I'm trying to bring up my blog to MT4 level. So, I set up a blog for redesigning the look, copied miminalist-red and then tweaked it.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to stretch these sections in http://www.lolajl.net/blogredesign/ so that there isn't so much white space on either side, to match my current bog appearance (http://www.lolajl.net/blog/).

I've figured out that I need to override the base_theme settings for .layout-twt alpha, beta and gamma and tried to tweak these values but the white space is still remaining the same. So, what else do I need to change to get rid of the excess white space for the left and right? I thought I could set width for #container_inner but that didn't do the trick, either.

Here's what i have now in lolathemepurple.css:



layout_twt alpha, beta and gamma not currently have any values in lolathemepurple.css.

Hello? Anyone got ideas on how to fix this???

I've managed to get the boxes to fill the page and stretch properly (see here)...to an extent!

It doesn't work at all in IE6 (no side boxes) and if the main content is shorter than the side bar content the footer overlaps (see here)

All i've modified so far is base_theme.css so you should be able to do this for any template, however it's not finished yet and i'm not happy with the results. If you want to have a look at my work in progress css you can but if you want to wait until i work it out, i'll post back here when i've done it.

I may just try and employ the services of a CSS expert, cos it's certianly not my greatest strength!

Two things to note here: there are some tweaks and changes to the default templates coming in Movable Type 4.1. Nothing earth-shattering, but widget tags are being included and there looks to be a bit of a rearrangement between the base styles and the theme overrides.

The big news, however, is that documentation is being written. While I'm sure it'll be some time before we have thoroughly comprehensive docs, Six Apart at least have an effort in hand now. This is, I think, great news, since reverse-engineering the CSS layout stuff is somewhat complex.

As for elastic layouts: sorry, I've not tried that in MT4. For what it's worth, my own preferences are changing. As screens get larger, and particularly as widescreen displays come into fashion, I'm finding myself preferring fixed-width pages since they avoid setting overly-long lines of text. This is a particular issue with users running Windows, with their browser window maximised (ie. their browser taking over the whole screen). There are arguments either way, but I'm dropping elastic layout from my personal site.

If you want to keep your original design, why not start with your original MT3.x templates? They'll still work in MT4.

Because . . . I want to use the MT4 default templates. Especially when MT4.1 comes out . . . and MT4.2, and so forth. There's no guarantee that MT3.x templates will continue to work forever with MT4 - at some point it will eventually break. Right now I'm using the original MT3.x templates. The problem is . . . MT3.x styles don't work with the MT4 default templates. Soooo . . . I have to tinker with the MT4 style templates so I can get the same look as my existing blog.

And yeah, I've seen that documentation is going to be forthcoming for MT4.1, but I'll still have to convert the existing style into MT4 style. So, my original question still stands - how do I get rid of the excess white space on either side?