(no subject)

[joseph_dunphy]

I've tried posting this as a support ticket, but nobody seems to be answering those, so I'll try here. I've set the title of my new blog to be "Imaginary Footlights", or at least I thought I did, but when I look at the top of the screen on my blog

http://joseph-dunphy.dreamwidth.org/

instead of seeing the title, I see "joseph-dunphy | recent entries", which to my eye looks more than a little sloppy. Obviously, your system does allow one to have the title of one's blog appear there, as it should, as one can see by looking at a few of the other user's blogs, like this one

http://mikeweaver.dreamwidth.org/

but I can't see how he did that. How does one do that?

Comments

[vass]

The title doesn't mean 'title in HTML', it means 'title in your journal style'. If you look lower down on your recent entries page, you'll see that it does say 'Imaginary Footlights' there.

[joseph_dunphy]

"If you look lower down on your recent entries page, you'll see that it does say 'Imaginary Footlights' there."

Gee, thanks for clearing that up for me, Vass. I could never have seen that without your help. (rolls eyes)

Just about everywhere in the Universe other than Dreamwidth, the title for the page is what one finds atop the screen, and so one can reasonably say that this is what the word means in English, when applied to any sort of webpage. If the staff wishes to create a private language for itself, it's free to do so, but I don't have time for semantic game playing, even if indulging in that sort of nonsense is an ever so 21st century kind of thing to do.

[vass]

Just to clear this up, I'm not a staff member. I am an ordinary site user who was spending my time answering your question.

[jd]

Everywhere else in the Universe, you mean like on LiveJournal, where much of the original source code and terminology for Dreamwidth originated? It's only been like that since the 20th century, you know. (LiveJournal was founded in 1999.)

[baggyeyes]

Titlebar, just for easy reference.

[raine]

RE: support ticket: this type of query might have been assigned a lower priority than someone with problems accessing pages. Have you checked its status lately?

RE: titles: it appears that Mike Weaver has completely customized his journal style, which you can do under "Customize Styles". I suspect more than just the titles, but the Custom Text option was used here, or possibly a custom CSS.

You might want to ask over at style_system as well, as that's the place to ask style questions.

[ninetydegrees]

As far as I know and from what I've seen, supportv requests aren't really prioritized. Volunteers answer whenever they can.

[joseph_dunphy]

"Have you checked its status lately?"

Yes, I have. Still not answered. I was, of course, exaggerating a little when I said that nobody was answering support questions, but when one finds questions from 4 weeks ago that still haven't been answered, and then notices a stack of more recent questions that have been answered ahead of one's own, it's pretty easy to see where that's going. The question is just going to scroll off the page, unanswered, and be forgotten.

"which you can do under 'Customize Styles'"

where one won't find the CSS for one's current syle, ruling out the possibility of just doing a little minor tweaking, instead forcing one to start from scratch if one wants to make as small a change as setting the title atop the screen. But, no problem, really. All I have to do is drop everything for a few weeks, and learn CSS, which I understand allows one the thrills and excitement of doing in ten pages what HTML could have done adequately in a few lines, in ages past. Or I could just simply blog somewhere else, really almost anywhere else, where selecting the title atop one's own page is as simple and easy as entering a few words into a form. The only reason for this difficulty to exist, at all, is that somebody at Dreamwidth chose to be difficult. As I do have stuff to do, I think I'll take the easier option, and maybe come back, someday, when the development staff at this place feels like being a little more reasonable. Assuming that this place hasn't gone the way of Vox, Livespaces, et al. in the time being.

Thank you for clearing that up, for me. I thought I had missed something when I was setting my blog up, other than the obvious, which is that I should be using Livejournal, instead.

[raine]

Well, if you feel that way, then go over to LiveJournal (LJ), where they'll probably sell your content to Russian spammers and seem determined to link your username with Facebook and Twitter and associated sites. Dreamwidth is a journaling site that's not very old, and there are growth pains -- one of them being that Support is run by volunteers...just as LJ's support is. Volunteer support means that some problems get dealt with more quickly, simply because those volunteers know what the answers are.

Seriously, until you brought this up, I hadn't even thought of the kind of style where you had something other than username|read in the tab portion of your browser. It's not something I've seen much of in LJ, either -- WordPress and Blogger, sure. When I go view your journal, your title and subtitle appear in the left hand side of the page, which is where I'd expect it to be.

If you're not willing to try the options suggested by foxfirefey, then maybe LJ is the better way for you. I don't think you're going to find out how to make that kind of style happen in any easier fashion though (I just went looking, and I couldn't find it.)

[joseph_dunphy]

"Seriously, until you brought this up, I hadn't even thought of the kind of style where you had something other than username|read in the tab portion of your browser."

Really? Because the second sentence in the post that begins this discussion reads

" I've set the title of my new blog to be "Imaginary Footlights", or at least I thought I did, but when I look at the top of the screen on my blog

http://joseph-dunphy.dreamwidth.org/

instead of seeing the title, I see 'joseph-dunphy | recent entries', which to my eye looks more than a little sloppy."

A fact, not an opinion. Look at the top of the page. If you respond to a post without reading it, first, whose fault is that?

[joseph_dunphy]

" It's not something I've seen much of in LJ, either"

Then let me help you out. Know how to do a site search on Google? Let's take a look at the first four personal livejournals written in English that come up, shall we?

http://noodlesandbeef.livejournal.com/
http://isachandra.livejournal.com/
http://charles.livejournal.com/
http://ibdreamy.livejournal.com/

They all have the same format that you claim not to see on Livejournal. Integrity really isn't valued very much in this community, is it?

