Author: FLYNN

20250128-0150. It’s way past my bedtime. But I’ve finished having fun tweaking my weblog site again!

This time, I edited my duplicated/empty/extra/unused templates!

I have finished the following:

• 6 (Single Pages) of 22 Headers,
• 1 (Entire Site) of 9 Footers,
• 1 (Read Blog) template of 5 Single Posts,
• 6 of 6 Single Pages,
• 1 Archive,
• 1 Search Results,
• 0 Loop Items and
• 1 Error 404.

So that’s how I wanted it: lots of colors with MORE controls over the design.

That’s all. End of status report 0206. P.S. I’ve been listening to the KJV audio bible the whole day and night while tweaking my weblog site.

20250127-1914. I had my OLD Read Blog page set to Private mode after discovering an OLD Elementor page that was created back in January 12 of this year. I believe that was when I “came back” to try my hands/paws at redesigning my defunct weblog site! But I refunded this first “trial” outta frustration because I didn’t know what I was doing.

But for whatever reason, I already had enough practice with the Gutenberg blocks. But I just simply forgot how the “concept” is the same and the layout or feel of their “dashboard” is similar, only instead of Groups for blocks, it’s Containers or Grids!

So after signing up again on the 24th or three days ago, I was just getting warmed-up. I spent the first day and an all-nighter just to get the first two pages out. By the second day, I was still tweaking the first two pages and then barely completed the third page. Today, the third day, I did it again!

I tweaked my weblog site to my heart’s content. I have studied my OLD posts and pages and was wondering how everything is still tied-in together. And then something inside me clicked! I wanted to set my OLD precious archived pages (which I still have in .xml format) to Private mode.

These pages are just duplicates, nay, triplicates of my projects of three pages. And so I did just that: worked on the OLD Elementor page and converted/reworked that page as my new READ BLOG page. (So that I could “preserve” or at least set the original page to Private mode).

For my new READ BLOG page, I got it hands down, except I couldn’t figure out how to keep the left and right sidebars “sticky”. I queried LEO AI and the search results didn’t work out for me. But at least I got the general layout of three-columns to look like Twatter/X!

I learned how to use the Responsive feature to “Hide” the left and right sidebars (Containers) for both tablet and mobile view. I hope to learn more from my Essential Pro upgrade. There is just too many ways to make a functioning weblog site prettier than normal; despite NOT having lots of views and visitors.

I just like coloring. And one way of getting outta a systemic rut of being locked-down, shut-in and basically insulated from the rest of the world, I’m trying web designing. But that would mean hard-core coding. I do NOT know coding. I just like to click and drop/drag my blocks/widgets to create a structure for my site.

That’s all. End of status report 1928. Just now my elderly father came downstairs and made the usual triple tweeting birb sound that it’s time to eat our late supper! Now he’s yakking about politics and/or sports. Gosh darnit!

20250127-0113. Yay! I found the “switch” to render the drop-down, triple-hamburger menu null! Lo and behold, the triple pages (Features, About and Contact) are now displayed as “links”. I had to adjust the font sizes (or Topography) for each of the triple views (Desktop, Tablet and Mobile). I remembered that links are better for those with vision impairment and for those using screen readers and such.

So that’s it in nutshell. I’m finished tweaking my weblog site (for now, of course)! I’ll focus on blogging now. There’s really nothing else to do but “live”. And that means “playing house” by cooking and cleaning. And I’m still NOT that good with household chores or gardening! But that’s another rant for another day or night.

End of status report 0118 PST.

20250127-0054. I’m getting tired of tweaking my weblog. I could see the small details that I fixed, especially the Features and About pages. It does take a while to review and test everything for alignment and sheer perfection, which is impossible; since we’re NOT blissfully in heaven yet.

Yeah, I take it back: I did re-create the missing templates of the Site Parts, especially the Single Post and NOT so much the Single Page. I learned how to Include and Exclude the displays, especially for Single Post, which I had to set to at least a minimum width of 628 pixels.

I liked the reddish/pinkish color scheme of Elementor and borrowed/stole the web-safe HEX code for pink and set those nicely in the lightest shade possible. I liked the pink background and the pink gradient Radial gray-pink for the Post Title, at least.

That’s all for now. I’m happy now and I shouldn’t be messing up too much, except the drop-down triple-hamburger menu is stuck at the front Home page! Incredible. But thereafter, the sucker seems to come unstuck and would work. I just don’t get it, really.

End of status report 0103 PST.

20250126-1903. Okay, I’m baffled. I do NOT know how this happened. But I got the Site Parts (Header and Footer) to work. There appears to be a conflict between Hello Biz and Hello Elementor.

