CUNY Academic Commons

As web developers and designers it should always be our goal to make a site look as consistent as possible across as many browsers as we can. IE has always made this difficult. It is the bane of our existence. I always try to move anyone I see running IE to either Firefox or Chrome. :-)

I'm a little confused by this issue. I do not see the WP Adminbar when I visit the site. Additionally, there is an entry in the custom CSS that I assume is the cause:

#wpadminbar {
  display:none
}

What we need to decide here is whether or not the Adminbar is "supposed" to be displayed. What I really don't understand is why you see it on your computer. With that entry in the custom CSS it shouldn't be showing up in your browser either.

Right now, what appears to be happening (as far as I can tell), is that some of the custom CSS is making the site look different in different browsers. Looking at your latest screenshot and comparing it to what I see in Chrome, makes apparent some glaring inconsistencies. The background (grey-ish pattern) is clearly visible "behind" the sidebar content and around the main site content. That's why "Opportunities" looks like it's starting to be covered by the white header. Also, the entire black navigation area is just not there. As web developers we are supposed to look at our sites in as many browsers as we can when editing our CSS; this is the reason why. I freely admit that I fail to do this all too often.

My suggestion would be to cut all the custom CSS out from the admin and paste it into a text file to save it. I would then look at the site in IE and Chrome to see how it looks. I would then starting adding back the CSS one rule at a time (this is the basic definition of troubleshooting), checking in both IE and Chrome, and see where the divergence first occurs. If nothing else, it will teach you a heck of a lot about cross browser CSS styling. Most developers/designers are paid not because they know how to write CSS, but because they know how to wright cross browser CSS. :-)

This is really helpful, Dom. Thanks much. I had no idea it might be a CSS issue. I'll will start playing around and let you know what I find!

Thanks.

Maybe you and I can set aside some time over our break to have a call about some of the challenges to cross-browser compatibility. I'm no expert but I might have some tidbits of knowledge that could help. :-)

sorry Matt, that's on me.

I suggested we move it out of a target so Boone and I didn't need to keep punting it every 11 days. I thought we could move it back into a target once Erin has had a chance to investigate deeper.

No worries, Dom.

Hi Dom,

Would it be possible (for the next update) to remove the php command in the Luna child theme that puts the date stamp on the blog posts? Can definitely fool around with this on my own & fwd you the file but if it's no trouble to you, would probably be much speedier for you to just remove the code before updating. Let me know!

Thanks!

Erin

Ya, this should be no problem at all.

Just so I'm clear, you want the date removed from the line just below the featured image? Like on Micki Kaufman's page here:

http://fellowships.commons.gc.cuny.edu/micki-kaufman/

Would you like that whole line removed or just the date?

Also, those dates appear on the homepage as well, would you like those removed too?

Hi Erin --

I'm going to step in here and say that you should give this a shot yourself before we have Dom take it on. Please give yourself 2-3 hours to see if you can figure this out, and then, if you can't, Dom can help out.

I make this request because I think that this is a really good example of a way that you can start getting under the hood of WordPress and learning a bit more about PHP. Please give it a shot and let us know how it goes.

Also, two other things:

-- let's try to keep to a one-task-per-ticket rule. New tasks/requests should go into new tickets
-- If you get started on this and run into a problem, consider posting something in our Commons group for the Fellows or in the group we have with Dom

Many thanks.

Best,

Matt

Okay, Dom -- can you please go ahead and make this fix for Erin? The project is time-sensitive so it's best, in this case, just to move forward as quickly as we can. Many thanks.

No worries Matt, I'll get the changes in and I'll even try and write up a tutorial for the Sandbox blog so everyone can learn how it was done.

Awesome - thanks, Dom.

