Offsite status page

[denise]

We've been looking for an alternative to Twitter (excuse me, "X") for our offsite status announcements of the "shit's fucked enough that the site won't load; we're working on it" variety, and have finally settled on Bluesky as the correct choice for that purpose! If you are a Bluesky user, please follow https://bsky.app/profile/dreamwidth.org; if you aren't a Bluesky user, please bookmark that page.

(Side note because I know people are going to ask: yes, we'd like to add Bluesky (and Mastodon) to the username shortcuts, but the way they construct usernames and profiles is complicated enough that we have to give it some extra thought on how we're going to be able to do it!)

Comments

[soc_puppet]

Thanks for the update, and I'm glad to hear you're moving to greener pastures!

On a completely different note, is there a way to submit a user-created mood them to be considered for site-supported? I can't imagine that adding new site-supported mood themes is a high priority even if there is a way for users to submit them, but I've been daydreaming since I started up moodthemeinayear 😅

[denise]

I ... don't know if any of us even remember how to make a new site-wide mood theme, lol, but email support@dreamwidth.org when you have a full one and we'll see if we can remember, heh.

[soc_puppet]

Thank you! I think I may start early by emailing to ask what counts as a full one, because I, uh, might have one or two already 😅 Like, the absolute bare minimum number of images required is 15, while the total number of possible images is 132, so there's a bit of in-between wiggle room there!

In any case, this should at least get me/us started in the right direction. (Squeak! My art might be officially used by Dreamwidth perhaps! 🤩)

[denise]

I think we settled on "we'll take the bare minimum but the more the better" but honestly it's been so long that again, I don't remember! (I'm going to answer that a lot. The last time we really thought about this was 15 years ago, heh.) I'd go with "try to fill it out reasonably well but don't sweat getting every single tiny variation of the super nested ones". We're also mostly looking for small-ish images; I think 30x30px was the upper bounds?

[momijizukamori]

Hilariously we have a wiki page on submission info (http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/wiki/index.php/Mood_Themes) but not any on site implementation, lol. But I'm sure we could figure out!

[soc_puppet]

Oh yay, thank you! Damn, wish I'd've known that page was there when I first started the community 😂

If you want one to practice, I just finished some pixel jellyfish in various colors; most of them are in the range of 40x40 pixels rather than the preferred 30x30, but the blue ones specifically I do have in a smaller size; there are twenty images in each of them, including the base/minimum 15, plus the three second-level moods that have the most derived images (and two just for fun). I could send over the files for any of them, or get started on uploading them myself if that would be easier on your end.

I also have a 100% completed mood theme that's all rats (see icon), though I'd probably want to change Nostalgic and Geeky to something that's not specific fandom references 😅 And Touched I'd probably want to upload one of my alternate finger options as well. Maybe medium brown with a ring splint for that one? Hmm...

[denise]

I obviously didn't remember that page existed either, so neither of us are doing great, lol.

And you know, I'll just say we can go ahead and ignore the size preferences since we do have smaller themes for people to choose from if they want (and also because the art is adorable and I love them). Once you get them to where you're happy with them, make sure the file names are the mood name, stick them in a zip file that you can upload somewhere, and email support@dreamwidth.org with a link, or if you don't have anywhere to upload the zipfile we can work with a moodtheme that's uploaded to the site. (There are two ways to make a mood theme public and we go with the one that's more work but doesn't involve using your bandwidth for it!)

[soc_puppet]

No worries, you've all had a lot more on your mind with keeping this site running in general, and I can't imagine that anyone has wanted to submit a new mood theme for consideration for some time now ✌

Please excuse me, I need to run around the house while squeeing and waving my arms around for a minutes. *SQUEEEEEEEE~*

Ahem, okay, back now. I'm honestly pretty happy with the jellies as they are now, but if it's going to be official, I think I'll try and get all of the middle-hierarchy moods done at least.

