Returning Renault Bears to a worthwhile life of daytime telly, eating jammy toast and surfing the internet.
Posts tagged new design
Latest Bear News…
Mon 22nd Mar 2010
Firstly, we would like to apologise for there being no post yesterday, again this was due to pressure of work. Razzi and I are busy earning enough pennies to pay for all the Bears we keep rescuing and yesterday we worked late even though it was a Sunday. We were doing a Pass Plus, which involved us being driven to Blackpool on the Motorway by someone who had just passed her test last week. Emma drove beautifully and even managed to navigate all the way from Southport to Blackpool without any help from us. Granny has been driving over thirty years and she cannot even navigate her way to Eastham let alone Blackpool – well done Emma!
Speaking of Bears, Edward was searching last night and has found another needing rescuing from eBay. He was a little difficult to find because he was simply listed on eBay as a Teddy Bear and it did not mention he was a Renault Bear. It is a good job Edward is very thorough in his searching. At the moment, we do not know much about him except that he lives with Jean in Chester-le-Street, Durham. His auction is set to end on Saturday, so we will keep you informed.
As Spring is beginning to reluctantly show its head from the depths of Winter, we thought now would be a good time to have a little spring clean; maybe change a few colours and maybe even hang some new wallpaper on the blog. Edward and Egginano will be having a little experiment today trying out new things so please bear with us if the blog does not look quite right at any time. I am sure they will get it looking great when they have finished.
Yesterday was our very own Ashley’s Birthday so all the Bears and I would like to wish her a very happy belated birthday for yesterday. Hope you had a great time at your party, which we believe was fancy dress. If there are any embarrassing photographs of Andrea drunk, you know we would love to post them on here!
A few people have asked me what is happening with Delores, the Bear we featured last week who has lost her fur. We are trying to find out more and as soon as we have any further news we will let you know. Her condition started last November when the weather turned cold for the winter so hopefully now that the weather is getting warmer it may cure itself. We do hope so but we will let you know as soon as we hear anything.
Finally, always remember people… let’s be careful out there!
Latest Christmas Bear News
Sun 27th Dec 2009
Well The Bears had a great Christmas and their only negative thought is why it cannot be Christmas every day. Razzi did have a little misadventure with the Christmas tree when he knocked it over but unfortunately, no one had the video camera ready to try to get £250 out of Harry Hill. The highlight of Christmas day had to be The Royal Family. The Bears were a little upset that Jim did not say “My Arse!” which is their favourite Jim saying, but he more than made up for it with his latest catchphrase… NO CHIP PAN!?!?!?
We have also spent some time over Christmas trying to decide on five new names for our latest Friends and we think we have hit upon some winners with these. Firstly, The Bear who joined us a couple of weeks ago from Svetlana in Somerset has decided she likes the name Elodie. Thanks for the suggested goes to our friend Abby.
The Brother and Sister who joined us from Bedfordshire have decided on the names of Elgin and Evelyn. Thanks to Abby again and Beckieee for picking those names. The Bear who arrived in his very own Christmas jumper has decided he likes the name has been searching on the Internet for a name of his own. He has decided he quite likes the name of Easton. The final Bear in need of naming who joined us from Yorkshire has decided he likes Egor, suggested by Carina.
We hope everyone had a great Christmas and you all got the pressies you wanted.
…And The Great News
Sat 21st Nov 2009
The Blog is now back up and running and thanks to the wonderful efforts of Melenko over at digitalnature we now have the Mystique Theme fully implemented with no obvious errors. I saw “obvious” errors because in something as complicated as our blog has now become, it is easy to miss something so if you notice anything peculiar with the way the Blog looks or behaves then please let us know.
Even better news is that BearTube now works with the theme thanks to the incorporation of the Hana FLV Player. Edward has also done some great work putting all the blog back together again, reformatting all the old video clips to work in the new player and tweaking the theme to exactly match our requirements.
