Everything Booklikes & Leafmarks discussion
Help with using BookLikes
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Tips and things about BookLikes
Suzanne wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "I have a problem with dates. The date I finished a book on books imported from the csv file from GR. For example GR says I finished the book on Aug 31, 2013. BL says in the table v..."Suzanne, first I was told that I was WRONG, which is not true. Then I gave an example and wast old they wee sorry. Then I complained again b/c I have tons of mistakes - TONS - and I do not feel like fixing thousands if the import does not function properly.
Conversation with BL is still not ended, but I think others should check their own data so that we can together request that they fix this. PLEASE CHECK YOUR BOOKS' FINISHED READING DATES AT GR AND AT BL AFTER AN IMPORT!
Have the dates we started reading a book also been imported? If they are, where can you see this information. I only saw the finished reading date on the 'table view' of the our 'shelf' page. It is the column most to the right.
Chrissie wrote: "Suzanne wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "I have a problem with dates. The date I finished a book on books imported from the csv file from GR. For example GR says I finished the book on Aug 31, 2013. BL say..."Thanks Christie, I've disabled my sync and will now start to go through both. luckily I kept the CSV file. This is really not turning into the easy journey we thought :/
On the upside, I think that once it is all sorted we'll have the best of both worlds. Meanwhile, I just am annoyed that I'm spending reading time on maintenance!
Debbie R. - site-wide announcement of any new policy+FAQs needed no matter how few members effected - wrote: "Actually, I think they need to stop making new accounts follow random people. Instead maybe give you a suggested list of people based on genre and direction that you can look at their posts and shelves to decide if you want to follow. With tips on searching out tags like "goodreads refugee" or "goodreads escapee""Agreed.
Suzanne wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "Suzanne wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "I have a problem with dates. The date I finished a book on books imported from the csv file from GR. For example GR says I finished the book on Aug..."Suzanne, I am on the way to make a list too.
I just noticed and I may have missed it before but on the book shelf where it lists the books there is now one for "add exclusive status". Anyone know what that is for and if it is private or public?
@ Candice - That would be new and it is Thursday, so my guess is that today's new feature.Which is really awesome.
Zafia wrote: "@ Candice - That would be new and it is Thursday, so my guess is that today's new feature.Which is really awesome."
Thanks. New features are always good even though I am still trying to figure all the other features.
Has anyone found out how to write the code that makes the exclusivity shelves show on the shelf page?http://zafia.booklikes.com/shelf
^That one I mean.
Bc I tried c/p code number 135 (shelf) and substituting "currentlyreading" with my exclusivity shelf name and the name showed, only not in the font color I'd picked and neither did the amount of books on the shelf in question show, only "()" showed.
Fx it said "Did Not Finish ()" and not "Did Not Finish (x)" and it was clickable but didn't take me to that shelf but the shelf overview.
So any suggestions?
Bennet wrote: "BEWARE. When I exported my GR reviews to Booklikes, I lost the formatting of my GR reviews. I don't know if this has come up before on this thread, but I am really upset about it. Not only that, bu..."That happens to all, I'm afraid. I think it has more to do with the nature of data transfer (as csv database) than Booklikes in particular.
Zafia wrote: "@ Candice - That would be new and it is Thursday, so my guess is that today's new feature.Which is really awesome."
Yep, it is today's new feature. This will be very useful.
How do you edit the reviews? I tried going to my shelves & clicking on the books with the wrong cover, formatting that didn't transfer correctly, etc. but there's no edit button. Do I have to scroll through every book I've ever reviewed to edit? *please say no. please say no.*
You go to your "blog" button, scroll down to the review you want to edit, hover mouse over right top corner of review, and should see an "edit" button.
Optimist ♰King's Wench♰ wrote: "How do you edit the reviews? I tried going to my shelves & clicking on the books with the wrong cover, formatting that didn't transfer correctly, etc. but there's no edit button. Do I have to scrol..."I'm on my iPad, if I just sort of hit/click on the review enough an edit button appears at the top right of the review.
I know that's not real helpful, but I haven't found another way except to beat it into submission. :)
Anyone else having trouble getting on the site today? I can see others' posts through email links, but there's no "dashboard" button, and clicking on my bookmark gives me the Blank Page of Doom.
Mandy*reads obsessively* wrote: beat it into submission"LOL! OK not what I wanted to hear but I appreciate the teehee nonetheless. ;)
Tracey, turning blue waiting for a sitewide announcement wrote: "Anyone else having trouble getting on the site today? I can see others' posts through email links, but there's no "dashboard" button, and clicking on my bookmark gives me the Blank Page of Doom."Mine is OK today, but was exceptionally slow last night.
Tracey, turning blue waiting for a sitewide announcement wrote: "Anyone else having trouble getting on the site today? I can see others' posts through email links, but there's no "dashboard" button, and clicking on my bookmark gives me the Blank Page of Doom."I've had that problem off and on.
