change ... BUT, you can set the fixed pixel widths of the columns (in the CSS file) to percentages (where min-width and max-width are defined) and that should probably do the trick.

I have a two column layout on my pages (used to have a 3 column layout) but am going back to 3 columns because I'm doing another new layout and design even though the current one is just a few months old.

min-width and max-width won't work within IE6, though. Fixed widths will, but not varying ones.

What may work in certain circumstances is getting it to work for one browser, then Javascript-hacking for the others. I don't recommend this, since it relies on Javascript, but it can help sometimes.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

One thing's for sure...by the end of the month, you'll have a better blog than most people will in years.

You think? I'm kind of worried my post on Vlad the Impaler will cost me half my readers, and then there'll be no one left. That 14th century history is contentious stuff, boy.

I'm going to try width: auto - thanks for the tip!

Is there a certain amount of time you should wait between posts? I have another one that's almost ready to go, and my wife says to get it out of my system, but the last two are hot off the presses.

Your wife is right. Get the posts out when the inspiration strikes you.

John, I highly doubt anyone will stop reading your blog once they've started. You are a very interesting person and I'm really glad I joined these forums and have had the pleasure of meeting you.

Thanks!

I think I'm going to let a few of them sit in the draft folder overnight at least, to let the last few cool down. It's actually kind of nice to be able to do that, get it all ready, but not publish it quite yet.

Unfortunately width set the main content to fill the page, even when applied to both rule sets. I'm going to have to look into this strange code and see if I can float the divs around and control things that way.

It's looking pretty good John ! I got a bit of a horizontal scroll in FF, but not much, and nothing was off the page anyway.

I read your post on Vlad the Impaler, very interesting. The History Channel did a series around Halloween on Vampires, and it included Vlad, of course "Count Dracula".. lol. There was another segment on the middle ages that also mentioned Vlad, and the fact that the Romainan people do see him as a hero and not a monster. If your readers are truly interested enough to read, they're not going to be scared off by material like that.

It's so fascinating. Dracul means "of the dragon" ( and also "of the devil," so you can see where the vampire thing might have started ). Vlad's father, Vlad 2 ( we don't know much about the original ) became part of a secret order of the dragon to protect Europe from nearby Turkey and Islam, so he took on the name Vlad Dracul. In Romanian, -ea means son of, so our subject, Mr Tepes, was Vlad Draculea, or son of Dracul.

Bram Stoker was going to call his novel just simply "The Vampire," but traveled to the Balkans, which were still midevil, a thousand years behind the rest of Europe, to learn more of this fascinating vampire legend that had been spreading through folklore. He learned of Vlad from the local history, and found great inspiration for his book. The rest, as they say, is history. But, during his time on the thrown, Tepes had a thousands of people impaled ( ie tortured to death ) for selling things that would break, lending money and charging high interest, all sorts of things like that. Romanians see these swindlers as blood sucking leeches, and the iron fist of law against them is part of why Vlad is remembered fondly by his people, and why they're so confused that the rest of the world sees him as a vampire.

I'm glad you enjoyed the post! And that you weren't offended by the couple of mentions that history repeats itself, even today.