Missing in Action 111: Starring that Famous (sort of) Blokester
Well … Chucky’s got nothing on me (or does he). Better get the Total Trainer out.
So what the heck day is this anyway? Crikey, I don’t even know if it’s day or evening! That’s not very far from the truth Blokesters because the Bloke has been deeply immersed in the bowels of everything Wordpress.
But you wouldn’t expect anything less from me now would you? After all, how can I be an expert in Wordpress if I don’t spend at least a little time underneath the hood (rhetorical question).
I’ve been having a ball checking out plugins (and I’ve found some gems that I’m going to be sharing with you in the near future). I’ve been modifying the theme/template and I think I can say with some certainty (knock on wood) that I’ve got it down pat which I will be sharing with you sometime soon.
I also want to introduce you to some new members of the Blokester Network to expand your circle of blogging friends. It really warms the cockles of my heart when I see so many of you becoming blog buddies after meeting over here. (Yes, the Bloke can also be a lurker and you never know when I might visit your blog).
So anyhow please accept my apologies for not posting lately, and do please let me know if there are any blog topics that you want me to cover. Unfortunately my ability to read minds has left me once that alzheimer’s thing came in to play.
Cheers!
…BB
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Hey Bloke ! I was wondering where you were. I even had a creepy thought that Bloke must’ve got a full-time job other than blogging !
I have a confession to make:
Last Tuesday, I switched my blog from ExpressionEngine to WordPress. The transition was so smooth, that I am guessing nobody noticed !
The reason being that with all the spare time, I challenged myself to see if the blog would work exactly the same way on WordPress.
Coding frustration was about the same on WordPress like on ExpressionEngine. The downside of WordPress was that I needed Plugins to make some things work like a good Archive Page, a Do-Follow link, and Recent Comments.
There is still one more issue of separating the Trackbacks from comments.
I still have the ExpressionEngine blog intact and I could switch back any time
Bloke! Glad you came out of hiding. I’ve missed you. I’m anxious to read about the plug-ins you’re using. There are several I think I want to use, but I’m always a little leery of trying them out. Always afraid of breaking something.
I responded to you over on my blog about your plug-in questions.
Welcome back! I’m looking forward to seeing which plug-ins you’ve spotted. The one plug-in I would like to use I can’t get working. That’s the WP Ajax Edit Comments plug-in. For some reason I just can’t get it to work. I think part of the problem is that I’m trying to test it in Firefox, and if I’m reading correctly it hasn’t been set up for Firefox.
Anyway, other than that, there’s a little something waiting for you over at Tar Heel Ramblings when you’ve got a minute to stop by. No tag this time, just passing along an award.
Thanks Kathy, and I responded back at your blog. Tag … you’re it.
There’s nothing to worry about plugins. Harmless litle critters. Just deactivate if misbehaving
I’ll take a look at it Lee. In the mean time you should fire up IE and test your theory. Congratulations on the awards and much thanks for the kudos.
Ah you were tinkering with the wordpress. I have tried several plug ins and have came down to a few I like to use. I have used the google sitemap plugin some, but it breaks the publish button when activated.
Curtis, I’m also using Google Sitemaps but have no problems. Make sure the plugin is designed to work with your version of Wordpress. You can also try deactivating it and reactivating it again. If that doesn’t work, deactivate it then delete the plugin and re-install again. If that doesn’t work, try deactivating some of your other plugins to see if there is a conflict. That’s happened to me before. If it still doesn’t work contact the person who made your theme and ask them if there is a known conflict.
Bloke, another plug-in I just found last night is “Different Posts per Page.” I needed something like that because when I clicked a month from my archives, it only displayed a portion of the month’s posts. I thought that was something I’d have to live with until I found that plug-in. Now I can control how many posts show for the main page, categories, archives, etc.
Some others I like: CommentLuv, which finds a commenter’s last post and sticks a link to it under their comment. No Self Pings, which keeps WP from sending pings to my own site. And finally, Theme Test Drive, which lets me play around with themes behind the scenes. I can view my content in another theme without changing what my readers see.
Kathy - You can fix the monthly posts without a Plugin. All you are missing is a bit of code. If your Template has an archive.php page, then all you need to do is put the following two pieces:
Within “The Loop” just after
Oh great I messed up the last comment ! The two pieces of code:
Within “The Loop” Just after
Bloke: I tried IE and it works there, but not correctly. So it looks like a combination problem in that there’s something in my theme that interferes as well.
Hello there BB!
Glad to see you posting again. I guessed you’d be into the inner workings of Wordpress by now
Isn’t it great figuring all this new stuff out?
This past week or so I’ve barely been posting on my new WP blog. Seems my urge to customize and create templates has gotten the better of me again, as I’ve been working on (yet another) new theme. I always find template customization is one of the best ways to learn about blogging, unfortunately at the penalty of my posts! At least I’ll be able to post about it when it’s all done!
Best wishes,
Amanda
Kathy, I think I will write a post on my favourite plugins so we can all share our knowledge. It’s great that we are all discovering together at the same time.
Jaffer, I’m intrigued with your code. Try it again but open up the brackets … i.e. < code > and it should work. If not, then please email it to me.
Lee, unfortunately some plugins are just not compatible with certain themes and/or versions of Wordpress. But Google Sitemaps is a very important plugin so I would contact the theme designer and ask for help.
Amanda, always nice to hear from such an intelligent geek girl, and I mean that as a compliment.
