Layout help for the utterly clueless?

[blackmare]

I know there are plenty of custom layouts available for DW, but it's like pressing my nose against the candy shop window and knowing I can't have any, while the other kids are in there getting toffee and chocolates.

You see, none of the instructions I have found even make sense to me.  I'm not literate with coding and I don't even know what most of the references are to layers, etc., so I seem to be stuck. I need someone to actually walk me through this. I tried once on my own and the results were awful.

Please, is there a Guide for The First-Timer? Preferably with visuals, so that "Enter X code in Y layer" translates to "Type this code into this field right here on this page, see?" 

If there is, it'll help drive a lot more users here, IMO. The two biggest obstacles I'm seeing at LJ are "none of my friends are moving" and "I would move but I hate DW's styles."

For what it's worth, I've already moved, and paid, because my privacy is more important than my layout, but I feel the frustration all the same. 

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

This is very helpful, thank you very much.

1. Regarding font sizing, I've submitted the idea of a FAQ to Denise.

2. We have some styles which are narrower such as Bases, Brittle and Blanket and I think you can customize the side margin width in Transmogrified but it's true that most styles use the major part of one's screen. You should definitely report overlapping when you see it. Styles are tested in a variety of browsers, font sizes and resolutions but not necessarily with small font sizes and small screen resolutions. As evidenced by the data collected (http://dw-design.dreamwidth.org/929.html) most Dreamwidth users have a mimimum 1024px wide resolution.

3. I think we have many styles with lower contrast, more muted colors or darker colors. We have some designers who are really good with gray, beige, sweet or dark colors, etc. such as timeasmymeasure, zvi, sarken and dancing_serpent. Even branchandroot did some too: Cinnamon Cream, Wooded, Gray, Shadows. You can type their name in the Search box of Customize to see all the themes they've made.
Maybe the difficulty is in finding these styles among our selection because we don't have color sorting like LJ does. I'm going to suggest it. I know we wanted to implement categories but it wasn't a pressing matter then.

4. As for clunkiness, I believe there are some simpler, cleaner-looking styles: Tabula Rasa, EasyRead, Boxes and Borders, Tranquility III, Refried Tablet and Stepping Stones come to my mind. We also have another upcoming style which I think look very clean: Compartmentalize). Maybe you can tell me what's missing from these for you.

5. Nouveau Oleanders: we try to make sure you can always remove or change the images from any of our style in Customize. I see that in Nouveau Oleanders, you can only remove the header image. I'll file a bug for the other ones. If you want to remove the big ones in the Header, though, go to the Style category then to Images/Header and remove what's in the box.

6. Tags: can you explain what you mean by 'compact fashion'? You mean separated by commas like in Smooth Sailing?

[sophinisba]

Maybe the difficulty is in finding these styles among our selection because we don't have color sorting like LJ does. I'm going to suggest it. I know we wanted to implement categories but it wasn't a pressing matter then.

I was going to say something about this, and about other ways of categorizing for easy browsing - LJ lets you sort by themes like hobbies and travel, for instance, as well as colors. I was excited to see blackmare's post here because I've also had a lot of trouble finding a style I like here. But now that they've actually laid out their frustrations I see that my preferences are pretty much the opposite - for example, I've settled on Nouveau Oleanders because I think the flowers are pretty and the strong black-on-white contrast is the only thing that's comfortable for me to read. :) I think that sorting the styles would help a lot.

[ninetydegrees]

Suggestion submitted!

And yes, DW manages with layouts and placement and options but we're not so good with graphics. One other major issue is that Dreamwidth is committed to flexibility, accessibility, customization, and Open Source: styles should function with all kinds of display modes, some elements should be ordered a certain way to make it easier to screenreaders, should use our Core structure and avoid tables to make CSS customization easy, should be easily and consistently customizable (options should be available in all styles), resources should be open so that other clone-sites can use the styles. LJ doesn't operate within these constraints (it hasn't got one single style which fits these conditions actually) and the majority of custom layouts you can find there don't either.

