My FABBDAlous webpage

ByJanel

Messing around with WordPress and having SO MUCH FUN!

I was recently upgraded to version 6.1 while I wasn’t watching (away from keyboard for a while, but automatic updates had been left on) and wouldn’t be all that happy about it except that I’m a WP fan and therefore enthusiastic about whatever they do. Full site editing is the latest thing. I tangled with that for a whole day or two without any luck, then after banging my head against every wall in sight, discovered a series of useful new-to-me things, both related and un.

I had recently installed a WP for my Vicky, promising her that it’s easy and fun and then it turned into everything else but that, because it only takes a few months to suddenly not know what you’re doing any more. Full site editing is too bleeding edge for me, I guess.

But Vicky came up with the FAIRY theme, and it’s every bit as clean and simple as the Basic theme (no kidding, that’s the name of it) that I had been using before, but more up to date. We’re back to the good old days of crop a banner to these dimensions, pick some colors and then get on with our lives. It took me half an hour to produce a brilliant pink candy cane theme from a random image of flowers from Wiki Commons.

To get the images right I downloaded a bunch of “free, easy” image crop things, but eventually they all failed and I had to revert to ibisPaint. I had been avoiding that because I didn’t know how to use it, but after ten minutes of really trying, I started to get it to work and it’s AMAZING and does so much more, not only cropping to dimensions, but semi-transparent layers, clone brushing, etc. And it works offline! I have a new tool!

Speaking of offline. I’ve been wishing and searching for some way to compose posts offline, other than copying and pasting text and assembling with pictures later. Up at my cold new home there’s just one place on the hill where the phone gets signal, not enough to make calls, but texts go through, and emails if they’re brief enough. I can even load images if they’re small enough. But it’s so cold! I don’t want to stand out there a minute longer than necessary. I’d like to compose a post inside where it’s warm, then go outside to the signal spot and hit UPLOAD. I still need to share my fabbdalous nonsense with the world!

The WordPress app does work offline, for composing posts, and queuing images for upload, but cannot, as far as I can see, do both at the same time. Can’t add an image from your device into the post and then upload – or it’s, “failure: image not loaded”. Also can’t upload images in one session and add them to the post in the next – the Media tab forgets them and there’s no way to insert them because, “failure: not connected”. Hmph.

Bouncing around ideas, I even thought for a while of good old html and a text editor. I could share a link to a directory with some basic pages and pictures, then go up to the phone zone, fire up FTP and… argh, there we are, fiddling in the cold with hurting fingers.

Then I found the solution! Posting by email, YAYYY! The “Postie” plugin. They mention “journalists in foreign countries” as the ones who may find this feature useful, but it’s also cool in other cold places, like up on my hill where EMFs are only frying your brains, just a little bit, in one spot.

Now I have this FABBDAlous new theme, AND I can throw some content at it from anywhere!

That came from https://imagecolorpicker.com/ analyzing my picture of flowers. One of the light pinks happens to be #fabbda.

UPDATE:

Nov 2023. Found out Fairy is nagware, and there’s no rage like love to hatred turned. Just when I thought the whole theme thing was settled and not on my to-do list any more, Fairy started popping up with the most ANNOYING messages, top and center of the WP dashboard:

“Hey there! We notice you’ve been using Fairy for some time…” and a request for payment. The way it’s phrased reminds me of a security guard posted at the store entrance: “Hey there! I notice you have an item tucked under your arm…”

I complained on the Fairy theme message board and had a long, frustrating convo with the devs who insist the messages can be got rid of. Sure they can, until next time you sign in.

Anger about that was just the motivation I needed to get me off my lazy butt and do a little bit of reading about FSE. Guess what, I figured it out!

I’m now using Twenty Twenty Three and absolutely love it. Just a bit of work to get over the hump, and now I feel like WordPress is back the way it should have been all along except UNLIMITED power and control. You can make your site look exactly the way you envisioned it, starting from scratch, as easy as drawing a layout on a blank canvas. This is better than CSS alone, better than any super-customizer theme (I’ve tried all of those). You can customize as much or as little as you please.

Wah-hoo, I’m so excited about 6.2! By the time I write this, 6.4 and it just keeps getting better and better.

Similar Posts

  • It’s A Sheet But In Progress

    ByJanel

    It’s the thickest heaviest flannel I’ve ever come across. It’s a queen size flat sheet and it is absolutely going to end up as a dress with long sleeves.

    ChatGPT takes a crack at it –

    Ummmmm wut? That’s pretty, but I want the stripes going vertically.

    Okay!

    Oh, boy, ChatGPT.

    There was lots of attempts to explain in words.

    How about another AI? “thenewblack” gives a free sample.

