Thursday, June 23, 2005

Strange

Something weird is going on with the previous post, and I can't isolate the error. It renders the same in IE and Firefox.

Computers. Meh.

Unfortunately, I'm at work (between classes at the moment), so I don't have time to fix it now.

Sigh.


UPDATE: Found The Problem

Blogger now prepends
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
before the message body of each post.

This moves the message body below the sidebar.

It's not editable in the template, so there's no way to turn it off.


UPDATE: 5 days...

...and still no fix. Not Amused


UPDATE: Unbelievable

It's getting worse all the time.

Last week, Blogger was XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant. The DIV insertions around post bodies breaks that.

And now they've inserted "location.href=..." to commend links. This is ANOTHER violation.

It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, except instead of a train wrecking, it's Blogger going stupid. Blogger is going stupid right in front of me, slowly and surely.

Do you know how upsetting this is?

A WEEK ago, I would have said that they were the BEST blogging system out there. One week, what a difference it has made (and not for the better).


UPDATE: Temporary fix

Text still doesn't wrap around the sidebar, but it gets rid of the ugly whitespace.

Apparently, all these problems stem from adding picture-insertion abilities to Blogger. Except, the picture-insertions worked fine when you used the "Hello" application, and they're using the EXACT SAME METHOD now, just server-side.

There isn't a stick big enough for me to beat all the people that need it so, so badly.

Here's an idea: those that NEED it can add DIV insertions around the post bodies IN THE TEMPLATE, and those that don't, won't have to. I still can't figure out why either of the new 'fixes' are needed, at all, for anything.


UPDATE: FIXED!

The whole thing stems from the way they were formatting LEFT and RIGHT alignment on pictures. Well, now we can disable that in our settings. Voilà!

This is why I still use Blogger. Something breaks (and it broke because they were adding new features), and they fix it.

Of course, at this level, I wouldn't pay for Blogger. But it's definitely worth the current price.

11 comments:

  1. Well, if your sidebar wasn't floating, the problem would likely go away. The text of your posts wouldn't be able to span the entire page once they've cleared the sidebar, but I think that's a small price to pay to have your posts appear at the top of the page.

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  2. Yeah, but that's bullshit. Blogger doesn't get to tell me what kind of sidebar I get to use.

    When the text doesn't span the entire page once it's cleared the sidebar, that's wasting desktop 'real estate'. (Can I still call it 'real estate' when it's virtual?)

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  3. I believe real estate is the currently accepted vernacular.

    And I agree; I was just trying to offer a suggestion. Yet another reason to ditch Blogger.

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  4. Hi, phoenix, thanks for visiting me. Yes, CV Dr. P is awesome. Are you in Japan, maybe, I'm guessing? (without taking the time first to read through your blog and find out!). I was in that part of the world, in China actually, for three years some years back.

    Hope you'll stop by again.

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  5. It sounds so good. Two great flavors that go great together.

    Unfortunately, cherry-flavor is something Japan lacks (ironic, considering the popularity of sakura). They just don't like it. Also, ranch dressing for some reason. :-(

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  6. And now that I know more, I will ask: so, you are teaching? English, I guess? That's what I was doing in China. 300+ students, though, sheesh...I had a few less than that!

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  7. Yup. Which is a bit of a bummer, since I really want to learn Japanese. It's hard to speak English all day and then go home and try to study Japanese for an hour. It just doesn't stick.

    However, I don't have any classes in August, so my current goal is to study as much Japanese as possible then.

    What part of China were you in? Did you learn Chinese? That's another language on my list that I want to learn. I hear it's easier than Japanese (for native English speakers).

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  8. Thomas, each day that passes, I think you are more correct.

    You know, I have a static ip address for my home internet connection. I have a file-server on it, 24/7. It would be REALLY EASY to slap on a webserver and roll my own blog.

    But, at the moment, it would still take more time than I can spare. Hmm....

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  9. Worst of all is that Google owns Blogger, so it really makes me wonder what the hell is going on.

    I've actually often considered just hosting you on my server, but all of my slots are always full.

    One of these days. -)

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  10. Google usually does everything so right.

    Blogger has its moments, but it seems to cycle. Getting better, better, better, peak, CRAPPY, CRAPPY, CRAPPY!

    Right now we're on a crappy cycle.

    It does tend, on average, to get better overall (if given enough time). It's just this latest cycle of crappiness that boggles the mind.

    I really, really should set up a webserver. I have an insane amount of bandwidth (my upstream is bigger than most American's downstream), a static IP address, and a full-time computer. I really don't need anything else. If I ever do get around to programming again, I'll need a place to host my files (and you can bet my server will be up by the end of the day).

    Necessity is a mother.

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  11. I was in a different city every year: Wuhan, Suzhou, and Zhangjiagang (the last two are near Shanghai, in Jiangsu Province).

    I did learn some Chinese. I have sort of a low level of fluency, especially since I came back in '96 and have only been back for short periods since then. I'd love to achieve near-native fluency someday. I'd like to go back and LIVE there someday, but have to talk the husband into it. He's Chinese, met him there, so it might happen, but he's happy here for the moment.

    I don't know how much easier Chinese is to learn than Japanese; it (Chinese) doesn't have any kind of an alphabet except pinyin, the Romanized pronunciation guide, but I didn't find it terribly hard, since I was living there. And if you've got some Japanese under your belt, learning to read it will be much easier too.

    ReplyDelete