Update October 23, 2019
What I hope will be the final changes to the “Big Dave 2019” theme. have been implemented There are a small number of cosmetic changes, but the big difference is in the Responsive Design – a posh way of saying that the theme adjusts according to the width of the display. While a desktop may be able to vary the size of the browser window, for ther devices, such as phones and tablets, this is usually a fixed size.
I have divided the range of widths into 7 groups, based on a series of factors, and have allocated a colour to each group – this colour can be found in the footer at the bottom of each post. For each group several aspects of the display have been resized.
| Range (in pixels) | Colour | Some typical devices – (P)=Portrait, (L)=Landscape | |
| 1025+ | Red | Desktop (L); iPad Pro (L), Galaxy Tab 10.1 (L) | |
| 801-1024 | Orange | iPad Mini (L), iPad (L); iPad Pro (P) | |
| 763-800 | Yellow | Galaxy S5 (L), Galaxy Tab 10.1 (P) | |
| 601-799 | Green | iPad Mini (P); iPad (P) | |
| 481-600 | Blue | iPhone 5 (L) | |
| 321-480 | Indigo | Galaxy D5 (P); iPhone X (P) | |
| 0-320 | Violet | iPhone 5 (P) |
Please let me know if there are any problems either via a comment on this post or by using the Contact page. It is essential that you include the colour of the footer and the dimensions of your browser window – there is a link to help find this out under Miscellaneous in the Menu.
The default mobile theme has been disabled in order to avoid confusion.
Update September 29, 2019
Although the new theme is now stable, I have spent some time over the past few days tidying up the responsive design – that is the ability of the theme to respond to the device that is currently being used. There are 8 different ranges of screen widths designed to cope with devices from mobile phones to tablets to desktop PCs.
Whether you like what you see or if you have noticed anything remiss please let me know via a comment on this post or by using the Contact page. It is essential that you include the dimensions of your browser window – there is a link to help find this out under Miscellaneous in the Menu.
By the way, if you are using the default mobile theme (which lacks many o the features of the new theme) you should be able to switch by clicking “View Full Site” at the bottom of the page and to return by clicking “View Mobile Site”.
Update September 2, 2019
When I first announced the new theme, two weeks ago, I pointed out a couple of limitations:
- the lack of date and time parameters in the theme mean that, at least for the present, it is not possible to have date-related banners for National Saints days, birthdays and other special occasions,
- it has not proved possible to add bloggers’ logos to the top of each post.
I have imported the processes from the old theme that enable these parameters and can now implement both the date-related banners and bloggers’ logos. I plan to do so some time between 10:00 pm and midnight tonight. This involves a lot of changes, so if you encounter any problems please let me know ASAP via a comment on this post.
Please note, because of space considerations, the logos will not be added to screens less than 600px 769px wide – this affects most phones and some smaller tablets.
Although it would now be possible, I have no plans to re-implement the five-times-a-day header changes.
Update August 23, 2019
Various suggestions have now been implemented:
- the menu bar has been moved the top, given a mellower appearance and now stays at the top when the screen is scrolled.
- the avatars in the comment titles have been made a little larger,
- the word “says” has been dropped from the comment titles (an easy change!),
- the arrow has been restored to the left of the reply link at the bottom of each comment, along with a few other embellishments from the interim theme (a not-so-easy change!),
- links are now underlined.
That’s it for now, unless anything major goes wrong.
Update August 21, 2019
Many phones and tablets actually use an alternative mobile theme which is provided by WordPress. This theme borrows the custom header (which often appears as a smaller image) and little else. There is usually an option to switch themes at the bottom of the post, but it can be difficult to revert back.
In the css that I copied as a basis there is a lot of code that I don’t profess to understand that provides for various mobiles and tablets.
With regard to the nesting of comments, I am not aware that it ceases to happen on tablets, mobiles etc. – what does happen is that an algorithm decides at which point cascading could result in higher levels of nesting becoming too narrow and at this point cascading stops; all the nested comments still appear within the confines of the box around the top-level comment. On a PC, this can be demonstrated by making the browser window steadily narrower until it hits the crossover point decided by the algorithm.
Likewise, there is a point at which the sidebar stops appearing on the right-hand side of the content and moves to the bottom.
I will look at making the menu bar float down, but I don’t yet know how this is achieved – are there any experts out there that can help?
When the site was rebuilt a month and a half ago, the old theme that had served the site well for ten years became unusable. I had been looking at replacing it for a while anyway, and settled on using Underscores, Automattic’s starter theme, as the basis. I have tried to preserve as much of the “look and feel” of the original site as possible. Development is now as near as I can get to complete, so I have decided to implement it. I’m sure there will be teething problems, so use this post to let me know what you think and to point out any problems or complaints.
Some of the limitations are listed below:
- the lack of date and time parameters in the theme mean that, at least for the present, it is not possible to have date-related banners for National Saints days, birthdays and other special occasions,
- it has not proved possible to add bloggers’ logos to the top of each post.