h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is a thread to drop me links to new CAC Continuum issues that are ready to go.
This is also a thread to ask questions that I don't know the answer to.

This is also a thread to mention entries that you don't want to use in your issue but think that somebody should.

This is also a thread where someone might politely point out that my shirt is untucked or my slip is showing, away from the maddening crowd, where we might discuss it on more intimate terms.

Post no bills.

For services rendered,
please make payable to.
john william fulton,
the sum of...

And what about dem shiny new auto-mobills?



There... now that I've got the silliness outa the way.

Congrats to all involved in the first CAC-C which has appeared in today's issue of

We have three more almost sorta ready, that I am aware of, one each from Waz, sneaky and Jodan.
I think waz has signed off and it can now be forwarded.
I see you already informed shazz about sneaky's (but linked to the original rather than an <./.>AggGag</.> copy).
And I'm not sure if Jodan is ready to sign off on his.

If you like I can make an <./>AggGag</.> copy when people tell us here that they are satisfied with their work and they are ready to go.
The trouble is that I will be tempted to do some 'edits' and stick my own oar in if I have editorial control.

Fact is, if all we need is the final POST version to appear on the <./>AggGag</.> homepage, it will do that automatically if shazz lists U187783 as the 'writer/reseracher' on the Post edit copy.

So maybe we can skip the middle step of creating an editable AggGag copy if further 'editting' is unnecessary or unwelcome. I am very good at unwelcome and unnecessary, having many years of experience at being both. And it would certainly fit into my schedule to not have to do it.


~jwf~

I'm ready with my entry when everyone else is ready for my issue to be done.

I think.
I don't know. I'm a bit busy right now. Who am I kidding... I'm always busy.

Evening all,

Mine can go whenever you want.

I've taken the green font out following the advice on the egroup. I also took the green boxes/tables out to simply it. I lifted Sneaky's GML, so if his needed surgery...I hope there's not too much work left for the Post Team now.

I checked the pictures - there might be a very small problem with one of them (the heart shaped one) in plain skin, but it's very slight and I don't know how much of a problem it has to be to be a problem.

I couldn't find another appropriate blob, so if it goes it goes .

Waz

Actually I hadn't done what I thought I'd done - don't know what happened there. But it's done now.

I checked for Post archive versions of the entries used but cvould find none. If they exist it's with different titles.

Waz

alabaster twice in one night! *shudders*

I was aware and suspected that I had missed some useful information somewhere.
That's why I begunned this thread.
Sorry for grabbing the wrong version of Sneaky's issue, but time seemed to be of the essence.

On my space I have copied Waz and Jodan's issues preparatory to conversation with Shazz and any necessary tweaks. In lieu of any substitute, I feel someone should play the bad guy.

Check to see if the ones I have copied are the final editions you had finished working on. I don't know what has been copied to AGG/GAG.

Ideally speaking, no font colors should be used.

The UG emblem should be found somewhere on the page, with link associated.

The new little CAC blobs found in Ben's issue should be used for line breaks.

One cannot assume that what works on one's personal space will work in the POST or on all skins.

And do try to slip me or Jwf's name in there somewhere, just out of obeisance or spite. We would do the same to you if likewise were true... dontchaknow?

I apologise once more for yours and Sneaky's issues being used as guinea pigs, but since apparently some things have changed in DNA land since our last period of activity, a shakedown is necessary.

As I said elsewhere, an attempt is being made to supply a template or at least a basic set of issue guidelines.
This will be withing forthly.

"How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying!"

"plain skin"?
Oh, garsh, I forgots about that!

>> I don't know what has been copied to AGG/GAG. <<

None so far.
The question "to edit or not to edit" has been ongoing so I didn't want to confue the issue with multiple copies and versions.

If its easier for people to work these out on their own space or logon as U555493 and do them on this UG/CAC/DUG space then so be it.

The final Post versions will automatically appear on the <./>AggGag</.> space when the Posties' copy credits U187783 as the 'writer/researcher'. And that is sufficient for the record.

But of course the U187783 space is available as a work space and I would be willing to do some work on some there. Of course people have to keep putting together ideas and entries for new issues as well. We'll be needing more issues soon. Time flies when you're having fun.


~jwf~

Okay. That answers that.

Well, three prospective issues is a good start.

As it happened, Waz' issue was the first to be tackled.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A2245998

I have already shown it to Shazz and she has given it provisional imprimatur.

I had to do a bit of work with the syntax in a few places and clean up some enthusiastic redundancies.

The blobs had to be adjusted and the paragraphing altered a bit for smoother loading and general appearance.

I am hoping that the pictures can remain.

On the whole, not a whole lot had to be done.

I appreciate your hard work, Waz and I managed to retain almost all of it.

I can understand that perhaps the marquee < musicalnotes > may have been slowing the page-load but you simply must re-instate the in the middle of the first Shakespeare quote, in the middle of the line:

" That strain again! it had a dying fall: "

It is important for many reasons.

It is also important that the Header title, which copy will strip and replace with a date-of-issue header, should appear as the issue's slugline blurb on the Post's Front Page below the CAC Continuum link as:

"Waz has an issue with Tiddly Poms"


~jwf~

*ahem*

...and is it really necessary to undo the paragraphs from their original sculpted shapes? Everything used to fit nicely around the pictures. Is it really too much code?

Now it looks depressingly like the old CAC, with everything < Centered > in a vertical pile of blobs and wobbly blocks of text made up of lines of seemingly random and arbitrary lengths.

It needed saying.


~jwf~

I don't know what to say.
Or do.

I'm just trying to understand why the original layout has changed so radically. I can understand that things like the marquee lines of dancing musicalnotes would create a lot of extra code and slow down the process for those without broadband or highspeed connections.

And I understand that coloured fonts cause readability problems in various skins. But is shazz saying that the way Waz had the pictures integrated with the paragraphs of text creates too much code as well?

I could never figure out how to do that kind of integrated layout and the visual concept Waz had created looked really neat, like a magazine layout, it kept the eye rewarded.

peace
jwf

...but perhaps it's just that without the marquees and headers and colour fonts it just doesn't look as 'interesting'. I dunno.

peace
jwf

marking, and adding a plea for that too .

It ought to be TiddlyPoms rather than Tiddly Poms I think. Not 100% sure but I think Pooh Bear's tiddlypom chorus has no space. While tiddly poms are something else altogether, particularly to Aussies.

Other than that I'll leave the discussion between yourselves and Shazz. Of course I liked the layout it had but the main thing is featuring the AWW entries and that gets done either way. As tonsil revenge said somewhere these first issues are guinea pigs - it'll be easier with the next batch.
Waz

I was trying to save the blobs. Shazz has indicated that they can remain under the current version.

One of them impinged on the text in one of the skins.
The interjected changes color to a rather sickly yellow in one of the skins.

I will make a plea to Shazz to make the title more correct.

If Shazz already has it it's not worth changing the tiddly poms - don't worry about it. As I said I'm not 100% sure about the space anyway.

Is it just the four h2g2 skins that matter? You don't have to check getwriting and all those others do you?

"...but perhaps it's just that without the marquees and headers and colour fonts it just doesn't look as 'interesting'. I dunno."

Trust me, it will still be the most interesting column in the POST, even if I do say so myself.