EVula's Blog

More ACT 1 website discussion

(Very quickly, my blog is becoming me just talking about my other websites. I promise, other stuff is happening to, but this is just the most interesting [unless everyone wants to hear about my clothes shopping spree today... yeah, didn't think so].)

Last time, someone (Cha0s) mentioned that, regardless of the problems the overhauled ACT 1 site has in IE/Mac, I should ignore it. I completely agree, but it's as close as I can (easily and consistently) get to IE/Win, which is still the dominant browser. If it breaks in IE/Mac, it could easily break in IE/Win...

Of course, the counter-point to that argument is the Skating website; IE/Win can't see the ice and the skater scrolls, but the CSS behaves properly in IE/Mac (ironically enough, because IE/Mac doesn't understand the IE-specific tag used to give that browser an alternate style sheet).

Oh Internet Explorer, you're so wacky...

So, for the ACT 1 site, I'm still holding up a bit with the full switch-over, but there's still plenty to do. For example, I'm switching the cast and crew tables on show pages (such as Arms and the Man) from a manually styled "zebra stripe" effect on the rows to a dynamically generated one; I've used this trick on the Unrestricted Awards table. This will make maintenance a lot easier for me, and will shrink the markup even more.

What is a problem, however, is that this is holding me up on implementing other things on the site, as I don't want to re-write templates. For example, I've been wanting to use phplist for a while for them; right now, they have a single person manually sending out emails to an aging mailing list from her personal Yahoo! account. A sub-par situation for everyone involved, and with the web-based system, people would be able to automatically sign themselves up for lists, as well as opt-out of things they don't care about.

I've actually got the stuff installed, I just need to finalize a lot of the stuff, such as customizing settings and, most importantly, altering the look of the site to match the rest of the ACT 1 website (I also have to update to the latest version, but that's not a big deal). Ideally, I'd do this after the CSS overhaul.

So... yeah, that's that. :)

A followup to "Other websites I've been working on"

Since this is a followup to a previous post, don't forget to actually read "Other websites I've been working on".

So, anyway, I've had a chance to work on some of the aforementioned websites some more. A few updates:

Capitol Skating Fund — I finally got the transparent ice feature finished. Oooooh, very nice. I also decided to make a lot of the other elements static as well, since it looks damn cool. :)

ACT 1 — Mixed news. On the plus side, I got the damn line to go all the way down on the test site (and the background isn't green). However, I've had less than stellar results with the site in IE/Mac, and have yet to test it in IE/Win. *sigh*

Hopefully, I'll have more stuff to report somewhat soon. What with Arms and the Man being done, though, life is becoming kinda dull. That's more than okay right now. ;)

Happy birthday to me!

24. Good God, I'm in my mid-20s. When the hell did that happen?

Does this mean I have to grow up sometime?

...nah.

Other websites I've been working on

Capitol Skating Fund

One of my pride-and-joy websites, I designed this one from scratch, working off the general design that Dad came up with for the client. I'm really pleased with the text scrolling out from behind the ice (which is best seen on the FAQs page). A unique problem for this site, though; because Internet Explorer is such a God-awful browser, it doesn't understand the CSS code for the ice, and so it would always screw up (ie: it is supposed to stay in place while everything scrolls, but in IE, it would move along with everything else). Eventually, I came to a compromise: IE wouldn't get the ice at all, just the skater (which scrolled with everything else), while all the good browsers got both the skater and the ice, which would stay in one place. Unfortunately, I had to shrink the skaters a little bit (and move a few names so they weren't on top of the text in IE), but ultimately, it was a fair compromise. Plus, now that IE doesn't see the ice, I can make it a transparent PNG (I couldn't do that before, because IE doesn't support PNGs; for those that are thinking IE is a piece of shit, yes, you're right) so that you'll be able to partially see the text through the ice before it fully breaks through (we've got a website award competition coming up in a few weeks; I'll most certainly make that change by then). Ironically, the site works just fine in IE/Mac. Go figure. :)

ACT 1

The ACT 1 website has been an old standby for me for quite a while now, but I've been making fantastic strides at getting the entire production history documented as thoroughly as possible. My only beef with the site is that it was done at the beginning of my trip down Proper Web Development Lane; specifically, it is a table-based layout, with JavaScript rollovers. I'm currently working to convert various elements to make it *strictly* CSS-based, as well as adding new features (such as a print-style that, while maintaining the overall function of the site, has very different layout images and colors that are more appropriate for a white background). I've it a snag with the center vertical rule; you can see my progress at css.act1online.com, which features a green background on the main body for the simple sake of helping me see where the main body area is.