Another theme!!! I have the same problem. I feel like a kid in a candy shop testing plugins and fiddling with the code.
The beauty of Wordpress is it’s f-l-e-x-b-i-l-i-t-y. It’s a geeks’ paradise come true!
One of the major problems that I have with theme design is I think I may be a little color blind. Well, not really but I find it difficult deciding on colors because after awhile it all starts looking grey to me. What looks good to me today sucks tomorrow. I need to step away and look again later with fresh eyes to keep my perspective.
I’m also learning that subtlety in shades is more desirable than boldness. For example. this theme originally came with borders around all of the various sections. But I found that changing the background color a little and removing the borders gives a more pleasant looking result whilst still keeping the content separated.
There’s always something new to learn and it never ends.
I like the sitemap plugin as well and think it is necessary. I will have to try your fixes. Thanks Bloke!
Bloke:
Good to see you back, but may I play Devil’s Advocate a bit?
I was hoping you would continue to give tips and tricks for ANY blogger, not just Wordpress ones. Heck, I found your site before you moved and found some great information, but since then (and I understand why) there has been no talk of anything blogging EXCEPT how great Wordpress is. For those of us who have yet to move here (I may one day, but not just yet) please don’t forget us.
Otherwise, you may as well call this “WordPress Blog Bloke”.
Thanks,
Maureen
Hi Maureen. I haven’t forgot about you … promise!
I understand what you are saying and I must confess that I’ve been having too much fun playing with Wordpress. I feel like a kid again with my first computer and I admit that I’ve been negligent, spending a lot of time getting into the technical side of things.
But in my defence, if I am to be of any use to other readers who use Wordpress then I needed to learn. I’ve given myself a crash immersion course in everything WP and I feel that I now have a good grounding.
You might have noticed that I wrote a post yesterday about “nofollow” which is a generic piece relevant to ALL bloggers:
http://www.blogbloke.com/what-is-nofollow-and-why-your-blog-should-get-rid-of-it/
In the future I will write more posts like this to keep a balance on this blog. However, you can also help by telling me exactly what you would like me to write about. I too can run out of ideas and I can also incorrectly assume a certain knowledge level for my readers.
We are all at different levels in our blogging experience and I don’t want to leave anyone out, so please help me by letting me know what you would like to read. If you feel uncomfortable leaving a comment then please use the contact form or email me directly.
Thanks for the input Maureen which is very much appreciated. I really value you as a member of this community.
Bloke:
Thank you so much for taking my comments as they were intended; never as a critism, just as a friendly reminder that not all of us are as brave as you to pack up everything and move…
I love coming here, and want to continue, so yes, if there are specific things I would like help on, I will be sure to let you know.
And like I said, I understand why you have been concentrating on WP; you need to become an expert before you would feel comfortable passing on what you’ve learned. Which is a very good thing and appreciated by many.
Thanks again, I am relieved I will continue to find the help and guidance you so selflessly provide to us all.
Maureen
No worries Maureen. Rather odd that your avatar didn’t show up this time.
Glad to see you back. I have always been a lurker, mainly because you and your regular readers are so far ahead of me in the learning curve. I don’t know if I could ever add to your commentary.
Keep up the good work.
Not at all Richard. Even just a word of encouragement like you just did makes my day. Welcome to the community and please do comment again.
You were really missing in action tonight. (7:30 pm est) Your page couldn’t be found. Like it was deleted.
Glad to see you back, Bloke! I was beginning to wonder where you had gone, then I opened my reader today to see about 20 posts by you. (To answer your concern in one of those posts, yes, your feed seems to work just fine!)
I’m interested to hear more about your plugins. For the internal links, I just went through gung ho and did it all. You could go through one month at a time if that will be easier. It is a task, but so much better once done! Now I’m considering editing all my old blogger posts so all the links there go to my new blog, but there never seems to be time.
Not sure what that was all about Richard. Thanks for the heads-up.
Hey Kirsten, long time no hear. I guess you didn’t get the memo that I moved my blog and feed.
I took the liberty to change everyone who was still on the old feed over to the new one.
I found an easier fix for the internal links. It’s now done automatically. I’ll share me secret once I’ve completed all my tests.
One good thing is that the majority of Wordpress plugins are easily installed and if anything does need tweaking there are plenty of resources out there to help.
I could not get Ajax comments to work either but have not spent time looking into it.
I spent a fair time researching plugins and have a list of those I use on a dedicated page on my blog (also created by using a plugin). Thought it may be of use to people.
I am trying to work out how to put a comment box on a page now as my page template does include one - either that or it is somehow turned off.
I am now also trying to find out how to change my avatar from the one with Christmas hat!!! I have changed it in MyBlogLog, even deleted it but it is still showing up here!
I like the hat Sue. Maybe you should keep it.
It’s probably still in MyBlogLog’s cache. You should contact them and ask them to flush it.
I’m wondering if perhaps you guys might have java turned off in your browser? That could account for the ajax comments problem.
Have you also checked the comments box under the “discussion” menu for your post page?
I think the very best plugins are the ones that get readers involved in a blog. Tracking stats and making fancy pictures slideshows are great, but what keeps people coming back is the ability to contribute and be heard themselves.
I see you already have pretty much all of my favorite “comments” plugins, but if you have any you particularly love, please share them with us!
Jeremy G.’s last blog post..MTV: Pimp My Computer!
Yes I’ve been meaning to get around to that Jeremy. Always something to do and so little time.
Blog Bloke reply on June 22nd, 2008 11:47 am: