We’ll get back to normal operations tomorrow, I expect, but for today I’ve still been twiddling around with this new layout. (Reactions have been mixed, and I’m still making up my mind about it.) It’s taking me a little while to figure out how to customize the design — there are various PHP and CSS files to tinker around with — and I have no particular gift for graphic design in the first place. I realize this “theme” is rather austere, but I’ve always rather enjoyed the look of such sites (McSweeney’s is a good example), and I was getting awfully tired of the old one, which had begun to seem rather juvenile and hokey.
Our reader Charles warns us that the “Captcha” comment-spam blocker (where you have to type in some numbers to leave a comment) will wipe out what you’ve already written if you fail to enter the code correctly. I’ll see if there’s any way to fix that. Meanwhile I always recommend typing your comments on your local machine, then pasting them in — and of course if you register as a user here you don’t have to bother with the Captcha at all.
Charles also suggested that the page might be too wide for comfortable reading. I actually had widened it a bit, but I’ll set it back to the default.
Thanks to those of you who have written in; I am grateful for any and all suggestions or complaints.
9 Comments
I rather doubt anyone else will have to do what I’ve learned to do – but before I tackle the “Captha” thingy, I usually just copy whatever inane thing I’ve typed when (almost invariably) I mis-type one of the letters.
Of course there’ve been many times I’ve wished I hadn’t bothered.
JK: Fortunately, I have gotten into the same habit, and given my tendency to write long comments, it has saved my bacon on a number of occasions. Considering that it is simply a matter of Ctrl+A followed by Ctrl+C, the return on investment is pretty good in the long run.
Still, the user shouldn’t *have* to do that. Repopulating the fields is a very simple thing, and not doing so tells the user that you are assuming they are a bot or spammer.
Malcolm: I did register as a user here… were the registrations wiped out when you switched templates? I don’t see an option anywhere to register or sign-in.
(This is all sounding vaguely familiar… I think I had these exact same difficulties before. If only I had a better memory. Oh, wait, maybe it’s on the front page… I’ll have to go check that.)
Oh, and I like what you’ve done with the header graphic. Still understated, but with a touch of style and personality.
On the Captcha front, if you have access to the code (and assuming it is PHP), I can tweak it for you so that at least the comment field is repopulated, if not all of the fields.
Charles, I’ve removed that Captcha plugin altogether and am going to see if Akismet does the job. If not, there’s another plugin that will present a Captcha whenever Akismet flags a comment as spam. Let’s see how that goes.
Oh, and by the way, you are still a registered user. The Login box is at the bottom of the sidebar on the right.
Thanks!
I’m still not decided about the new layout — a bit buttoned down. Am I right that the header graphic is from your recent view looking north on the beach at Maguire’s Landing?
Bob,
Indeed you are! Well done.
I rather wanted the new look to be “buttoned down”. Most WP themes have such a frivolous look to them.
Would you agree that the old one was getting rather tired? I never really liked it all that much; I was just too lazy to change it until now.
But i’m not quite done fooling around with this one.
I’ve just noticed also that I lost the “Random Post” link when I made the change. I’ll have to put that back, if I can remember where it goes.
Speaking personally from behind my tired, old eyes, I would prefer a slight background colour, much as you have behind *your* comments here, in order to cut down on the glare from a white background. Also, is there any chance of increasing the font size – please – pretty please?
David,
One of my younger (they’re ALL younger at this point!) “training brothers” down at the kwoon is a professional web-designer, and has kindly offered to tweak the design a bit; the mockup he made is already a great improvement. So hold tight…
Ah, excellent! I knew the log in was around there somewhere. It’s good to be back.
Looking forward to further tweaks!