Cyril Dangerville

In his presentation in Fall, Tony Piazza said we should experiment with the blogs. Therefore, failing to be a prolific blogger, I have played with the stylesheets and the templates of my blog. Not much, but I tried a few things. In particular, I was having a hard time to upload all the files coming with a stylesheet (images, scripts, etc.), since you can upload only one file at a time with the Upload file option in Movable Type (MT). So I figured out this StyleCatcher plugin featured on MT's Style Sheets & Templates page could be useful after all. In fact, the setup of the plugin was not thoroughly straightforward. (If you want an idea of the trouble this caused to people, look at blogs like Movable Type StyleCatcher: Broken Broken Broken.) In short, it is great, but it doesn’t work… unless you work at it. But I could install it on our CICSWORLD.ORG, it works and you can play with it. Instructions follow…

Continue reading "Give a NEW LOOK to your BLOG in ONE FINGER SNAP (StyleCatcher)" »

Posted by Cyril Dangerville at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The question should be "HOW TO CUSTOMIZE your BLOG INDEX IN A FLASH". Indeed, your index is right there already, in your personal weblog site. You just click on Archives, and you get your index. You don't have the dates in the list? Let Movable do it for you. I'll try to make it easy.
After RTFM (type "index" in the search tool), you find out that you have to modify the Master Archive Index. After logging in, click on Templates then Master Archive Index in the list. In the template body, look for the first occurence of:

<MTArchiveList>
[blablablabla]
</MTArchiveList>

Then, if you just want to add the date before the entry title with a new line (<br/> in HTML), make sure it looks like:

<MTArchiveList>
<li class="archive-list-item"><$MTArchiveDate$><br/>
<a href="<$MTArchiveLink$>"><$MTArchiveTitle$></a>
</li>
</MTArchiveList>

I just inserted <$MTArchiveDate$><br/> (22 characters), not more. That's the power of the template. You can use different attributes for MTArchiveDate to modify the date format or the language (RTFM).
Now that you feel like a master, you want to increase your power, so you want to number the list (because Dr. Groom told you so. Sorry, no inside joke on the blogs? Too late). (Footnote for non-CICS: Dr. Frank Groom teaches ICS 630: Research Methods where he insists on the necessity to number the list of subjects in the random sampling process.) In this case, you have to change the lines before and after the MTArchiveList element:

<ol class="archive-list">
<MTArchiveList>
<li class="archive-list-item"><$MTArchiveDate$><br/>
<a href="<$MTArchiveLink$>"><$MTArchiveTitle$></a>
</li>
</MTArchiveList>
</ol>

I just changed 2 letters: o instead of u in <ul...>. Example of the result of this change. You can now copy-paste in one shot the whole index or just give the link as I did, when you want to give your blog index. You don't have to waste a blog for it.
I hope at least it helps the geeks that still have to get a blog index.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Posted by Cyril Dangerville at 03:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you want the solution right away, skip to my next blog (same thing “Part II”).

You are having a nightmare. In this nightmare, you are taking the final exam for ICS 620 AGAIN. (Footnote for non-CICS: ICS= Information and Communication Sciences, ICS 620 is a course on Telecommunication Technologies by Dr. Jones.) As usual, Dr. Jones, cheerful, tries to relax you by telling entertaining stories, yelling at GAs, playing with the equipment in the room, etc. (Footnote: GA= Graduate Assistant.) But this doesn’t work. You are striving to concentrate the few brain cells that you have left on this one damn question, the question that keeps you from the Perfect, this one blank in your paper (this is just a dream, I mean a nightmare, OK?).
This question is:
What basic principle would you apply whenever you do not know how to do [whatever]? 4 words, NO ACRONYM PLEASE

Continue reading "[Tips from The DARK SIDE] HOW TO GENERATE your BLOG INDEX IN A FLASH (Part I: Introduction)" »

Posted by Cyril Dangerville at 01:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)