My 3 column review

[carriep63]

While we are conducting the style contest, I've decided to write a review on each of the styles to let other people know how easy/difficult each style is to work with.

Those of you that entered your 3 Column layouts last week, or if you've created a 3 Column layout in the past, please comment with your own opinions and/or reviews! I will change this review based on what you say before I post it in s2styles.

Please answer the following on a basis of 1-10:
• How easy was this style to work with?
(1=hardest, 10=easiest)

• How customizable was this style?
(1=not customizable, 10=tons of options)

And "yes", "no" or "not sure":
• Would you work with this style again?

My Scores
Easy to work with:


Customization options:


Work with again: [Yes]



» Summary

Good

• Very customizable
• I like the date/time/tags/currents at the top of the entry
• html in the blurb text is good
• Changing the entry icons is easy, but...

Not so good

• Why can't we change the sidebar profile icons that easily?
• The margins/padding are a pain
• Can not add boxes to the sidebar
• can't target specific sidebar boxes
• can't customize the currents
• friends page is different than recent page
• no page title (would be good for customization purposes)

» Special Features for 3 Column:

• Fluid layout that changes with your screen resolution
• Customizable images for the entries and comments
• Metadata located at the top of the entry

» Things I would (or did) change...

1. I don't understand the margins in this layout.

• The #leftbar has an extra 10px added to the left.
• To compensate for that, the #entries has an extra 10px on the right.
• Both of those are to compensate for the #container being 97% wide and absolutely positioned.
• The #leftbar and the #rightbar have 10px of margin on top, so they sit lower than the middle column. This bothers me to no end. Maybe I'm just OCD, but when things are not even it makes me uncomfortable.


• Before starting any 3 Column layout, I would fix all of the margins and I would make the container "relative" positioned instead of "absolute".
  
  #container{position:relative; top: 0px; width: 100%;}
  #leftbar{ position:absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 170px;}
  #rightbar{ position:absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; width: 170px;}
  #entries{ position:relative; margin: 0px 170px; text-align:center; background: #e6cabe; border: 3px double #dab5ac; padding: 10px; }
  .sidebox{ border: 3px double #dab5ac; background: #e6cabe; margin: 10px; margin-top:0px; padding:5px; }
  

2. Also, I would like to see the addition of the tag list, or at least the option for one. Many people won't even use a layout that doesn't display tags anymore (raises hand).

» Overall

I liked working with the 3 Column style once I got over the margins issue. It was a little confusing customizing the entries because community pages have an extra class defined there (I do all my designing on a community page). Most people don't design for communities, so they won't have this problem. There are alot of CSS classes in this layout which we designers like. The more classes there are, the more opportunity we have to change what we want. Some layouts go overboard with classes, but 3 Column does not.