VUMC Office of Research

Actually, for this site, all I do is maintain it; I had nothing to do with the current design (my code is much more streamlined, plus, it features some really confusing header levels; h2 before h1? what the hell?). What I am proud of on it, though, is the Newsletter, which combines the pre-existing layout and styles, but introduces some semantically valid code. I'm especially proud of the New Grant Funding table, which looks utterly fantastic (in my opinion). I was able to use it as a jumping-off point for another table on the site, the Private Restricted Awards (to get an idea of how much of an improvement this is, check out the old version). Bask in the glory of a properly styled table (plus the oh-so-lovely image-less drop shadow on it; thanks, Dan!).

I've got a couple other web projects going on right now, but neither is far enough along that I can show off what I've done (especially since one hasn't even been designed yet, and all I've done for the other is do up a template; I'm still waiting on copy for it). When those get done, I'll be more than happy to share them as well.

I'm actually *winning* against the spam

In my recent purge of spam from the blog system, one of the things I've been doing is closing as many posts as I can. This has proven to be extremely effective; I can now go about twelve hours between checks without finding anything (I just checked, and I had just three spam comments on someone's blog entry from 2005).

Pretty exciting (for me, at any rate).

Tales from opening weekend

Oh boy, so here's just how bloody fun the opening weekend for Arms and the Man was...

Friday, March 2 (opening night)

I have a very small speaking role in the show, not long into Act 1. However, there are several gunshots that are heard offstage in that act. I'm responsible for most of them, but one of them happens with me on stage, so we have one of the other actors (who doesn't appear until Act 2) take over that and the one prior so that I've got time to change into my costume (which is just a giant coat on top of my usual theatre blacks).

Well... the first gunshot (which is the cue for the actor to come up) didn't work. At all. Two clicks, nothing. So, the scene continues (or, rather, starts), but the actor isn't coming up, and I can't go and get him, since I need to stay in place for the forthcoming gunshot. After sending one of the other actors down for him, he finally gets up there... and has the gun when my headset goes off to tell me to fire the gun, so there's another missed gunshot.

However, at this point, I'm severely behind on getting into costume (putting on a rather large coat with a billion buttons, plus a confusing belt). I'm hearing my cue come up, but I can't get any of the damn buttons to fasten, or, if I can at least get that done, they're mismatched. Finally, I hear my cue, so I just fasten a single button in the middle and hold my coat closed (I made it look like I was just mad or something... not particularly difficult).

The rest of the show went fine, though I was in a foul mood over how it had started.

Another bit of fun: Andrea, who plays the lead, is none too modest downstairs in the green room. Now, I'm all for it; recently single and very heterosexual, I'm not about to tell an attractive girl that she has to cover up, and neither were any of the other guys. However, one of the other actresses (whose husband is in the show), rose a stink about it. The thing is, however... she raised the problem to every other actor in the cast, before finally talking to Andrea (in an extremely bitchy tone, from what I hear) and then mentioning it to me in passing (which I dismissed as fairly trivial, until I saw that Andrea was extremely upset by it). Apparently, one of the actresses' concerns was that her husband would see Andrea.

Lame. Doubly so when you consider the fact that the actress in question is in her mid-40s. Sorry, but prudish insecurity-projections really should stop by the time you're that age.

And, to add insult to injury, I didn't get to eat with the cast after the show; by the time I got to the restaurant after locking up and changing, they'd closed the kitchen. Grrr.

Saturday, March 3

More drama backstage! This time, I was the one who got in trouble (with the same prude actress). You see, Andrea has to wear a corset in the show, and being the gentleman that I am, I graciously offered to help her with it. Well, I'm standing in the green room, and then Andrea comes to the doorway of the dressing room, with the corset wrapped around her (covering her breasts, mind you; all you could see was cleavage and her navel), asking me to help her, which I of course do. Prude Actress spazzes out, saying that we have to come into the dressing room and close the door, which we do.

Fast-forward to after the show. I'm locking up, and my stage manager tells me that I'm now no longer allowed in the women's dressing room.

Now, for those that have short memories, please scroll up and notice that I was told to come into the dressing room, by the same actress who then bitched about it. This is also the same actress who, the day before when I apologized for accidently barging in while calling time (in my defense, the guys and girls dressing rooms are the opposite of what I'm used to), said "no problem" about it.

Sunday, March 4

Sunday was, dead audience aside, fairly uneventful.

Oh wait, I forgot. Andrea broke a glass piece of the set during Act 1. Oh yes, good times. Completely screwed up my scene change (not faulting her, just bitching about it), which was doubly unfortunate because I had a new stagehand who was planning on just following my lead.

I might be forgetting a few things, but I'm pretty sure that that just about covers everything.

Blarg opening weekend

So, I've still go one more show in Arms and the Man's opening weekend, but so far... bleh.

Quick summation, I hate:

• starter pistols that don't fire reliably
• actors whose prudish complaints directly mirror their personal insecurities
• actors who, when they have a problem with a fellow actor, tell every other actor what the problem is and then mention it to me in passing

Grr.

On the plus side... hey, I'm getting back into the swing of this whole "blogging" things the kids are so hot-to-trot about. "Hip" and "with it", thy name art Eric.