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

[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 😉)