Mandaris

I updated the styling of comments individual posts. I actually rolled this out while ago but haven’t written about it yet.

Background history (feel free to skip)

Every once in a while, I get a response to one of my posts on Micro.blog. The Micro.blog service manages the comments for me and allows me to include them by adding conversation.js to the theme.

The first iterations of the Labarum theme would have the comments of a post show up on the index page. This was nice when I had a couple comments, but I had a few posts that had a dozen replies as part of a conversation.

I decided that if I have new people coming to an index or category list, they would be better served to see what I’m writing about first and then see the comments when they are looking at the individual post.

I moved the comments to load in single.html and was ok with them being indented a little bit to denote that they were comments.

You can find an example of a post with a reply in this post about how I lost my journal.

Promoting the comments

After living with the change for a couple of months, I’ve changed my mind about this design and want the comments to stand out as much as the article. The first step was to change margin to margin-top in the CSS rule for the comment.

The conversation.js places the structure like the following into the final rendering of the webpage

<div class="microblog_conversation">
	<div class="microblog_post">
		<div class="microblog_user">
			<img class="microblog_avatar" src="https://avatars.micro.blog/avatars/Number/Number.jpg" width="20" height="20" style="max-width: 20px;">
			<span class="microblog_fullname">Some User</span>		
		</div>
		<div class="microblog_text">
			<p> Some Text </p>
		</div>
		<div class="microblog_time">
			<a href="https://micro.blog/UserName/UniqueIDNumber">Date</a>
		</div>
	</div>
</div>

The name and numbers have been changed to protect the guilty.

Next, we have to add more styling for the avatar picture. It’s hardcoded to be 20 with no units and a max-width but thankfully, it has a class that we can add rules to.

.microblog_avatar {
/*     border-radius: .5rem; */
}

I had a stub for this in the style.css but only had a comment there for future/present me to fix. Thanks for nothing past me. I then did a search and past me actually defined this rule twice!

.microblog_avatar {
	display: inline;
	margin-left: inherit;
}

I’m letting you, the reader, know this because I’m going to invest some time into learning how to clean up the CSS and to show that pobody’s nerfect.

The last comment of this post

After identifying the different components, I played around with the idea of making it looks similar to the way I have the author information at the end of the page. I decided not to at this point in time to focus on the some of the other aspects of the site.

We all love a deal and the experience of getting something more for our money. I love the idea of investing in something that makes my life a little better in some way whether it’s a utility or pure entertainment.

What gets to me is the fact that this day lasts a whole month and the fact that some of these savings are from markups that happened before they went on sale. It’s mind game that is being played on our society at large.

But, that isn’t to say some of these aren’t true deals. And I do appreciate some of the software/hardware packages that become available to me. If you are interesting MacStories.net has a wonderful article with links to discounts.

Unfortunately, I have to look at these with a bit of FOMO. Honestly, I don’t have much money in the budget for it. But, maybe next Black Friday month.

📺 Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023)

This series is fun and finishes quickly. I watched it with my 14 year old daughter in one setting. Warning there was some kissing in the first episode and some sexual innuendo in various places throughout the season but nothing gratuitous.

I don’t think you need to no the original source material enjoy the show, but you will get more from it if you had.

What I like the most of the show was that it takes a look at how breaks ups affect us and how and if we move on afterwards. It never forget that it’s a comedy but it does have some serious moment that made me think about the show after it was done. I don’t know if it’s just my brain trying to digest the messages or the effects of me binging a show in for the first time in a years.

All in all, I’m happier with this ending than I was with the movie.

Here is the trailer for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.

Template uses lantern by Robb Knight

This is my favorite episode so far in the season.

The show is known for having gratuitous amounts of sex and gore, but I really felt that it took a moment to show us a little bit of tenderness between some of the characters. Sure, there might have been some puppets involved in there as well, but I guess the romantic in me saw something special as two people take their ill advised relationship further.

For the other characters, I feel that the actors were really showing the depth that they can bring and highlight that there really isn’t a “good” or “bad” person in our main group of up and coming heroes.

They only have two more episodes so I hope that they can still the landing with this season.

I picked up a used copy at GameStop a couple of months ago and put a LOT of time into it. I remember spending time looking into how to unlock all the different items and story beats in the game.

The game is huge! You can spend hours going through the story and getting to know the characters.

Now, I’m 96% done with the game. I’ve got a couple secret bosses that I can’t seam to beat but I’m pretty satisfied with how the main story has played out.

But than someone asked me “did you like this game more than the first?”

I don’t think I enjoyed this one as much and some of that is my own fault. In an effort to stay on top of all the little collectables, I saw a number of spoilers. In addition, focusing on different items to pick up in the hope that I don’t have to double back made it so I wasn’t fully engaged with the story.

Still, it’s a fun game and excellent conclusion to Kratos’s story… until they bring him back to get more money from the IP.