If you like complete light-on-dark styles, we have several styles called 'light on dark'. We have many others with other names, of course. We try to have at least one per style (this is part of our accessibility goals) Unfortunately, you're stuck with browsing to find them.

Edit: I can make a list for you if you want.

[sophinisba]

I can make a list for you if you want.

Ah, no, that's so nice of you to offer, but I mean the kind I like is black text on a white background. I feel like I run into way too much orange on white or purple on mauve, so yeah, pretty much the opposite of blackmare's issue. :)

Thanks for explaining about the customization too. It's actually just with the discussion in the last few days that I'm starting to figure out how easy it is to change things like the layout of columns or using black text instead of orange using the customize journal page. (Being told it's easy to fix with CSS is not really helpful to those of us who don't know any CSS - but the customize journal page is great!) In the past when I looked through the available styles on the Select Journal Style page I've tended to automatically rule out all the ones that have two sidebars or not enough contrast, but now that I know I can change those things (without having to code them myself) I'll be able to consider more of them.

[ninetydegrees]

Oh well the majority of the styles is black text on white text so you have many more to choose from.

I'm glad you think it's easy. I think part of the confusion is that users from LJ aren't used to the customize categories and don't know where to do what. Just the name 'modules' instead of 'sidebar' had some people think they were stuck sidebar boxes. I think if you take time to explore a little and get used to the new labels, you'll come to wonder how you managed on LJ all these years. ;) (The LJ nav menu has me so confused now!)

[blackmare]

I feel like I run into way too much orange on white or purple on mauve, so yeah, pretty much the opposite of blackmare's issue. :)

Actually, black text/white background is not a problem for me. On this community it wasn't the text/background thing that hurt my eyeballs, but the stark black/white stripes, or double borders around everything, that made me go OUCH.

I'm not terribly fond of the orange text/white ground or purple/purple myself. You can see on LJ what I've been using -- I'm blackmare_9 over there (sorry, don't have the hang of the off-site username thing yet).

One thing that annoys me with many of DW's standard layouts is all the freaking multicolored text on one page! Orange headers and blue subject titles! Wheeee! Or, you know, not. :-P

And when the newbie user wonders about changing such things, we get the message that if we aren't coding experts we should leave it alone. It begins to feel, if you poke around the comms where everyone and their dog is talking about how they customized their layout, that this place is full of People Who Know What They Are Doing, and then there's you.

Well, at least that's how I've been feeling. And I do like it here so much. It's just ... y'all established, journal-customizing types need to understand that for many of us, this is really intimidating. And there doesn't, at present, seem to be a specific place we can go to learn what we need to know. The information is all here, but it's really scattered around a bunch of different comms. Just gathering it into one place would be amazingly helpful.

Anyway -- I am off today to prepare for an art show and don't know when I'll be back, so if I'm not answering anyone for a while, that's why.

Editing quickly to add: I've just realized that my layout text at LJ is green in some spots, orange in others, and I need to clarify that on this layout it doesn't bug me because the green and the orange are rather subdued, not bright, and because the background is more a cream/ivory than stark white. It's softer and doesn't yell at me. I really, really like warm, not-quite-white backgrounds. Still lets me read very easily but softens the glare, and is also very nice for posting images, which I do a lot of. Or will do a lot of once we have a photo uploading function here.

[sophinisba]

Ha, your LJ actually has really similar colors to mine (sophinisba) - a white or almost-white background, black text, and subdued green and orange links.

I am finding customizing my journal to be easier on Dreamwidth than on LJ, but on the other hand I never found it necessary on LJ because there are so many off-the-shelf ones to choose from. So "don't try if you're not a coder" doesn't bother me as much as "If you don't like our styles just make your own" or "anyone can code this" because, eh, no, I've tried to code it and it's a mess. :) ETA: I get how it would be frustrating though if you're trying to break into it and people tell you not to bother! It does seem like something where putting together some basic information in one place would go a long way./ETA

There's been a lot of helpful discussion and suggestions in this post though (and also at this post by a layout maker.) Thanks a lot for making it, and I hope the art show goes well for you!