Article Template for Free Republic - With Instructions for Usage (BLOCKQUOTE gone; thank you, John)

Self

[Benoit Baldwin]

Article Template for Free Republic Use to obtain the border and column effect you see here Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional Displays virtually the same in all browsers version 3.x and higher (if not, let me know) Instructions for Usage Copy and paste the following HTML into the Text of Article: form, when posting a new article. Insert the article's HTML into the space noted in the template. That is all. See Notes on Usage for more information. <!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE --> <table bgcolor="#999999" border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"> <tr> <td width="5%"> <br> </td> <td width="55%"> <table bgcolor="#000000" border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1> <tr> <td> <table bgcolor="#FFFFFF" border=0 cellpadding="30%" cellspacing=1> <tr> <td> <!-- Put the article's HTML here --> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td width="40%"> <br> </td> </tr> </table> <!-- END TEMPLATE --> Notes on Usage The value in green should be 100%, unless BLOCKQUOTE is imposed on us again, in which case it should be less; 90% or thereabouts. The values in blue, reading the template from top to bottom, affect the width of the left, center, and right columns repectively--adjust to your liking, but their sum should be that of the value in green. The values in purple, reading the template from top to bottom, affect the color of the left and right columns, the center column border, and the center column respectively. I use hexadecimal color values; the English names of the colors may be substituted. The value in brown affects the space (or "padding") around whatever you place in the center column (text, usually). In other words, the margins or whitespace within the center column can be adjusted by changing this value. If the article's HTML contains tables itself, ensure they are properly nested and terminated. Be careful when using PRE--long lines of PRE formatted text will adversely affect the output of this template. The whole purpose of using this template is to enhance an article's readability, mainly by reducing the size of paragraph widths. It is easily customizable to meet the needs of just about any article or taste, but you may find other methods more to your liking.

[Benoit Baldwin]

>If people start setting their left and right margins 
>manually in their style sheets to provide indentation on 
>pages which don't use your TABLE template, then when we 
>view a page with your template, your table tries to use 
>100% of the space. Which means that it will always 
>overflow on the right side by the same amount as the CSS
>indent was specified for.

True.

This is the problem with using CSS; it's a huge can of worms thanks to the majority of browsers in use today having incomplete or buggy implementations. Most sites use the compromise of tables for layout, and style mostly for fonts and color.

Some posters here copy and paste the text of articles, and insert <p>'s as necessary, while others copy and paste the full HTML source--the latter posts may be adversely affected by CSS in use here.

>It seems that articles posted in this style need to have a
>way of determining any pre-existing margin settings and 
>inheriting them properly before determining the width to
>use for the TABLE template. 

In the case of the template I'm using, the fix is simple: omit the main table's width specification--the main table will then inherit the width of its container, which, in the current situation, is DIV.body.

Here is the default template I'll use from now on. It yields, at 640x480 and 12 point Times New Roman (the default for a majority of users), a paragraph width of roughly 52 characters, and a margin of roughly 2 em (all sans CSS):

 
<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE --> 
<table bgcolor="#999999" border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
 <tr>
  <td width="5%">
   <br>
  </td>
  <td width="60%">
   <table bgcolor="#000000" border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1>
    <tr>
     <td>
      <table bgcolor="#FFFFFF" border=0 cellpadding="20%" cellspacing=1>
       <tr>
        <td>

         <!-- Put the article's HTML here -->

        </td>
       </tr>
      </table>
     </td>
    </tr>
   </table>
  </td>
  <td width="35%">
   <br>
  </td>
 </tr>
</table>
<!-- END TEMPLATE -->    

[George W. Bush]

I like that you eliminated the inital <TABLE ... WIDTH=100%>. That should work for me and others with modified stylesheets. Can you post a short sample here to demonstrate what an article will look like?

Did you visit my unofficial FR stylesheet website? You can see some screenshots that will give you an idea of what some of us are trying to do.