So I was wondering if any had messed around with this?Bc I can't for the life of me get it to work;
Has anyone found out how to write the code that makes the exclusivity shelves show on the shelf page?
http://zafia.booklikes.com/shelf
^That one I mean.
Bc I tried c/p code number 135 (shelf) and substituting "currentlyreading" with my exclusivity shelf name and the name showed, only not in the font color I'd picked and neither did the amount of books on the shelf in question show, only "()" showed.
Fx
So any suggestions?
Susanne and others: I have received a reply from BL concerning books incorrectly transfered from GR to BL. 62 of mine had the date Jan 1, 1970. They say they have fixed that error. If you see mistakes it is important for all of us to tell them. I have seen other errors too. For example, when I wrote a review of a book that had been previously read, the date it was blogged became the date it was read. Also one book read April 9th was registered as being read September 4. The majority of the dates seem to be correct though. I am not making an error withe European versus American dating systems. This question is not yet resolved.I would also like to point out that in Europe some countries use day/month/year and others year/month/day, so really there is no one European standard. BL uses day/month/year.
How do do I change the background pic on my blog? It seems like someone posted this somewhere but can I find it?
@ 487 - http://booklikes.com/template/customizescroll down to background and click upload picture and remember to save afterwards.
//edited forgot something
Optimist ♰King's Wench♰ wrote: "How do do I change the background pic on my blog? It seems like someone posted this somewhere but can I find it?"Settings (= little cog in the menu in the upper right hand corner of your screen)
> Blog
> Theme: customize
> Background: upload picture (scroll down to the very bottom of the menu on the left side of the page (the column with a black background. A scroll bar will apear if you hover over that part of the page somewhere in the vicinity of the field "Social Networks".)
Themis-Athena (targeted by GR censors) wrote: "Optimist ♰King's Wench♰ wrote: "How do do I change the background pic on my blog? It seems like someone posted this somewhere but can I find it?"Settings (= little cog in the menu in the upper ri..."
IT WORKED!!!!! HEHEHE!!! Thank you! :D
You're welcome, glad it worked. :)
OK, please do not laugh, but what kind of pictures can you put in the background and doesn't that mess up reading the information? Is there a place to get the background pictures from? Or is it just that you change the color?
Chrissie wrote: "OK, please do not laugh, but what kind of pictures can you put in the background and doesn't that mess up reading the information? Is there a place to get the background pictures from? Or is it jus..."In principle you can use any and all sorts of pictures (including from your own collection), but those that work best in terms of visual accessibility are fairly uniform pictures -- either very dark images (with a white or some other sort of light gray font for your text), or very light images (with a dark font for your text), or a monochrome background with some correspondingly contrasting font. If your background image has too many objects/features on it, that will inevitably make the font/text harder to read.
If this is an effect you like, you can also edit your intended background image so it comes off opaque (either using Photoshop or some similar program, or instead of editing set your background image CSS to "opaque").
That is great you explained this so I understand. I will play with it.
Hm, I couldn't get the new background to save. Did the upload, hit the "save" button, got a preview, but then it just never took. :(
Mirkat wrote: "Hm, I couldn't get the new background to save. Did the upload, hit the "save" button, got a preview, but then it just never took. :("Contact BookLikes about it -- they're very responsive. It could be their servers are a bit strained at the moment; they were yesterday as well, possibly because of the huge influx of new data they're experiencing. Also, remember that it's close to 8pm in Poland (where BookLikes is hosted) now, so any technical issues associated with the website may not yet have come to their notice.
Mirkat--the odd thing about it (to me, who is html illiterate) is that you have to make changes in each place--blog, shelf, timeline, etc. and save each time. The first time I tried didn't work. It also doesn't help that the 'preview' isn't a preview of your own page. But these tips people have are awesome--we just need to condense them into a single list since it's hard to search.
Carol. Shelve this! wrote: "Mirkat--the odd thing about it (to me, who is html illiterate) is that you have to make changes in each place--blog, shelf, timeline, etc. and save each time."Not when you upload your background picture, though -- that should load fine for all pages with one upload, unless you want to OVERRIDE your uploaded picture on a given page with a different background picture (which you then have to do by editing the code accordingly).
I've collected all the tutorials I've been able to find so far here: http://themisathena.booklikes.com/bl_...
If there are any I missed, do let me know!
Oops, it turns out that image upload *did* take--it's just that I had to actually go to my booklikes page address (mirkat.booklikes.com) instead of just being in Booklikes and logged in, which gives me a whole different view. Now I have a different problem. My text is unreadable against that background! How do you create a white background for the "text" portions, overlaying the background image?Update: Never mind, I've solved it!
I don't know about that Mirkat, but post 498 has font guides where you can change the color.
Mirkat wrote: "...Now I have a different problem. My text is unreadable against that background! How do you create a white background for the "text" portions, overlaying the background image?"No link so not sure what you have currently. But probably best to change via Custom CSS box. That way, change will affect (override) on all of your pages in one swoop.
