Wow, it’s Monday and I’m here with Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge and Linda Hill’s JusJoJan prompt. Cee’s topic is: the color of Red. and Linda’s is: “Gratitude” from Sadje http://lifeafter50forwomen.wordpress.com/.
It is with profound gratitude that I thank Cee and Linda for making my blogging experience easier. So, with my return to two regular prompts, are things back to normal?
Yes and no. – I know, if David were here, he’d tell me he hates that answer, but it’s often the case that is the appropriate answer. This is such a case.
I wanted to share my journey to a new look – my new theme for this blog. If you don’t care to know the details, skip to the end for a brief bit you should read and today’s gallery.
The theme I chose is “Tenku” and it is what WordPress refers to as a “Full site editing” theme. Themes like this are driven by Templates, and all the templates can be edited. Mostly what you see are the contents of the Main Page template (unless you followed a link to this post) and the Single Post template which governs the layout of this page.
In theory, this means you have total control over the look and feel of your blog. While that is true—there is nothing on this page I can’t change—it’s also misleading. Widgets are not supported like they were with my previous theme. I cannot, for example, easily add a graphic list of all your (those who follow me) avatars in my sidebar like I used to have.
Neither can I add Image Widgets containing badges for One-Liner Wednesday, Cee’s Fun Foto and Which Way challenges, JusJoJan, SoCS and Thursday Doors so that they only appear when the blog post falls in one of those categories. A very helpful Happiness Engineer suggested a workaround, but after exploring that option, I decided it was too much work, and it didn’t take me far enough around. While I could create a new Template for each category, posts like this one—blogs which fall in two categories that have badges—would need yet another template. I would need at least 13 templates to get me through the year.
There is a very simple (for someone like me) way to control image appearance with about three lines of PHP code. I can add a text widget that includes the “Is this post in the CFFC category? If so, display the badge” condition, but in my meager $6.50/month plan, the code will be ignored. To get my Sidebar to react appropriately, I need to pony up $20 a month.
This theme makes greater use of the Featured Image. It displays it in the header, on the main page and, if I wanted, in the listing of recent posts. I didn’t like that. My choice to not include those images in the sidebar required me to remove the Featured Image block from the Group of items in the Sidebar block in the Column next to the Column that displays my Content and your Comments.
If you were here for the unveiling, or “soft-launch” of this theme, you may recall that the featured image in the header was huge! By editing the Settings of the Featured Image in the Group of blocks contained in the Header of the Single Post template, I was able to shrink that.
I can still control some things with custom Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). A bit of CSS is how I display the gray divider between blocks. I defined the height, width, color and the rounded corners in CSS and I added the CSS to a Paragraph block. I’ve been using it for years, and it still works. I was able to indent the first row of each paragraph block, but in doing so, I eliminated my ability to indent entire paragraph blocks as I used to do. So, I stopped indenting the first row.
I will point out that, in my old theme, I had to employ several bits of CSS to get the header looking the way I wanted. None of that was required in this theme. I just edited the Header section of the Single Post Template.
If you’re shuddering, shaking and in danger of spilling your coffee, don’t despair. You will not be forced to switch to a Full Site Edit theme. You can change your theme to a Classic theme, a Basic theme, or a Premium theme (if you have a paid plan). Some of these support my missing widgets and some support the Custom CSS many of you don’t want to use.
Last but not least, there are the disappointing gallery options I’ve been sharing with you. These have been around since the first Block Editor posts were supported. Unfortunately, they retain the limitations and errors from those initial options. I had been ignoring these, by including a Classic block in my posts and using the Classic Gallery. I can still do that, but rather than having a visual editor to slip and slide images around, I am limited to a list of Image ID numbers. It’s too hard to work with, so the gallery you see is the gallery you get. The good news is that a large majority of readers liked this option.
I will be continuing to tweak and adjust this theme. I may add stuff to the Sidebar, and I have to visit my Pages, as they are controlled by a different Template. If the Happiness Engineers ever fix the galleries that don’t work (Masonry and Collage), I may try them.
Back to that gratitude thing, thanks for bearing with me during this transition, especially for your feedback. If you have any questions about switching themes, Classic, Premium or Full Site Edit, drop me a line—I am happy to help where I can. If your theme supports CSS and you wonder if a bit of custom CSS could help you achieve something, let me know. If it can be done, I’ll give it a shot and give you the instructions you need to install and use it.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
No Facilities 
Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation.