WordPress Commenting Improves

Now, you can have “conversations” within comments.  We can reply to one another’s comments and have mini-conversations within comments.  I don’t know how it works exactly, but there’s an example here to demonstrate it.  Looks cool!  Let’s try it out!  Whatdaya wanna talk about?

A new WordPress.com theme came out this week, too (theme starts with a “V” I wanna say).  Looks like you can choose a lot of your own colors and features.  I’d try it out, but I just remodeled.  Somebody needs to give the thing a test drive.

Kudos to WordPress

I just made a mistake in commenting on a WordPress blog and then saw a little “e” where I could go back and edit or delete my comment!  I LOVE this WordPress!  Thank you!  They also have some new technology that makes your blog work faster…check under your wordpress dashboard for more info.  I’ve not tried it yet, but look foward to when things slow down for computer maintenance.

Can’t See Entire WordPress.com Photo Uploader Box?

I was having trouble seeing the entire WordPress photo uploader screens.  If this is an issue for you, here is the fix from the forum where I asked about it last night:

a lot of people have reported the same error. It was a bug which is now fixed, but you have to sort of “flush” it from your system. Clear your browser cache and cookies and do a forced reload of the page and that should clear it up (The Cookie Dance).

WordPress Note

Click on an individual post and look down before the comments, or click comments as if you were commenting and you’ll see it there…Wordpress has installed a new feature: “You Might Also Be Interested In” followed by blog posts you’ve written, as well as blogs outside your blog. 

Go to Design/Extras to turn it off.  I don’t care for it personally as is.  There are times backposts do not relate to where I am today , and I like to only link to edifying blogs.

~Maggie

Want a Custom WordPress.com or Blogger.com Blog Header?

Well, ya’ll.  I’ve come to a startling conclusion. 

I love to do blog headers.

I just can’t seem to stay away from it for long. 

I have to take breaks now and then because life has demands that can cut off the flow of creativity, but I can always tell when I’m starting to feel refreshed because I can’t stay away from it for long!

You know what I LOVE?  

• I love to see you happy and cheered and “at home”in your on-line home.
• I love to see you smiling about “what you’ve got on”. 
• I hope it inspires you and everyone else.
• I hope you are pleasantly surprised.

I’m going to be doing it as a business this time.  I’ll consider all my work as income, take some icky taxes out, then give all the proceeds to our building fund debt retirement.  I told the Lord I’d try to give whatever he put my hands on to give to whack out this church debt.  This came up quickly after that prayer, so I feel it was His answer.  I don’t usually share things about giving, but this is a big answer to pray for me, and I want to encourage paying off this debt, so I am making an exception.

WHAT YOU GET:

I’ll do an initial demo (and I may send you more than one demo if I’m not sure of your style) to ask if you have inputs through the design process.  After that…I need to fine-tune and will ask for approval as we move forward.

We stay in constant communication throughout.  If we get to the end, and you are not happy with an element, I’ll do my best to make you happy, though I’ll be up-front about my energy limits as well.  I usually give more than you expect.  I hope you are happy.

FULL BLOG TEMPLATE (CODING/INSTALLATION):

Full blog templates can be time-consuming and are hard work whereas a great header takes about 3-4 hours.  A full blog like mine takes up to a week and loss of other focus.  Sometimes I can do those, and sometimes I just don’t have the time. 

If I already know the template you want to work with, (so far, I know the Christmas Theme code well and Mistylook for WordPress’s $15.00 CSS upgrade.  I can do full blog themes with those two for less, probably $60-$80 range, depending on what you want done).  A maxxed-out blog can reach the over $150 range if you want a ton of added extras (See “Little Red Hearts from God” on the Designs Page,  blogger.com design). 

TIME:

Supply and demand can kick in at times and I may pricing responds to that; catch me when I’m slow and have time–that will be great if you are on a budget.  I usually indicate how fresh I am on the blog as I write.  I usually get them done in a 2 day turn-around once we start, depending on how well you know what suits you and what you are willing to work with. 

If you want to be first in line, local people, now is the time.  I’ll do some very basic headers for WordPress for $20.00-with your photo and title.  If you want me to find a themed photo from open stock or more creative things done…$30.00.  I’m picky about that work and it takes me a couple uninterrupted hours of concentration and another hour or two available for tweaking.

Business, church or group blog headers could be more depending on the amount of work:  Just drop me a line,  I usually respond the same day. 

GETTING STARTED with WORDPRESS.COM CUSTOM HEADER SERVICE:

If you want a header for WordPress.com, choose a template you can live with for a while.  Work with it and make sure you like how it works…I can’t change most elements of their blog template functionality, I can just build on it.   

GETTING STARTED WITH BLOGGER:

For blogger.com, right now I’m only offering headers.  (If you want to integrate font colors or sidebar colors,  I can send you the hex color –do your own installation of the font colors= very easy.) 

With that, if you are interested, let me know!  I’d love to help.  I have a little bit of time here and there. 

Oh, about payment:  Payment is through PayPal.  They take major credit cards, or draw from your PayPal account.  I’ll send you the link when you are happy with the work and say we’re done.

More info is updated here regularly.  Thanks! 

 

Design Note

Quick note:  pressing some limits with the new WordPress because I’m such a geek.  We were all maxing out one 3 column blog and I found another and wanted to see if it’s more flexible in tone than the demo.  Love the demo, but want more spring in there, so I’ll probably play with it again soon!  (I really just love changing clothes without having to do laundry!)

PSA: WordPress Questions Answered

“Matt” from WordPress tackled my questions today from the previous post if you are interested.  Updated here.

New WordPress Version: Questions Answered by Matt Mullenweg

Wow.  I supppose the new WordPress rennovation is up for use.  I just signed in and am in another world.  I hope I like it!  What’s your experience? 

Right now, I have no idea how to publish…let’s see.  Oh, they moved it to the right panel.  Also, “Settings” has been moved to the far right of the dashboard…took me a while to find that.

CLAPS:

Takes me a while to get used to new things, as it does many of us.  Things I’m noticing:

• Seems you can load audio easily.  I’ll have to try that.  Before, I could not upload sound tracks–looking forward to adding some of those in.
• New video link thingy I haven’t tried yet, but thinking I can upload straight to WordPress from Windows Media rather than having to upload to youTube or another hosting service first.  Anything that cuts out a step on video is great. 
• “Full screen mode” option (second layer of your text editor)–type on a full screen view if you prefer.  Kind of nice. 
• Ability to type posts in Word, then copy that text over here, apparently.  I’m not sure of the usefulness of that — those of you with trouble on your Macs could try that, I suppose. .
• Examples shown for “Format” section for headings.  (I would still prefer standard font size so that I know the size relative to my text.)
• Undo and redo buttons.  I use CTRL Z and CTRL Y keyboard shortcuts, but newbies might like it. 
• LOVE the new “insert more” tag automatically in the toolbar for long posts.  Very cool.  This means that you can write long posts without having them take up your whole blog page.  Have your reader click “read more” if you want to go into more detail for the really interested, but keep it short on the home page for the person needing to scan a week’s worth of content. Love this.  The coding capability has always been there, but this makes it easy for the non-coding among us. 
• “If you show the full toolbar on the visual editor it’ll stay open the next time you visit – it magically remembers your settings.”
• Apparently, you can upload multiple pictures, or even files full of pictures.  I’ve not tried this yet, but read about it.  Sounds great.

KINKS–I thank Matt Mullenweg  of http://photomatt.net | http://wordpress.org | http://automattic.com | http://akismet.com for his response to these…I’ll put his answers here in interview form so that you can benefit from them.  One reason I’ve enjoyed WordPress is their responsiveness in development.  Thanks, guys!  I didn’t expect a response…these were written rhetorically, great to hear the answers so quickly.

Mag:  I’d like to be able to pull from publish back to draft.  How can I do that?

Matt:  When you edit a post there’s a “Publish Status” box on the right, click the dropdown and choose “Unpublish” then save the post.

Mag:  I’d like the option of choosing which of my blogs come up for easy click across the top.  Some there now are group blogs I never manage, though I sometimes contribute.  I’d rather have my own blogs up there.

Matt:  This will be customizable in the future. 

Mag: As to the redundant issue of THEMES on wordpress.com:  MORE 3 COLUMN THEME OPTIONS…give us the ability to change colors on the tabs to match a customized header

Matt:  More themes are coming.

Mag:  Saturday morning, the 5th, having trouble editing and republishing this post.  When I click “Save” this text box blinks, but stays full, where it should “disappear and publish”.  It tells me I will lose it if I navigate from this screen.  I just had the same problem with another post.  If I sign out and in again, copying the editing text, it works fine.   Update PM 4/5/08:  the post edits ARE publishing to blog, though it seems they are not.

WordPress response:  Make sure you are clicking “Publish” not “Save” [Currently dialoging productively with WordPress on this issue...I personally don't see "publish" as opposed to "save" when I take a published post back for edit.  If you see it, holler.]

Maggie: 4/5/08 noon:  Loading to edit seems slower than before. 

Matt:  It should be the same speed or faster, as there’s less code now.

Maggie:  May be my perception–seems slower to me going from publish to edit. 

Maggie:  Need the “edit comment” link from the general “Comments” screen.  It’s missing now.
Matt: Click the comment author’s name to edit.

Maggie:  Great.  However, I think this would be hard for a newbie to figure that out .  The “edit” link was clear.

Maggie: Underline is a basic text command.  It needs to be on the first text tools screen.

Matt: Be careful with underlines, readers often confuse them for links

Maggie:  Point well taken.

Maggie: Better to have the entire toolbar showing, in IMHO.  If you need something, you need it now, not after you go hunt for the other part of the text editor bar.  Either that, or a setting somewhere where you can decide if you want it all to show, or just the basic toolbar.  There you go…that’s a GOOD idea.

Matt:  If you show the full toolbar on the visual editor it’ll stay open the next time you visit – it magically remembers your settings.

Maggie:  Wow!   That’s progress.  LOVE that.  (This gets re-routed to the “Cheers” section!)

I’ll keep posting thoughts here as I drive this baby.  Thanks for the helps so far!

New:  April 5, 2006 PM:

Maggie:  Photo uploading has issues reported for IE 7.0/Windows XP Users.  They recommend clearing the cache and cookies and refreshing the page.  I tried all these with no results.  I may try switching to Firefox to see if that resolved the issue.  (See more here.)  One of the recommendations is to switch to Firefox…a whole ‘nother learning curve I didn’t want to tackle just yet.  Also, to clear your cookies, cache, and refresh your WordPress page.

Spellcheck has also been removed for the time being due to glitches.  To get that feature in the meantine, either check IE or Firefox add-on spellcheckers to help you out, or write in Word and then bring it over.

UPDATE  4-7-08

Maggie:  (Kink) HEADER PHOTOS  Header photos seem to upload at a degraded quality, using the same “crunching” as generalized post pictures.  This needs to be changed.

Maggie:  Learning Curve, Widgets.  Whew.  I need to write an entire post on this one.  It’s not as intuitive as I think they would have hoped.  1.  when you move an item from your columns, you must click “save” for the item to be available to another column.  IF IT IS A TEXT BOX, YOU WILL LOSE THE TEXT WITHIN THE BOX TRYING TO MOVE IT CURRENTLY.  THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

Maggie:  (KINK)  “Select, copy, delete, and paste” need to all be available by right click on the widgets box to easily move code and edit it.  (Note:  this is an old issue.)

Matt has been in and out over the weekend at this link…check out on-going development with WordPress updates!  Thanks team, and thanks, Matt!