All ye Ficathoners...

[icarus]

And speaking of Percy Ficathon websites... look what lizardspots made for us.

Pure Percyness.

Every time I look at it, I like it more and more. *g* The sweater... (yeah, I share switchknife's love of schoolboy uiforms). Also thank you to singtoangels for offering to do a much better splash page than I can manage *blushes* (er, if she forgives my Molly-like handwringing and worry, I'm in over my head), and switchknife for helping with the Google search code, idiotparade and hp_femme for their expertise on eFiction and PHP, as well as iteag, florahart, stiletto, sevter, and misspince for cheerfully offering to help code.

Now I have a question. I would like to house all the Ficathon stories on the site, but it wasn't a condition of the original challenge. Is there anyone who objects to having their story on the site?

Comments

[scribbulus-ink.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with it. In fact, if you'd like me to send you the HTML copy, I'd be glad to so you won't have to go through and code all the italics yourself.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

That would be wonderful, thank you. And *gllk* I just found out you're JayKay. Excuse while I attempt not to hyperventilate as I say that love your work. *fans self*

Icarus

[scribbulus-ink.livejournal.com]

Aww... Thanks, I really appreciate that. :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, the address: since my icarus_ancalion mailbox is, er, overflowing (must do some deletions...), please send it to: sengdongma@yahoo.com.

Icarus

[zortified.livejournal.com]

Yummy lovely pic. Also, you have my permission to archive my entry on the site. :-)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yay, thank you.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

No prob here. In fact, like scribbulus_ink said, if you tell me the format you want, I'll code the chapters myself. No sense in giving you extra work because I can't shut up... :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Thank you. God, I'm getting my bearing on the level of talent in this Ficathon, JayKay, Mad Maudlin. Wow.

My Icarus email is at 102% (and climbing), but if you could send it to: sengdongma@yahoo.com, that would be great.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Any particular style/format you want? CSS code, font, something like that? Or just plain black and white Times New Roman?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Er... I understand Times New Roman, so let's go with that.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

You mean you don't know what CSS is? ::goggles::

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Of course I know what CSS is, it's... it's, uh... what is it?

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Silly Ickus. Thanks for making me feel smart. :)

CSS stands for "cascading style sheets." You can use them to define specific attributes for HTML tags--for instance, what color links should be, the font and size of paragraph text, et cetera. It provides a finer layer of control over how a Web site displays, which means you can do pretty things. You just have to connect your style sheet to your page, usually by inserting a link.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ooo! I like! So with CSS you can make universal changes to, say, the font of your stories?

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Yup--you can put a line in your style sheet that defines the tag <p> as "Verdana, 10 pt, bold, 1.5 line spacing" or something like that. Then just embed the sheet in your page and everything within a <p> tag will appear in the preset style, unless you override it some other way. You can also define a series of fonts, so if a user's system doesn't have a specific one (like Chiller or Lumos) the text will display as an acceptable alternate.

My ficpage and the sadly DOA Huffleclaw FQF use CSS, tho' I haven't done anything really complicated with it so far. I find it nice for doing font colors, so I don't have to keep retyping the hex code, and also for defining <em> and <strong> tags so they're actually, you know, useful.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I see the link to the stylesheet, but I don't see where everything is defined. Do you not have to define each and every tag? Where is the stylesheet info?

Does this question make sense?

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

The stylesheet with all the defintions is a seperate file from the pages; it's here for the FQF and here for my fic page. You can alternately include the style information in the header of the document, but that's a bit of a pain in the ass, especially when you suddenly discover you need to change something.

You don't have to define every tag; if you don't specify anything, the brower will display it as normal for HTML. If you look at the sheets above, I don't define <i> in the sheet, so the brower defaults to italics. If I added a line

i { font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; }

and I typed

<i>Italics</i>

It would display as

Italics

not

Italics.

Trippy, n'est-ce pas?

[lizardspots.livejournal.com]

On a quick note, I used CSS for my site (http://lizard.brandim.net). See the pretty text and fancy headers? The customised scroll bars? All with CSS.

CSS is your friend.... :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Nice, and nice and simple. I like the fact that I don't have to have that font you used for your title installed.

I just asked Mad Maudlin above how the CSS worked, because I expected to see a pile of code at the top defining the stylesheets but... where do you define the fonts et al for each tag?

*Puzzled Icarus*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Okay, I get it. I haven't used stylesheets yet, but I do have a new working version of the site (http://www.percyfest.muse-wanted.com) up.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Wait a minute. I have to finish this now. Damn it! ::grumbles::

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ha! Sneaky of me, wasn't it?

heh, heh, heh...

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Seeing as three chapters I've already written now demand to be re-written as four, with extra angst, and Ronbits, and did I mention I have homework...?

Bah. Who cares. I can make a living selling pervy fanfic on street corners. I graduated high school, right?

[singtoangels.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, chicken, I just had to take a bit of a hiatus from LJ world to get some stuff done. I'm still working on Percy goodness for the site and everything. I'm thinking that if whoever gets the php going, then we could use lizardspots fantabulous artwork for the graphics of the actual site. We could have him running down the side and perhaps some quote and everything across the top. It would be preeeetty.

But yes, still fiddling. Trying to keep it clean and simple when my brain says: pretty colours and squiggles! heh

Why can't I have my Percy fic now? ::pouts:: I'm hungry.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*Enormous sigh of relief.* I reread all my hand-wringing and worrying and thought, "how incredibly ungracious of me!" I'm very sorry, I just grew attached to the site amazingly quickly.

My thought is that PHP is over my head (I'm having enough trouble trying to download Gimp - it's just not working), so I'd better stick with HTML which is like a foreign language in which I know enough words to get by.

At this point I'm copying sites that I like and hoping I do it right. The main danger is setting up something that functions in one browser but not another, and my doing it in a way that is ponderous and inefficient. I should probably ask dien for help. :)

Icarus