I’m getting fed up with the unresponsiveness of WordPress, which changes formats without warning, causing problems for this site and others. Yesterday I was informed, after several glitches over the past few days, that my “theme” is no longer supported, though I was told the day before that that everything would be fixed.
As a result of these problems, I’m informing readers about the changes that have occurred, how to deal with them, and then I’ll advertise for someone to redesign this site.
First, the left and right sidebars, with the search boxes, number of subscribers, and place to subscribe yourself, have somehow combined and migrated to the bottom of the screen, so if you want to find them, don’t look top right and left, but scroll all the way down. As for making comments, you may have to fill in your information when you do. (I have to do this as well, and never had to before.) Chrome autofill might make this easier. There’s also a new “like” button for comments, which appeared briefly during the last glitch about a year ago (it mysteriously disappeared). Use it or ignore it if you wish.
My own posting has become quite a bit harder. The site runs much more slowly, embedding photos is extremely slow, and I can no longer insert, say, New York Times URLs and have the article appear as a click-on shot. Instead, I must take a screenshot and then link it to the article. Saving drafts and resurrecting up past drafts takes a lot of time. I’m bearing with it, though life is short.
For me, the obvious remedy is to find someone to redesign the site, using a theme that is supported. (I’m sufficiently conservative to not want to migrate to a new host.) My wish is to keep the appearance of the site as unchanged as possible given the use of a new theme. In that way I’m also a conservative, though open to suggestions. Thus, I’m looking around for someone who can redesign a site to make it work well, but also to keep it much the same. If you have extensive experience designing WordPress sites, and are willing to play around with this one, please get in touch with me (email is best). I am of course willing to remunerate designers for their time and work.
My other alternative is to say screw it and stop writing here, but I’m not ready to do that. I know this because I felt pretty bad yesterday having to deal with these issues, which meant to me that I’m not yet ready to throw in the towel. But damn, WordPress is an unresponsive organization, despite the dosh I give them under the expensive “business plan.”
Delighted you’re not going to “throw in the towel”. Hopefully there is a programmer amongst your readers who can help, but sadly it’s above my pay grade. Hang on in there, as I know your readers will.
Strange…it still fills in or finds my name and email. It’s all computer mystery to me. I hope you can find someone to create a proper site as you want.
Jerry, you should be able to select a new WordPress theme, try it out by “previewing” what it would look like, and then adopt it once you’ve got one you like. Most of the migration should then be done automatically.
At least, I was able to do that when I updated the Theme on my WordPress blog. It was actually pretty easy. It allows you to “preview” it before you commit, so you can play and see.
Of course if you’re doing lots of non-standard stuff it may be harder.
It’s all a mystery to me, but I googled ‘hire a web designer’ and found that there are many free-lancers that will do it at various hourly rates. And several indicate they have experience with WordPress. Here is a link: https://www.upwork.com/hire/web-designers/
But what is puzzling is that even if this were done, at cost to you, it seems that WordPress itself could just go in and screw with it again (?)
WordPress must be managed by Dilbert’s point-haired boss.
I suspect you can find a new theme that doesn’t change the look too much. There are so many out there. Perhaps you will go for a change in look just to make the site fresh and new. I’m not suggesting it needs it though as I like the current design as it is simple and straightforward. If I remember correctly, you can change themes without invalidating the rest of the work that’s been done on the site. If the company or person that made your old theme still exists, they may be able to help by suggesting an optimal path to getting things back in order.
I agree, that would be the simplest solution. I like the existing theme, but sometimes one must know when to fold ‘em. Darn WordPress.
I just added an auto-entry to Google address for here. I don’t use my name sans the space anywhere else.
It takes about 20 seconds now to do the post. There is no way to flag for sending emails for future entries.
Here’s hoping you keep writing! Whatever the theme, I’ll keep visiting. Unless your theme is a backdrop of an American flag with an elephant in front of it saying “Trump4evr”.
Actually, if you’re going to be changing themes, is there any way we can get the ability to edit our comments after posting them? My typing is never prefect.
Used to be, I could enter my details in the Name & Email fields, and when I posted the comment (sub), I would be logged in to WordPress, with a black band along the top, my gravatar, and a little bell top right to tell me when someone had replied to a comment. All that has gone 🙁
A couple of points. I don’t see a following link. How are you going to get 75K followers? Also, one can use the vastly inferior WP Reader. However, there you can post without filling in info. And also follow. I suppose you have to join WP to do that, but there is a free option.
Oh, I sure hope you hang in there Jerry! 🙂
Looking forward to more: Boots, cats, food, Hawaiian shirts, wildlife photos, ducks, science of course, politics, and woke-watch.
You are my favorite webpage on the internets. I can’t help with the web design: I am an aged tyro there. I code a bit in html on my web pages; but it’s pretty rudimentary.
🙁
You’re not the only one complaining. I would think that the powers-that-be at WordPress would be paying attention. Nobody but nobody likes this new format.
TEST / gone back in time to try and get my proper icon back. 😎 now, another way 🤨.
this may fix it; found discrepancy.