    THAT’S what I had in mind!

    Then I realized I gave that AI an advantage because I rotated and cropped the image of the fabric first. I explained to ChatGPT that it was an image of a folded sheet, buuuut… baby steps.

    Given the same advantage to start with, ChatGPT does better. But unfortunately I said “illustration” and I didn’t say “a girl wearing…” and that’s the end of my free images for today.

  • Decorating with butterflies!

    ByJanel

    I had a butterfly apron I couldn’t use for an apron because I don’t like the shape. I was waiting for some use for the butterflies as motifs. Finally, the first use! Patching a hole in a screen. I zigzagged around the butterfly, then tacked it to the screen by hand. When the sun comes through, it looks intentional!

  • My Baby Dog

    ByJanel

    Long ago when I first read books about dogs, the standard advice was to give your new puppy a hot water bottle and a ticking clock, so it will miss its mother less. As if any baby mammal would not be able to tell the difference between a mother and a clock.

    I just checked, and they’ve upgraded the standard advice to at least putting the dog’s pen in your bedroom so it won’t be so lonely, “and if the dog cries, comfort him briefly but don’t make a big deal out of it.”

    Still sounds like baby dog abuse to me.

    It’s about instinct. A dog on its own is a dead dog. They need the pack. If they find themselves alone, their crying is for survival.

    Can you make a human go to sleep in a hammock hung from a steel cable ten stories high? “GO TO SLEEP, stop whining, you’re perfectly safe.”

    I say the humans should put their spoiled human self down there on the floor and comfort that poor critter. Here’s my baby dog’s first night home. We had a lovely night.

    I slept on the floor with her for the first week, and after that she was comfortable and didn’t mind sleeping in her bed.

    Here’s how to tell it’s going to be a grand day!

    Here’s the baby dog having her first ride home.

    Now she rides on my lap to everywhere!

    If she isn’t allowed in my lap for some reason, she’s sad.
    It’s baby dog abuse 🙁
    It doesn’t happen often since my wardrobe now is chosen for how it will look covered in black hair and paw prints, but still, sometimes…

    That’s the baby dog’s idea of staying in the back seat.

    “Why don’t you love me any more Mommy :-(”

    I didn’t pose this one, but here she is along with the shopping bag I made out of her dog food bag!

  • I Could Scream

    ByJanel

    I didn’t scream, but I did the Y thing for about three whole seconds.

    Because of this article –

    https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/twenty-twenty-five/

    Scroll down to “How to Switch Template Designs” and watch the 19 second silent video.

    OH.

    Didn’t know that was there. ALL THIS TIME THAT WAS THERE AND I DIDN’T KNOW and it’s not like “you’ve had the ruby slippers on your feet all this time, but you wouldn’t have believed.”

    I would have believed. I just didn’t notice.

    And really that’s the key, the one that turns everything on. Notice the difference between those two tabs and how to move around them, and the options open up. You kinda gotta know that.

    I’m finally figuring out TwentyTwentyFive and LOVING it! (I went to Carolina Nymark’s blog and read some of her posts, including one with a tragic long ago love story with a boy with a terminal illness that nearly made me cry. I love reading the good stuff from random strangers) and I love T25.

    I’m not going to say it was easy to figure out – the key above is necessary and is non-obvious – but two hours work max, and I’m getting it. I have T25 on JWH, Playground and Friends and I feel like I’ll never need another theme. (I “know how” to work with CSS but if you don’t do it regularly, you forget the details.)

    In the olden days, installing WP was hard, then cropping an image was easy. Now installing WP is easy, then it takes, well, at least more than just a casual glance, to figure out how to change things. Once you do WOW, so much power and possibilities!

    So with a little fiddling, I can make my theme look how it’s supposed to, like a 1990’s girl crafts website with a floral allover background again XD

    I still have my FABBDAlous background! And AI just made me a cool blue vines tile for JWH, too. I didn’t have to go searching, or create it myself.

    So many things are better now!

    … I’m typing, just a sec

  • Hello world!

    ByJanel

    Testing, testing. Welcome to WordPress. This is WP on JANEL.

    Here’s an image from WP’s cool new free images thingie “Openverse”, complete with an attribution which makes it look like I can be bothered.

    “Flowers Field” by Jon Phillips/ CC0 1.0

    Yep, that’s me kinda, hehe

    Kind reproducing after kind, is that even allowed these days?

    It’s a lovely, wholesome concept from a game!

    Just like me and my sweetie 🙂

    That’s us! That’s exactly what it feels like!

    I haven’t gotten over being grateful that I get to experience a lovely relationship with a sweet, understanding man of my own free choice. I married him because I wanted to and because I thought it was a good idea. Everybody should do that at least once in life!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *