The new blog design is actually being worked on
Remember, many months ago, I mentioned I was trying to redesign the blog? At the same time, the person who had been helping me with that sort of thing for many years said he couldn’t do it any more. I tried hiring someone (or some group), but I either never heard back from people (maybe I was too small a job?), or what they offered for the money wasn’t all that much help. I still may have to fall back on that, but I’ve been trying to do it on my own.
That’s pretty funny, if you know how non-tech-savvy I ordinarily am. That said, because I’ve been blogging all these years I’ve been forced to learn far more than I knew before about the tech side of the internet and things like code. That doesn’t mean I know all that much, though, and when I look at some pages that are supposedly for beginners but don’t really begin at the beginning, my eyes start glazing over.
To top it all off, when you change what WordPress calls “themes,” although you can try out a new theme with a handy device they have that fits your existing blog to it, all changes you make are temporary unless you go live with it. I’ve spent many a less-than-ecstatic hour—many—learning how to use the system, trying out theme after theme, and almost all my work gets lost each time except for some code that I’ve saved elsewhere, such as the code for the Paypal button. It’s frustrating and exceptionally time-consuming, although educational.
There’s a way you can save your work, but only if you’re modifying a theme that you’ve already taken live on the blog. I don’t want to do that, because it’s so painfully slow for me, and the blog would lose some functionality in the meantime.
But I’m getting close, really really close. I’ve learned a lot. I believe I’ve chosen a theme that preserves much of the clean simple look and many of the functions of this theme, plus a few added ones. I’m also planning, as I said a while back, to de-emphasize the “neocon” part of the blog and have a slightly different name, although it will be recognizable as me. But the old URL will still direct people here, plus a new URL.
The point of all of this is to make it easier to view the blog on mobile devices and to (hopefully!) modernize it in such a way that it won’t be subject to glitches every time they update WordPress or for random reasons. The theme I have now is very antiquated and not “supported” anymore, as the saying goes.
So let me know once again if there’s any feature the blog doesn’t have that you’ve been hungering for. I asked that once before but it was a while ago. I don’t make any promises about whether I can or will implement the particular thing you ask, but I’ll take it all under consideration.
When I say I’m getting close, that doesn’t mean “tomorrow.” It doesn’t even mean “this week,” most likely. But in a couple of weeks I think it will happen.
One thing I like about PJ Media is the “like” button. I see many comments that I really like, but in order to express my “like,” I have to write my own comment saying. “I liked your comment,” or some such. That seems a waste of my time and of others who have to read it as they scroll down. However, if you decide against it, I will still keep reading and commenting.
J.J.:
Apparently, that can be done with what’s called a plug-in. Maybe I’ll do that. I’ll see.
One please include it, one please don’t go to it; if possible, an edit function please. But NO Facebook approval. I can no longer comment on the Liberty Unyielding blog since they went to Facebook approval. Perhaps I’m being shadowbanned. I’ve also noticed that their comments are way down, so they too may be being censored.
Geoffrey Britain:
I just installed a plug-in that allows people to edit their own comments for five minutes after they first post the comment. Try it and see if it works. I haven’t found any plug-ins that allow editing for longer than that.
Geoffrey Britain:
That comment I just posted has a “Click to Edit” button and then a countdown for the 5 minutes. Pretty nifty, I’d say.
WordPress keeps coming up with new things every day, so many that I haven’t really kept up with it.
Other than adding an Edit feature, I wouldn’t change a thing. Yours is a thoughtful and serious blog, much like salons must have been, and it’s a comfortable place because there’s not a lot of rabble coming in and posting graffiti and insults all over the place. Re-designing to be more “mobile-friendly” might be an open door to such as them . ..
Many of the comments you receive are substantive, and (even if we left ArtFulDgr out) longish. This suggests they’re being entered at a keyboard on a computer, rather than a cell phone. I can easily turn my cell phone to “landscape” instead of “portrait” for reading, but I wait for a keyboard to enter my comments.
And whatever you do, don’t go to any lighter grey typeface!
Oooh! I’m doing an edit. Sweet! Did you add spell checking, too? You’re too, too good to us.
All I ask is please please please don’t use white type on black or colored background.
Did I remember to say please?
AesopFan:
I can guarantee that won’t happen. I cannot stand sites like that.
I like the edit function. Otherwise, it looks good to me. A lot of blogs lack preview. For such non-preview blogs, I will sometimes copy/paste onto Neo so I can preview.
Whatever makes you happy. I will try to adjust to the neo NWO.
Since the comments are so good and often so numerous, a HOME button or a TOP button when we reach the bottom would provide welcome relief for our scrolling index fingers.