utilizing the whole page

jaecepjaecep Registered Users Posts: 3 Big grins
edited June 11, 2014 in SmugMug Customization
Hi, I am new to all this and building my first site so please forgive me if this has been hashed through already. How can I add text and/or content blocks to the sides of my pages where there is loads of free space? My site is www.elmcreekexpressions.com Thanks for your help.

Comments

  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited June 10, 2014
    There is only loads of space if the browser is made wider.
    Check out your site here and try all the different sizes at the top.
    http://quirktools.com/screenfly/#u=http%3A//www.elmcreekexpressions.com/&w=1024&h=600&s=1
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • ChancyRatChancyRat Registered Users Posts: 2,141 Major grins
    edited June 10, 2014
    jaecep wrote: »
    Hi, I am new to all this and building my first site so please forgive me if this has been hashed through already. How can I add text and/or content blocks to the sides of my pages where there is loads of free space? My site is www.elmcreekexpressions.com Thanks for your help.

    I might be misunderstanding what you want to do, but if you turn on the left bar or right bar options, you can drag content blocks there.

    Or, just drag additional content blocks and place them to the left or right of your slideshow.

    One comment: Your menu, logo, and title, take up one half of the entire screenspace on my large monitor. That's a lot of real estate to take away from photos. You could drag your site title and place it to the right of the logo. The logo is large so that would still make for some empty space. Just ideas.
  • jaecepjaecep Registered Users Posts: 3 Big grins
    edited June 11, 2014
    Thank you, those were both good points and helpful suggestions. I managed to get the logo off to the side, which was what I was going for. However, now the majority of the site content looks shifted too far to the right, at least on my large monitor, and I can't center it!
  • ChancyRatChancyRat Registered Users Posts: 2,141 Major grins
    edited June 11, 2014
    jaecep wrote: »
    Thank you, those were both good points and helpful suggestions. I managed to get the logo off to the side, which was what I was going for. However, now the majority of the site content looks shifted too far to the right, at least on my large monitor, and I can't center it!

    It looks to me like you set up a LEFT side-bar. Then on the main page, you have the title, and below that, the slideshow block.

    What happens if you:
    - move the logo back on to the main page, to the left next to the title
    - eliminate the LEFT side-bar section

    This should allow the slideshow, which will be beneath the logo/title, to center on the page.

    EDITED the above to LEFT sidebar.
  • jaecepjaecep Registered Users Posts: 3 Big grins
    edited June 11, 2014
    Yes! That helped a lot! It still seems like there is some unnecessary dead space below the title (once again, viewing on a large monitor). Probably because my logo is so big that the whole area below the text becomes unusable. I don't know that there is a fix for that though....but if you happen to know of one or have any other recommendations for my site, I'd love to hear it. Thanks so much!
  • ChancyRatChancyRat Registered Users Posts: 2,141 Major grins
    edited June 11, 2014
    jaecep wrote: »
    Yes! That helped a lot! It still seems like there is some unnecessary dead space below the title (once again, viewing on a large monitor). Probably because my logo is so big that the whole area below the text becomes unusable. I don't know that there is a fix for that though....but if you happen to know of one or have any other recommendations for my site, I'd love to hear it. Thanks so much!

    Yes, def looks better.
    A couple of things I can think of:

    - Does the image for your logo, by chance have "white space" below the oval bottom edge? I would want to make sure there are no pixels of color of some kind making that image larger than it needs to be.

    - You can adjust the margins:
    a. Bottom margin of logo and title, click the triangle/ruler icon on the upper left corner of the respective content blocks, change to zero.
    b. Top margin of slideshow, change it to zero also.

    You can also make margins negative numbers to further force a block into position. If the negative is a smallish number, that might be fine. If it's a largish number, it can cause weird loading views. Allen has a method to control margins that doesn't involve negative margins but I haven't figure out how it works yet. But that might be better.

    Also - did you see the wrench icon for settings (next to triangle icon on content blocks). You might be able to set your slideshow to a larger size, so that it takes up more horizontal space. I'm not sure what the optimal settings are for a slideshow (you can set your site to be stretchy, or fixed as well).
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