Opal Resources

[julzroguenine]

Here are a few helpful resources for coding using Opal. These are based on frequently asked questions in opal_help and my previous Opal layouts. I didn't write most of these tutorials or bits of code, but they are scattered around in different entries, communities, and comments, so I thought it would be helpful to provide links to them in a single entry.

Comments

[voressima]

Hi :)

Love your current layout! (and I'm not only saying that so you'd help me ;) )

Hope you don't mind if I bug you at your personal LJ, but this particular question relates to a problem you apparently managed to fix in your own lay-out, and you're the one answering all the questions over at opal_help anyway ;)

The thing I'd like to know is, how do you add a header picture above the calender in the sidebar? (and while we're at it: how do you get the calender to be displayed in a sidebar box that looks like all the other sideboxes?) This has been bugging me ever since I switched to Opal over a year ago, but I never bothered to ask anywhere, it was only a small problem. I am asking now however, since you apparently hold the answer to this Great Opal Mystery(tm) Would you mind sharing with young acolytes (a.k.a. n00bs), or is this knowledge reserved for Opal Masters

[voressima]

Sweeeeet! That worked like a charm! :D Thank you

[julzroguenine]

You're very welcome! Glad I could help. =)

Thanks for the link in your sidebar. The more people that stumble on this, the less I have to answer the same questions over and over in opal_help. =P

Linkifying the month isn't too bad. I just looked at how it was done in other styles. Just add
var string url = "$m.url";up where the other var strings are and then change $mon to
$monIt's that easy. =D

Thanks for the pic of my layout in IE6! I guess it doesn't look too bad. Not the greatest because that crappy browser doesn't support transparent .png files but... *shrugs* IE7 is infinitely better than IE6 but it still pales in comparison to Firefox.

[julzroguenine]

Note: I had to delete the comment above because it was royally messing up my new layout. So here it is again; with the code placed safely in a textbox to avoid future problems.

I don't mind answering. Although the calendar thing might take a bit of delving deep into my code to remember exactly what I did. =P

The sidebar next to the header image is relatively easy: I just added my image html to the column that contains the main body of your journal in the ginormous table in Page::print. I put it above this:

""";
$this->print_body();
$this->lay_print_subnav();
"""

It might take some tinkering to get it to look decent with the navbar (I'm not currently using one), which is printed using $this->lay_print_header(); (i.e., if you want your navbar below the header image, move that to just above $this->print_body(); in your code).

As for the calendar displaying like everything else in the sidebar, it's under Page::lay_print_calendar, which isn't overridden in either halffling's nor kunzite1's version of the template. I grabbed it from Opal's source code