Splitting the Comic and the Comments

Tso · Post by **Tso** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:57 am

Is there way to split the comments and the comic apart and still have them update together?

What I want is to be able to do is , say, put a different background in for the comment that would only be there and not behind the comic. Is there a way to do that?

I have an idea that would involve putting all the html coding for it in the .txt comment file, but I'd rather hear from the experienced first.

if thats the only way, does anyone have some code I can mooch, because I'm not too sure which bits I need to put in. I think dreamweaver is too nice sometimes... dulls the coding skills.

834n · Post by **834n** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:20 am

Well, I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for but if you want text to appear under the page with an update, and remain under that page even in the archive, there is a way.

Make an html file and name it with the same date as the comic page, only ending in a b. For example: yyyymmddb.

This footnotes file doesn't need any code other than the text to function (no head or body tags or anything), but I find putting two <br> tags above the text separates it from the comic page enough.

Then just upload it into your comics folder in workspace and that should do it.

Example: Under this page I put links to the cameos in it.

Tso · Post by **Tso** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:40 am

I already have that...

I was wondering if there is a way to say... put the comic itself in one table, and then put the comments off say, to the right on another portion of the screen, just not immediately after the comic.

Like Questionable Content's newsbox (If you know who they are)

TTE · Post by **TTE** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:53 am

There is a way to do this. You'd have to utilize the tag ***todays_notes***. Basically, you create a folder in your workspace called "data" and then another folder within there called "notes." Within there you upload a .txt file with the same time signature as your comic, and whatever is in there will appear where that tag is.

If your tag is already in a table, simply type as normal in your .txt file, or you can write the whole table in your .txt file but it's easier to do the aforementioned.

Your code would go something like this (this code makes the comic part have a white background, though it most likely won't be seen, and gives the comment part a black background, and makes sure they both line up at the top of the page (the valign part); for more info on table formatting go to Echo Echo > Tutorials > HTML > Tables):

Code: Select all

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD bgcolor=#FFFFFF valign=top>
***todays_comics***
</TD>
<TD bgcolor=#000000 valign=top>
***todays_notes***
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

That way your .txt file for your comments would just have writing inside, and any text formatting you wanted.

Tso · Post by **Tso** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 6:34 pm

Thank you!!! This is exactly what I wanted!!!

The Mortician · Post by **The Mortician** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:36 pm

That's the one I been wondering about as well. Thanks for clearing it up...

KODAMA · Post by **KODAMA** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:33 am

you could do something like this:

in your html:

Code: Select all

<html>
....
<body>
....
<table border=0 width=100% align="center"><tr><td width=70% align="center" valign="top">***todays_comic***</td></tr></table>
....
<body>
....
</html>

in your YYYYMMDD_b.txt

Code: Select all

</td><td width="30%" valign="top">
blahblahblahblah

This will create a two column table containing your comic on the left, and your comments on the right.

Code: Select all

<html>
....
<body>
....
<table border=0 width=100% align="center"><tr><td width="30%" valign="top">***todays_comic***</td></tr></table>
....
<body>
....
</html>

in your YYYYMMDD_a.txt

Code: Select all

blahblahblahblah
</td><td width=70% align="center" valign="top">

or comments on left, comic on right.