ETA: Mirkat's comment, given intervening post & page flip
Mirkat wrote: "Oops, it turns out that image upload *did* take--it's just that I had to actually go to my booklikes page address (mirkat.booklikes.com) instead of just being in Booklikes and logged in."Yes, that's a bit confusing, isn't it? I still need to get used to which links take me to my own blog pages and which to the overall BL pages as well!
Did you check settings, and which sellers have a check mark in the box? If it's checked, it should be available as an option in the search area.
FWIW, you only have to change each place if you are doing something that requires editing the HTML directly. If you can possibly do it with css, you can do it by just pasting things into the custom CSS box once and it'll apply globally. So if you find that simpler (I usually do), look for the tutorials that explain it that way.
Or ask, if it's possible do to with a one shot global css, I'll give it a shot and there's other people around who are experienced with CSS. Although I'm not checking GR near as often as I used to, I'm still popping through this group pretty often.
CSS makes me run away shrieking, but if I'm ever feeling more brave, I may try it.
Krazykiwi. wrote: "FWIW, you only have to change each place if you are doing something that requires editing the HTML directly. If you can possibly do it with css, you can do it by just pasting things into the custom CSS box once and it'll apply globally. So if you find that simpler (I usually do), look for the tutorials that explain it that way."
One risk to a global application of CSS, though, is that it might screw up some of the formatting in unintended ways. I tried importing my stylesheets from my personal websites but ended up redeleting those import feeds, because I have a few settings in those stylesheets (e.g., for headers) that don't work with BookLikes's side bar menu (which is formatted as h3-level headers) and a number of other features as well. So yesterday I sat down and just wrote a bit of CSS overriding the BL formatting where I want/need it to be overridden, and in ways that still sort of work with the basic BookLikes setup. (Not done by a long shot yet, but I'm slowly getting there ...) But yes, if all you want to do is override the BookLikes code for paragraphs and individual divs and the like, the "custom CSS" boxes are probably the easiest way to go.
Mirkat wrote: "CSS makes me run away shrieking, but if I'm ever feeling more brave, I may try it."LOL...
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean! I tried porting a couple of tumblr themes I've made to BookLikes, and had awesome results. As long as by awesome you mean "completely unreadable and utterly broken". But pretty. As long as you weren't trying to read any text.On the other hand, I know it's often just one accidental inheritance in the CSS that can really jumble up the entire page, so I think I will try that again, but applying them line by line until I have them working. Because, pretty themes are pretty, but better if you can read them!
Anyway, I have the weekend off, and I'm going to try make a nice map of the existing templates so it's easy to see what class or selector to apply styles to.
Krazykiwi. wrote: "Anyway, I have the weekend off, and I'm going to try make a nice map of the existing templates so it's easy to see what class or selector to apply styles to. "Wow, that would be awesome, and hugely helpful! You're so much further ahead with this than most of us ...
FWIW, do feel free to inspect my blog's source code -- my custom CSS is right at the end of the < head > < /head > section, clearly commented out accordingly. We had a public holiday yesterday, so I had some time to identify the core elements that I wanted to redesign ... perhaps the element names you find in my code can help you getting started. (Shrug -- just a thought.) :)
Is there any way to change the color & font of the description under our title? I looked through Themis's very helpful blog post but I didn't see anything about that specifically. Did I miss it? :/
The description class is .header-descso custom CSS would be:
.header-desc {
color: red;
background-color: blue;
border: 1px solid green;
}
For instance (except that would be really ugly, if you used exactly that, lol).
But a hot tip: When I am debugging CSS I like to make it as in your face crazy ugly as possible on the first test, for two reasons: So it's really obvious if it worked as planned or is affecting things you didn't expect, and secondly so you remember to finish it and not leave things half done :)
ETA: Thanks Athena, that will indeed be a big help, you've already ferreted out a ton of them :)
I'm trying to set up an account at Booklikes, but they refuse everything i enter into the Account fields....they want me to login with my Facebook account, it seems....that pisses me off
I had a very hard time with the one at the top of the page. There was one further down that was more friendly, if I'm remembering correctly.
I don't know if anyone has addressed the question I'm about to ask. I would like to know: HOW CAN YOU SET UP SHELVES IN BookLikes?
Go to "shelf" page.If you want to create a new shelf right away (say, you know you'll shelve a lot of mystery, or something), scroll to the bottom of the page. Look at the left side of the page. Should be a "add new shelf +" button. For a new exclusive shelf, that link is at the top of the left column, under the 3 existing exclusive shelves.
Alternately, you can look up the title of a book you want to add in the search window. Click the "add to library," and "edit shelves" will be a choice on the left side of the popup.
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "Go to "shelf" page.If you want to create a new shelf right away (say, you know you'll shelve a lot of mystery, or something), scroll to the bottom of the page. Look at the left side of the page...."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thanks, Susanna. I got it. :)
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I have two questions..
1. can I import my quotes to booklikes?
2. What can be done about the spoilers in my reviews? I haven't had a lot of them.. but I'd like to know is there any option to edit the post (as they are now on booklikes) with a similar concept of hiding specific text.
10x