We have also taken some tips from other Mystique users who post their tweaks over on the digitalnature forum. In case anyone is interested in our CSS Code modifications they are as follows:
- #primary-content{width:72%;}
- #sidebar{width:27%;left:1%;}
- .post-date {text-transform:none;}
- .header-wrapper .shadow-right{padding-bottom:0;}
- #footer{background:#666;color:#ddd;}
- #footer a{color:#fff;}
- #header{height:220px;}
- .wp-caption{padding-top:4px;margin:8px 10px 0 10px;font-style:italic;}
- .block h3.title{text-transform:capitalize;}
- #site-title{top:5px;}
- blockquote{margin:1em 0 1em 0;padding:.6em .6em 0 6em;border:none;}
- #site-title p.headline{display:none;}
- body{text-align:justify}
- Edward also changed the date format in index.php to “D jS M Y “
We hope everyone likes the new theme and ask that you leave any comments, good or bad, or any suggestions for improvements in the comments section. We may still change things over the next few days as we get used to using it or as other people make suggestions over usabilty, etc. We hope everyone likes it!
…and hey, let’s be careful our there!
Edward Unveils Mystique
Fri 6th Nov 2009
In the early hours of this morning Edward finally released his eagerly awaited update to the Bear’s Blog which is based on the Mystique theme designed by digitalnature. It is a big improvement in terms of design and functionality over its predecesor. Some of its features include a Multi-function Widget, page templates for different layout styles and an advanced interface for the theme settings.
Edward's New Blog Design
To begin with it is not always obvious exactly how to navigate around the blog as some things have changed drastically. This inclusion of the Multi-function Widget means we can include all kinds of functionality but without taking up too much space in the sidebar. So how does it work?
The Multi-function Widget
If you look at the top of the Multi-function Widgetyou will notice there are icons to represent functions. The first icon looks like a file and this is used to display blog entry Categories. For example, if you wanted to display all the Musical Sunday Videos from previous weeks then you could click on the File Icon, then in the list underneath if you click on the Musical category. The blog will then display all the Musical Sunday posts which is great because you can now view previous posts from any Category on a single page.
The second icon is a Tag. This works in the same way as the Categories but works on Tags instead. For example, if you want to display all articles about Razzi then you could click on Tag icon then click on Razzi in the cloud underneath and the blog will automatically show all articles that are about Razzi.
The third tag is a Clock icon and this is for the Blog Archives listed in month order. If you want to view posts from previous months then you simply click on the Clock icon, then on the month you desire to have the blog display all the posts from that month. The figures in brackets next to the months are the number of posts from that month.
The Star icon will display a list of the blogs most popular posts since the blog began back in January 2007. At the moment the highest rating post is Prom Night from July 2008 with 109 comments. To see the list you can click on the Star icon, to view any of the top posts then simply click on its title.
Finally, the Speech Bubble icon on the end is to display the latest comments left on the blog from any post. Clicking this item will list the latest comments that people have left on the blog.
Blog Sign-in
Underneath the Multi-function Widget is a Sign-in box to enable Registered Friends Of The Bears to sign in and if you leave the tick box enabled it means you will automatically be logged in the next time you visit the blog. The new blog will also remember your log-in details when you leave a comment which means you will not have to fill them in every time. We have also automated the forgotten password procedure now, so if you click on the Lost your Password? link it will ask for your email address and send you a new password. If you then sign-in using this password and go to your Profile Page you can then reset the password yourself to something that is easy for you to remember.
We all agree Edward has done an excellent job with the blog but like everything new it can take a bit of getting used to. If you have any suggestions to make concerning the new design or functionality then please let us know either in the comments or by email. Or, if you have a particular problem with using the blog then just simply ask us… we don’t bite, well ok maybe Razzi does, but we promise to keep him under control.
We hope you enjoy your new Bear blog experience!
New Theme
Fri 1st May 2009
Redlight; a new theme from the wonderful Brian
To mark the first day of May; we thought we would change things around a little and use a great new theme for the blog. Again it is based on a design from the wonderful Brian, the owner of Templatelite.com. It is called RedLight and is a wonderful mixture of colours and we just loved the way it looked warm and inviting.
Usually we take one of Brian’s themes and amend it to suit our own requirements. This time, however, we were that happy with his original theme that we hardly needed any changes at all. Just a few very minor alterations to the layout and we got Ellard to pose for the picture at the top and we were all set to run.
Brian releases his themes under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial licence and so they are absolutety free to use but the quality of them far surpases many themes we have seen available commercially for tens and even hundreds of dollars.
Brian, keep up the good work we are all becoming great followers of your work!
