Free Republic Update: Multiple 'Sidebars'

[John Robinson]

Added the ability to make a sidebar on the left of the page, as well as place boxes at the top and bottom of the page. You'll also be able to add your bookmarks using the Manage Blocks page.

[Red_Devil 232]

Thanks John! The ability to edit the fonts will be great.

Any way you could give us the ability to chose which Forums are included on the side bar and displayed when we click on the “Everything” button?

I do like the new look and functions.

[tiredoflaundry]

Thanks John! It is looking great!

[Dratlatl]

Is there a way to get rid of the sidebar on the right of the screen? Yesterday my homepage gave me the names of the articles and the first paragraph in the whole article going all the way across my monitor; today I have this huge sidebar which just gets in my way. It’s like reading a newspaper through a tube.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to dump it, but no joy.

[CedarDave]

John,
I see you fixed the search function (changed x=50 to x=20) and the thirty missing posts now will show up. So no more excuses “I searched but didn’t find it”.

Thank you!!

[ShadowAce]

Top of the page, click on “Account”, then click on “Manage Blocks” Disable all you want. If you disable all of them, the sidebar goes away.

[Condor51]

Gotta be honest, all these daily changes to the format have had me a little flustered. I think I'm gettin the hang of it though. I'm still trying to configure (tinkering) all the new options to get 'that look'.

But I DO like the option of putting the FReeper Polls at the Top, Top Right, or wherever. I use to miss some for a day or so when it was at the bottom.

(But the Banglist Keyword is missing again. It was there yesterday)

[Arrowhead1952]

John, I have a problem with words/links over running each other in the sidebar and in the keyword area. I tried to reconfigure the sidebar, but the condition is still the same.

[brityank]

Thanks, John. Still the best site around for instant and detailed news from all around the world.

Add my vote to prisoner6’s request for a ‘softer’ background other than bright white — 10% grey would be nice.

Cheers,
Mike.

[brityank]

Boy are they gonna be mad at you!

“Account over bandwidth

Maximum bandwidth has been exceeded and this page has been temporarily disabled. Please go to your service manager to purchase more and reactivate.”

[Lancey Howard]

You’ve been busy.... Good stuff.

[brityank]

Sorry about that post — got lost. :^}

[Clara Lou]

I love what you’ve done. Keep on going. Tabs are great. The sidebar changes are great. I haven’t seen any change that I can’t adapt to.

[JerseyHighlander]

Go to http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/manage-blocks put Popular Keywords as "Top" The keywords block is a table... it could be switched to a handwritten html list. You could use a symbol, possibly º or your much used ^ to separate each keyword, and create a floating or defined width for the keyword "block" . OR you could disable keyword option "Top" inside the manage-blocks page.

Current: Free Republic

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Search:

Popular Keywords 110th 2008 aliens client9 clinton democratparty economy elections globalwarming hillary hooker hussein immigration iraq islam israel mccain nobama obama prostitution spitzer spitzmas stophillary terrorism wot Comments Full --------------------------------------

[John Robinson]

Fixed.

[TomGuy]

Why do we have keywords at the top of the forum again?

I specifically selected the ‘disable’ keywords for the sidebar. They were gone. I consider them useless and they just take up space. Now, they are back.

Is there a way to turn them off completely?

[John Robinson]

That’s a different block than Popular Keywords, and is currently not configurable. Planning an update tonight that will make it configurable.

[TomGuy]

Planning an update tonight that will make it configurable.

Good, because the list is jumbled together on my screen.

Thanks.

[ken in texas]

John -- Love the changes so far.

However... now that the sidebar placement options have been added, even though I have not changed a thing, the sidebar on the right is about half the width it used to be, so article titles take up 3-4 lines where they used to take up 1, maybe 2.

Can we adjust the width of the sidebar column? If that capability is available, and I've missed it, sorry.

[John Robinson]

Good point. I’ll increase the size of the sidebar if only one is used. It squishes the middle column if both sidebars are as wide as they used to be. Hm. Might even make it user configurable.

[ken in texas]

... I’ll increase the size of the sidebar if only one is used. It squishes the middle column if both sidebars are as wide as they used to be. ...

I feel your pain. As a long time programmer I understand that with more options complexity can increase exponentially.