Views from the Reading Room

The beta Create Entries page, which is even older than I realised, is going to become the default Real Soon Now (see latest dw_news post), so this is me testing it!

but I'm still well behind on many things. I did catch up with my reading page.

I had to get a new laptop. I'm still learning Windows 10, and haven't customised everything yet. Should I uninstall AVG so I can activate Windows Defender?

Meanwhile, there are lots of new themes.

Some recent posts on geekfeminism_feed have reminded me to appreciate this code trick, which goes in the "custom CSS" box under Customize Style. I originally got the code from zvi, and have adjusted it experimentally till the frame it creates fits in my browser window:

/* max-height for syndicated journals on reading page */
.page-read .journal-type-Y .entry-content {
max-height: 50em;
overflow: auto;
}

It reduces the post I was just reading from about 8 screensful to one, with an internal scroll-bar. Replace "page-read" by "page-network" for your network page, and adjust the number in max-height to fit your viewing preferences.

As long as feeds don't include anything that Dreamwidth can recognise as a cut, this'll continue to make a massive difference to the amount of scrolling I have to do.

I decided it was time I changed my style again, now that there are lots of new ones. But after looking at a lot of previews, I've gone back to Transmogrified - largely because it's one of the few that underline all links in entries. The theme is Frozen Sky by dancing_serpent, picked partly because it's easy to tell followed and unfollowed links apart in entries, before I fiddle with it.

Fiddling with it: I've moved the icons back to the left, and increased the width of the sidebar so that feed-names don't break the box (I always have to do that). Rearranged the modules in the sidebar. Discovered that it cleared my custom CSS (most of which was style-specific), but I forgot to save it first so I can put back the bits I still want. Doh! Found a line for hiding images from a feed.

Still to do: look for the CSS code for hiding the content of a feed and apply it to the ones I want to read on the site, not on my reading page (webcomic syndicators, please to be providing cut tags). Make followed links change colour in modules, or specifically in the page summary module if I can do that, so I can use it as a marker of where I got up to. Probably something else I've forgotten.

Why can't I have the sidebar on the left in this theme? I'm not that bothered, but I thought everything was supposed to be orientation-neutral nowadays.

( Background, cut for length and so certain people don't have to read it )

Positive outcomes that I have observed
The usual disclaimer applies: this is not worth the pain that's been caused. But it looks as if they'll lead to less pain in the future.

Some people have said that now they get it, and they'll be more careful to warn correctly in future, or that they don't like warnings, but other people's pain is more important than their don't like, so they'll do it anyway, or that they're going back through their archive making sure that all necessary warnings are in place.

Some people have said that they don't warn but always say so up front (which is a warning, just a non-specific one), or that they don't warn because there's nothing to warn for and they'll say so explicitly from now on.

A resource for writers: amadi posted a technical solution for people who want to post warnings while avoiding spoilers, with bonus accessibility considerations. ETA I've experimented with part of this on my Dollhouse post, adding the skip but not the blanking out. As another experiment, the link here should go to the collapsed version of the post. /ETA

A resource for readers: trigger_fence. Lists authors who don't warn for common triggers (the selection is evolving in the comments), and the user info has links to sites with warnings for specific stories. I hope somebody is backing that up just in case LJ Abuse don't laugh in the face of the people who threw a hissy fit about being on the list. Is it being mirrored here yet?

I plan to come back and add to this later (memo to self: update the time stamp). LATER:

What's the word for seeing something everywhere? While I was gone, I was watching part of last night's Glastonbury coverage, and the Specials were playing "Doesn't make it alright", and an in-vision warning appeared: "This footage contains flashing images". This might be something that happens all the time and I don't notice.

Then I read a blog post that begins "(Warning: this post contains details of a car accident.)" (She's "pretty much ok".)

Anyway: does anybody know any other Good Stuff that's come out of this? And I hope that if you think anything I write should be under a cut or have some other kind of warning, that you'll tell me in the comments. I'm still trying things out.