One thing I want to mention is that I've been naming the files as, for example, "BigBlueJelly_Confused42x40", where the first part is so I don't have to worry about how many files I have named "Confused", and the second part is both the specific mood name and the dimensions in pixels (width by height); I remembered having to specify the pixel dimensions when matching images to moods on uploading my fancy rat mood theme, which is why I included that info in the file name. I'm good to rename everything on my end, but if that's not too much extra information, or if you'd find any of it useful, let me know and I'll keep what you're good with 👍

Also, as mentioned, I do have a smaller version of the blue jellyfish. Example: All of them are under the 30x30 pixel limit, as well.

I honestly started out with the smaller version, but just felt like the bigger version looked a little better, so used it for the re-coloring 😂 I'm going to be making the new moods in the smaller format to start out with anyway, so if smaller would be better, it honestly wouldn't be much extra work to just... re-color all the small images as well.

Let me know your thoughts, and I'll get to work!

Edit: ...Image dimensions are literally listed on the View Image listings and I didn't notice until just now. I feel rather silly now.

[denise]

I ... do not actually remember the process for mood themes enough to remember what it would make the most sense to name them. Do what's easy for you, we'll figure it out, lol. I think the jellyfish work best at the larger dimensions, so don't try to squeeze them down, we can keep the big ones!

And yeah, I really like the rats as well, if you are willing to make the versions that don't reference specific IP ;)

[soc_puppet]

Sounds good to me!

Okay, I made two new rats (I'm pretty sure that a D20 is not IP-protected), so we should be all good on that front! Next, I'll be trimming down all of the images to get rid of extra space that doesn't need to be there. (The exception being "Lonely", where the extra space is very deliberate.)

One last question, I think: The guide says you need .gif instead of .png for images that use transparency; is that still the case?

Edit: Shoot, I forgot that Creative was based on a meme. Welp, one more rat to re-do, but that's not too much.

[denise]

I am like 97% sure that "gif instead of png" is out of date but momijizukamori can confirm that!

[soc_puppet]

Oh wait, did you mean the rats as well? Because I may just explode from joy if that is the case. (Definitely scroll up on the page that I linked with the "Touched" variations, I think you may get a kick out of some of the options for Geeky/Nerdy/Dorky/Nostalgic 😉)

[momijizukamori]

The wiki is full of many mysterious things, much of it kind of out of date at this point XD Some quick poking at the source code suggests that what would be easiest is a zip file of all the images, with the file names being the mood they go to. If you have a github account (or are willing to sign up for a github account), you should be able to create a new issue here and attach the files: https://github.com/dreamwidth/dreamwidth/issues - but if not, my gmail account is the same as my DW username!

(also per your other comment, I was poking at the existing mood themes and at least one of them is png so you're good there)

[soc_puppet]

Yeah, my rats mood theme is entirely PNGs, and I hadn't heard any comments on weirdness, so I thought it was probably fine 👍

I actually emailed Mediafire download links to the Support email address last night, but if either of those other methods would be preferable, I'll see what I can do! I've been all but bouncing off the walls over this since Denise said to go ahead and send over my rats and jellyfish as soon as I had them ready 😂

[soc_puppet]

Mood themes properly named, zipped, and emailed! Thank you very much ^_^

[soc_puppet]

Quick question: The guide says .gif instead of .png for images that use negative space, is that still true? I've been using .png for everything so far, so if it needs to be re-saved as a different file type, I'd like to try and save y'all at least a little bit of work 😉

[momijizukamori]

PNG is prooobably fine? that guide probably hasn't been touched in over a decade lmao (and if it comes to it, I have the power of ImageMagick, heh)

[soc_puppet]

I figured that was probably the case, on both counts 😂 Being pretty sure the guide hadn't been updated recently is actually part of why I thought PNG might be fine now. The internet has changed a good bit since then, not least how ninety percent of everything is run on Chrome these days 🙄

Anyway, I jumped the gun and sent everything in last night as PNGs, because I'm impatient, and also still super stoked at the mere thought of contributing artistically to one of my favorite places on the internet, so I hope everything goes well!

[sporky_rat]

I remember, I think.