Thanks, all! Also, Dom, you are correct -- I'm hoping to get the time stamp removed from both the individual profile page (like Micki Kaufmann's) as well as from the homepage or blog page (http://fellowships.commons.gc.cuny.edu/featured-students/). I think it's ok to leave the tags in this line -- but I'm glad you brought that up as I'm not sure what the rest of the group will think. Do you think it would be good to have a little clarifying phrase before the tags, such as "Posted in: ..." ?

I think there should be a "clarifying phrase." Just so there aren't random words under the picture without a context.

I'm going to remove the whole phrase "18 FEBRUARY ON FELLOWSHIPS & FUNDING" because the "on fellowships and funding" is redundant. I'll play around with some phrasing like "posted in..." But if you could ask around for feedback from the group that would be cool. Maybe start a new forum post on our group asking for comments and feedback? By the time we get a consensus I should have the edits complete and I can paste in whatever the final phrasing is so we can get the changes into the 1.4.31 release (this coming Monday).

We might consider removing all category listings from that page -- just have the student name and the beginning of the bio paragraph. The page would be cleaner as a result, and I suppose the only thing we'd miss is the extra info about all the different categories we have . . . but those categories are repeated on the right, so there's really no need to have them in the main part of the page, too.

I agree that the whole line of meta-data should be removed from the homepage and even the featured students page.

What I'm really wondering about is this: what is the context of these tags? Are they interests or areas of study for these students? If that's the case, then we should just "reclassify" this taxonomy. Instead of saying "Tagged: blah, blah, blah" or "Posted in: such and such" we can output them as an unordered (or ordered) list of interests or fields of study; output them right between the image and full bio. That way visitors can browse right to the pages that list other students with similar interests and fields of study. But only display them on the single student page (not the homepage or /featured-students/ page). Am I making sense?

Hi Dom -- my sense is that they are already outputted as a list in the right sidebar under "more student stories," which lists various categories of fellowships.

Hi Dom, There are three types of categories. One specifies the program(s), one specifies the type(s) of fellowship(s) and one specifies whether the profile has a testimony or not. I think it makes sense to remove them from the homepage and blog, but perhaps keep them for the individual profile pages. If we're able to differentiate between categories (they are ordered in a hierarchy in the dashboard) perhaps we could have the language read: "Program: (categories)" and "Fellowship: (categories)" and then just have the testimony category not show up? The reason the testimony category is useful is because one of the homepage links goes directly to a set of profiles that have first-person testimonials in them, instead of just bios. If this is too complicated, however, then maybe we just delete them all together?

Let me know what you think.

Best,

Erin

Take a look at what I put together for the GCEnglish (English Student Association) site when viewing an individual student profile:

http://gcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/profile/andelman-michelle/

When browsing all the students on that site (or it's homepage) you only see a small part of the bio. But when you're viewing an individual student's profile there is additional information displayed next to their profile picture. I'm thinking about a similar solution for this issue. Only the individual featured student page will display the additional tags in question. I'm thinking about just listing them to the right of the picture and then the full bio down below.

The programs and fellowships categories should be easy-peasy for me to code into the template's layout; I'll be able to answer more specifically about the testimonials category once I get my head into the actual code.

Looking forward to hearing Erin's thoughts, but those screenshots look great to me. Thanks, Dom. BTW, there is no update tonight, since we're on a summer schedule. The next update is July 11. This is an important project, though, so if we need to go sooner, we can -- let's talk about that separately, Erin.

Oh, good to know. So are we only once a month over the summer? Just the 11th?

Hi Dom,

The changes look great! Thanks so much. I agree with you, if we want to make any further customizations, we should discuss naming and ordering of categories. For now, though, I think we can close the issue.

Also, on my end in the dashboard it looks as if the 'History' category is assigned the parent category "Departments." Did you change it? Am I not understanding something right?

I'll check in with the group about the July 11 update. If they are looking for something sooner, I will discuss with Matt.

Thanks again!

Erin

Thanks, Dom, for your work on this. Erin, please keep your eye on the category issue and start a new ticket if it persists. Many thanks.