Thursday 12 February 2009

Little green things

Yes, I've been doing it again: staying up late fiddling with... widgets. I've been seeing blogs with lovely website-like tabs at the top, and avarice got the better of me. I wanted some! Had to have them to shore up my author-website resistance! So off I trotted into the cybersphere on the scent of tabby-widgets. Apparently Blogger doesn't provide them, but techies have been designing their own all over the place and I stumbled across this site. Hey presto! Instant tabs!

Well, not exactly. The only HTML I know is what is required to italicize or bold or insert a link in blog comments, so I had to fiddle around (and around, and around) until I got rid of unwanted stuff (don't even ask because I don't have a clue!) - and there is the result under the blog header: 6 little tabs in barf green. With the appropriate content, mind you, for which I had to create new blog posts.

My new tabby look is still under construction. I have to add reviews and interviews to the "News" tab, which for the moment directs to a newspaper article. [Update: done!] And I've got to get my son to look through that HTML and make sure that all is kosher; wouldn't want to find out the hard way that there's hidden code in there that hacks into the Pentagon and transmits info to, I dunno, scary people who do scary stuff.

And the colour? That green has got to go.

12 comments:

Jenny Beattie said...

Wow, looking really good Liane. Well done you. I might ... have a go too.

Chris Stovell said...

Blimey, you're a clever clogs, aren't you! It took me a million years to set up a blog roll!

Anonymous said...

Good work dude,

Why don't you try out some other hacks as well, like placing comment form below posts etc...

Regards
Sai

Lane Mathias said...

Wow, I thought I'd come to the wrong place! Google reader said you had five new posts and I thought cripes Liane has been busy. I think it must include tab updates. Very posh indeed. Well done:-)

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

Love the colours and the tabs. I take an age to sort anything technical.

CL Taylor said...

You've done a great job. Looks wonderful!

Liane Spicer said...

JJ, thank you. Go ahead and try it; it was fun.

ChrisH, welcome! Yes, I'm feeling very clever; I just need to watch my techie son at work to locate my humility once again. :)

Sai, it's a dame, not a dude! I owe you one; I'm loving this widget. Um, 'hacks'? Is that what it is? **looks around fearfully for the Feds** I'll be back to your site and who knows? I might be tempted to try other stuff.

Lane, :) Yes, the five posts were updates/content for the tabs. I moved a load of stuff from the sidebar to the tab links. Thank you - I'm feeling rather pleased with myself.

Debs, I love it! The green doesn't really blend in; I guess if I can't change it it'll have to grow on me.

Thanks, Cally. Note: as displacement activity, widgets can't be beat!

Anonymous said...

Well... I kinda like that green against the purple, Li. My first thought was, "How pretty."

But then I am a bright jewel-tone kind of gal.

Just make it whichever way pleases YOU, Miz Widget, while I watch and learn and pretend I already know how to do it myself... :D

Flowerpot said...

well done you Liane - very impressive!

Anonymous said...

I joked about widgets in a recent blog post but they can help blogs.

I think you are building a blog empire which is what blogging should be all about in the end. I like those tabs and there is something about them that makes me want to click them :) Well done!

Jen said...

Ooh, baby, you is looking swish girl! (If I can't do it with lip gloss, there's no way I can do it with HTML)

Liane Spicer said...

Stephe, "bright jewel-tone kind of gal"? LOL! I'm more of a camouflage-coloured, earth-tone kind of gal! Now that my son has inspected the HTML and explained stuff that I can't repeat because I don't understand, I think the green will stay. He wants to do a 'hack' of his own to try to change the colour but I told him uh-uh, I'll learn to love the green.

Flowerpot, thank you! I impressed the hell out of myself too; you'd think I'd designed the thing!

akalol, don't mess with the widgets! What else will keep me up until 5am when I have to get up at 6.30 to get ready for work? I wouldn't miss the raccoon eyes and zombie-like drifting the day after for anything! (Not to mention the writing/editing/promo that didn't get done...)

SpiralSkies, you do make me laugh! Lipgloss!