[LarryLied]

Had to scroll right to left with Mac OS 8 with Netscape 4.5

[Benoit Baldwin]

I screwed up this article by not following my own notes.

PRE should not be used within this template, unless the lines are very short.

[Benoit Baldwin]

>Just a test. Hope it comes out ok. Using Win 98; IE 5.0; 
>17" monitor. I understand this template is to be used at 
>our descretion and only for posting articles. Right? 

Right.

But please use the updated one at post 21.

[Benoit Baldwin]

Here.

Looks fine with or without your style sheet at 800x600 and up.

At 640x480 the text around the photograph disappears into the photograph. This effect could be eliminated by using pixel instead of percentage widths, which I'd rather not do.

I think I'll give this up all together.

The Right Thing To Do is encourage the use of CSS, and that means not using structure--TABLE--to impose style.

[George W. Bush]

The Right Thing To Do is encourage the use of CSS, and that means not using structure--TABLE--to impose style.

I'm not so sure your idea is a bad one. Remember that JohnRob was talking about limiting column widths for readability. Just think about it for a while. Maybe the right solution is to use this for multi-column posts. And that article you posted on the page would have worked better if the picture hadn't been so big. Most threads don't have pictures quite that large in the article.

I tend to think that there is no single perfect solution for all articles. But something like your TABLE template could be pretty useful, especially for some of the long plain-text articles. If I get some time, I might play around with it some more.

[RnMomof7]

I am so lost

[RnMomof7]

What does this mean in my life? will the sun come up tomorow...will I ever be able to hear the call if there is no one to call??

[George W. Bush]

What does this mean in my life? will the sun come up tomorow...will I ever be able to hear the call if there is no one to call??

Before I can interrogate you, you must first tell me what is the sound of one hand clapping? On the other hand, we could just forget about it...

[Thinkin' Gal]

I am so lost

Look at the bright side. We're finding out who all the HTML geeks are. `:-)

[George W. Bush]

Look at the bright side. We're finding out who all the HTML geeks are. `:-)

For some real FR geekiness, visit my unofficial FR stylesheet website.

All your HTML are belong to us.

[RnMomof7]

Well twill not be ME!.....hey gal...

[RnMomof7]

Those are for a windows OS..I have a Mac OS..if I try it all I see are the commands

[RedWing9]

Those style sheets are cool. I'm just leery about using them because I'm so "used" to the standard.

After I clicked on the link, I saw the FR upload page, is there a way to delete a style sheet that is in use?

[George W. Bush]

Those style sheets are cool. I'm just leery about using them because I'm so "used" to the standard. After I clicked on the link, I saw the FR upload page, is there a way to delete a style sheet that is in use?

Sure. In fact, I just tested it again. While writing this, I turned off the custom sheet and then re-uploaded it to get back to the custom style. Works fine. Here's how to do it.

On the FR Style Sheet Upload page, you can get rid of any custom style sheet you've uploaded by clicking the Reset button at the top. JohnRob would not leave us in such a possible distress, oh ye of little faith!

Give it a try. Let me know if it works. I wish someone would come up with some better wallpaper choices too. Also, I didn't mention it at the website yet, but instead of using wallpaper, you could just set up three different colors to use instead. Even easier for newbies so they wouldn't even have to edit the wallpaper paths. I'll have to try that one out too so more people can use it. Check back to the website for more on that later today.

[RedWing9]

Thanks GW...

I wish someone would come up with some better wallpaper choices too.

Anyone with ideas?

[George W. Bush]

Thanks, GWB...

Go check my unofficial FR style sheet website again.

I now have a version of it that just uses colors. It's so easy to use that any newbie can do it. It just uses three colors instead of the wallpapers. No user modification required!

[RedWing9]

This is definetly cool!!!! I'm loving this ability.

I've changed your 4.77 version to use lightsteelblue background with tahoma 10pt and blockquote background to lightyellow with courier new 9pt.

Changes will be made though, I'm reading up on this stuff now at w3.org and, of course, O'Reilly.