[ninetydegrees]

Yes, I have. Still not answered. I was, of course, exaggerating a little when I said that nobody was answering support questions, but when one finds questions from 4 weeks ago that still haven't been answered, and then notices a stack of more recent questions that have been answered ahead of one's own, it's pretty easy to see where that's going. The question is just going to scroll off the page, unanswered, and be forgotten.

Again, requests aren't prioritized so some requests go unanswered because nobody can answer them and/ore reproduce the issue (remember the part where support is done by volunteers?). Compared to other sites, similar or not, requests get answered ridiculously quickly here and the number of open requests is really low. And in case you missed the part where this is done by volunteers, let me repeat it again: this is done by volunteers who go out of their way to help other people for no benefit and they're doing their best (and if you have any experience with support services you know their best is damn good).

Check the facts before denigrating the Support system and its volunteers aka your fellow users, and extrapolating from two requests (your own and the oldest one).

[yvi]

Seriously. Also, there's no page to 'scroll off from.

[foxfirefey]

I think I can guide you through this, if you want--it's gonna involve messing with layers, though, which is why the pending support requests are waiting for approval. (Complicated process, harder to review for our Support Admins.)

(frozen comment)

[joseph_dunphy]

"I think I can guide you through this, if you want"

A very kind offer, and I do greatly appreciate it, but this sounds like a lot of trouble. I've got research to catch up on, writing to do, warm weather that's leaving us ... all of which leaves me feeling that I'd rather spend less time online, not more. When things that should be simple end up being a lot of work, I find it's best just to say "thanks, maybe later" and move on.

It's the only way to keep one's day under some kind of control.

[suncat]

Very few of the styles here at DW put the custom title up on the title bar of the browser. The mikeweaver journal is one of the few (Zesty, is it?) that do. Others can be altered to do so, but as foxfirefey says, it will involve diving into the layers.

[joseph_dunphy]

I went in, tried to change the style for my blog, and found that "Zesty" wasn't offered as one of the options. Whether this is because "Zesty" was a Mike Weaver stylesheet creation, because it isn't offered to free accounts, or simply because it has since been removed as an option for new accounts, I wouldn't be in a position to know.

What I do know is that this is where I give up on Dreamwidth, for a while at the very least. Being able to choose the title atop one's page is basic functionality. I don't have time to jump through hoops, and a user shouldn't have to make the time to do so, just to do something this basic.

If the people at Dreamwidth are even a little bit smart, they'll get that. The market for blogging services is contracting. One either provides a competitive service, or one goes out of business. Try looking up some of the former livejournal clones or free blogging hosts running the Wordpress MU, and one will see just how easy bankruptcy is to find in this line of work, but we'll see what Dreamwidth chooses to do, in maybe a year or two.

[queer]

k bye

[suncat]

**carefully steps across the sarcasm oozing across the floor**

I'm probably wasting my time as you have loudly declared you're leaving, but this may be useful to some other new person at DW.

On the Select Journal Style page, if you look at the Base Layouts, and then "show all", you'll see Zesty at the very end, as they're sorted alphabetically. It's shown with a theme called "White", which I think may be the only theme for that style.

[joseph_dunphy]

"On the Select Journal Style page, if you look at the Base Layouts, and then "show all", you'll see Zesty at the very end"

No, you won't. A screenshot of the bottom of the screen can be seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/improvisational/5055431841/

But, of course, reality matters as little to you as it is likely to matter to your friends, so do continue. By the way, I'm saving downloads of this discussion page, so if some mod drops by and thinks that s/he can just delete the discussion or parts of it, and then rewrite history? Don't count on it. I've dealt with people like you folks, before.

[joseph_dunphy]

"carefully steps across the sarcasm oozing across the floor"

Sarcasm from your little butt kissing friends, but that's almost to be expected in a help forum. You've gotten nothing but sincerity from me.

I would really, seriously, like to see Dreamwidth do a better job than they're doing, now, and prosper in the process. But if we should find that they can't or won't respond to reasonable criticism with a higher level of maturity than that shown by the usual forgettable fanboys, straight out of central casting, then they'll deserve nothing more than the oblivion that overtakes most companies that aren't willing to make a real effort.

We are responsible, in life, for our own bad choices, when those choices are informed ones. Anybody who feels otherwise has a lot of growing up to do.

[zarhooie]

Speaking as a (volunteer) Support admin, I am sorry that your request wasn't answered in a timely manner. We are understaffed at the moment due to real life issues with many of our volunteers (including the other Support admins).

Since the system is not working as you feel it should be, please feel free to submit a Suggestion via the Suggestions Generator. This way, it's possible that future users will have less trouble doing what you're trying to do. Many users have found that their suggestions have actually made it live on the site. This method helps to improve the Dreamwidth end-user experience.

---

Speaking as an admin of this comm, you are being an abusive ass to the people who are trying to help you, among whom you will find the fine members of getting_started, Dreamwidth developers and yes, some of the Support volunteers that I manage. Therefore, I am putting you in time out. You are hereby banned from commenting and posting here for the rest of forever.

Being upset is reasonable. However, your behavior and language was not and WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Now, I'm sure the other trolls under your bridge miss you, so kindly fuck off.

[baggyeyes]

I think the problem could have been under http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options , Edit Titles for future reference. Or not.

[suncat]

Indeed, that would be the best place to include the option.

[baggyeyes]

Yes. This is already a support ticket, right? Specific for the titlebar?