Ay, Chihuahua. I ran a final question past the WordPress Wizards and was advised that my first choice for a theme to replace the retired Kubrick, Penscratch 2, “is getting pretty old.”
Well. Sheeyit. So am I. And so is this.
So, here I am, fiddling with the Independent Publisher 2 theme again.
I’ve switched fonts, found that I could add navigation in a header menu a la Penscratch 2, deleted the sidebar, and made a few other minor alterations. The IP2 controls still seem a little wonky to me, less intuitive than the ones behind Penscratch 2, but I guess I could puzzle them out if it meant not having to replace another retired theme anytime soon.
This is another theme I’ve been fooling around with: Independent Publisher 2.
I don’t find it as pleasing to the eye as Penscratch 2, even after changing the default fonts for heds and body. But I haven’t spent as much time with it, either. Hence this post.
With this theme having a sidebar makes sense. I can park some information in the footer, and probably will, but it’s nice to be able to get the bio, search, and archives up higher.
Eat me.
Both themes display OK on tablet and phone. I have no idea how most readers are viewing the blog, but I have noticed the the Original Blog doesn’t look great on my iPhone. The header images I’ve put together over the years don’t shrink real well.
The writing environment is good. Nice large, clean type. I had issues inserting a photo with caption in an earlier go-round, but I have a little more time in now with the Block Editor (curse its name, yes) and maybe the issue was operator error.
Let’s find out.
• Update: The photo and caption were no problem. But after inserting them I got a block-error message that erased the lede and gave me no options for retrieval other than going into revisions and retrieving the text.
When I did that, another graf went away and returned the same error message. Go figure.
Let’s try again, this time inserting an image in the body of the post instead of at the top.
• Update 2: Images remain a problem. Inserting and captioning goes OK, but I don’t see any way to select a size — small, medium, large, full, etc. — and dragging a corner to downsize manually doesn’t seem to have the desired effect. The wraparound buggers the text on the phone.
Looking down on Albuquerque, as so many people do.
Here we are again, burning perfectly good daylight, dicking around with the WordPress Block Editor.
I’ve already accomplished a few things today. Made breakfast, posted at the for-reals blog, rode the bike, made lunch, fetched the cat’s prescription grub, took a shower.
I should be fixing a flat and resolving some brake squeal, but having just hosed off the grime I’m not in the mood to get greasy. Also, Happy Hour approaches, followed by the making of the dinner and the binge-rewatching of all three seasons of “Reservation Dogs,” which ended this week.
But we were talking about dicking around with the Block Editor, were we not?
The actual writing of a post under the New World Order is not so much of a much. It’s everything surrounding the writing of the post.
The fucking toolbar pops up every fucking time I move the mouse. Swear to Dog. I’ll call you if I want you, bitch.
Widgets are a bitch. I’m going to have to hunt down some explanatory bushwa about them sumbitches. I don’t really care for the header, and of course none of the dozens of old ones will work with the new theme.
“Ho hum. At it again, is he? Wake me when it’s over; I can’t bear to watch him flail.”
I don’t like the way the theme deals with photo captions. They look exactly like the body of the post. So I’ve been italicizing them, which adds one unnecessary step to the posting process.
Also, hate the way this theme handles pull-quotes. Too big, too much wasted space, no way (that I can see, anyway), to customize it.
The fucking toolbar pops up every fucking time I move the mouse. Swear to Dog. I’ll call you if I want you, bitch.
And so far, the people who have commented about how comments work (or don’t) under the New World Order say, well, shit, Bubba, pretty much samey-same on our end of the pipeline.
So … I’m having a hard time justifying the burnt daylight here. Just sayin’.
You think learning a new trick might keep the Alzheimer’s away from this old dog?
“Oh, he’s finally trying the Block Editor? Have him keep the screaming and cursing to a minimum; I’m trying to have a catnap here.”
After some extended conversations with one of the WordPress “Happiness Engineers” about the problems you folks have been experiencing while trying to append comments to my ravings, I boldly strode forward and did … nothing at all.
Hey, what could I tell you? I’m almost 70, set in my ways. I’ve been doing this weblog bushwa since Heck was a pup, back in the 1990s. We didn’t have no consarned dadgum Block Editor back then, I don’t mind telling you. We posted our musings to the Interwebs via carrier pigeon, and the poor bird had to fly uphill both ways and into a headwind, too. It was snowing, of course, and hawks took more than a few of them out.
Which is to say, I like my Classic Editor. I look at that sumbitch and I see a muddy tablet I can drag my wooden stylus along until the poetry springs forth. A parchment that suits my quill pen. An overpass fairly begging for a taste of my rattle-can.
Alas, the WPHE suspects that part of the comments issue may stem from (a) my refusal to abandon the Classic Editor, and (2) the age of my blog’s theme, Kubrick, which has more white hair in its ears and nose than I do.
We’re both retired. But at least I still work, kinda, sorta.
So. Anyway. Here we are trying the Block Editor with an old free blog to avoid buggering the paid Main Attraction over to Mad Dog Media. Dog help us all.
Town & Country 