Two weeks ago, I tried theme Hello Elementor, bought the Essentials Pro and then Advanced Pro – Solo, created Site Parts to include the Header, Footer, Single Post, Single Page, Archive, Search Results, Loop Item and Error 404.

That went well until I got fed up with designing. I was NOT a designer and floundered horribly on what should look like a professional business website. (I just love coloring and wanted to try “designing” my weblog site. I had good practice with the Gutenberg blocks and I felt ready to try my hands/paws on this new project.

I failed miserably and refunded the Advanced Pro – Solo upgrade plan, only to COME BACK (after having filled-out the customer survey feedback per usual for the sake of team advertising and marketing) and purchasing (again) the Essentials Pro.

After one week of frustration and just a few minutes ago, I finished the last of four pages (actually there was fifth generic page called “Terms”). The Feature page was just a dump of the Elementor widgets for WordPress. I liked the OLD-fashion feel of these WordPress widgets. Only the “Posts I Like” widget failed to save its Title. All the other WordPress widgets had its own VERY small/tiny Titles.

That was fun. Within a couple of days of signing up again: I completed the four of five pages: Home, About, Contact and Features. That was kinda sorta straightforward. The mess was dealing with both the Header and Footer.

The Footer was saved successfully the first try. The header, however, was messed up. I had a difficult time navigating between both themes: Hello Elementor and Hello Plus. Whenever I would click on the Hello Plus links for Header and Footer, the system would link one of my test pages. I have about one hundred trials-and-errors that are Published (meaning these are neither in Draft mode or Private mode.

I then renamed/Quick Edit all files by plugging the Post ID in FRONT of the hand-crafted filename will working through the Theme Builder (Customize) links of theme Hello Elementor. That was the main site that allowed me to customize and pretty much wasted my time added all these Site parts!

The Theme Builder (Customize) links of theme Hello Plus had made up its OWN post ID pages that I was able to save as Templates (page) and as Containers, too. But something was fishy when the Hello Plus Header kept burping incorrectly!

I had to use my BIG/HUGE brain and stormed many thoughts on how to handle these conflicting /numerous Post ID pages!!! For the past one hour, I found the solution. After studying and testing how these two damned themes handled my stuff, I received the usual nagging/incoming thoughts from GOD/THEM.

For the past one hour or so, I did just that: I first uninstalled the Elementor Pro plugin and then the Elementor (regular) plugin. And then for whatever reason, I was “lead” to switch away from theme Hello Biz and then activate theme Hello Elementor (regular).

This worked out tremendously well! I navigated from my Dashboard to the Elementor > Home page > Theme Builder (Customize) link. Voila! I went straight to the Site Parts > Header and studied the Display Conditions to see which Post ID showed Instances: Entire Site | Edit Conditions versus Instances: No Instances | Edit Conditions.

“Where Do You Want to Display Your Template?
Set the conditions that determine where your template is used throughout your site.
For example, choose ‘Entire Site’ to display the template across your site.”

So I forgot to mention earlier that I removed any/all Instances showing Entire Site and made sure all my Post ID (which are the WordPress post id pages) items shows No Instances.

So after cleaning up the Display Conditions, uninstalling two plugins [first Elementor Pro then Elementor (regular)] and then switching from Hello Biz to Hello Elementor (regular), I was able to “see” the two resurrected Site Parts (Header and Footer)! These were knocked-out from uninstalls and deactivations and I had to put them back in their places!

And as I navigated to the Header first and then the Footer next, I saw the “originals” or maybe the new site parts but with different WordPress Post ID numbers! I knew these were the workable site parts because there were the Containers AND the words Hello Plus!

So I kept those two site parts and didn’t bother customizing anymore than necessary and let the “system” take care of the single post, single page, page 404, archives, search results and whatever the heck is the loop items.

With that said, I’m happy and won’t be tweaking my weblog site anymore. I worked hard on this stuff and wanted to show y’all that I’m still smart enough. And gosh darnit I’m good enough, too!

That’s all. End of status report 1938 PST? It’s time for another late supper with my hungry elderly father.

20250126-1342. Greetings! Today is freezing cool yet sunny like the past few days! I finished the “features” page from the second plugin’s Wizard setup template, but without actually touching it, saving as draft or publishing it.

What I did was try to work on the first two pages from the first plugin and those pages looked nice enough but without templates designed by experts.

So for this features page, I’m still deciding if I wanna keep the finished bare-bones, skeletal sidebar elements from the first plugin’s list of WordPress blocks/widgets or improve the design by using the second plugin’s Wizard setup template called Features, which came with the Home, About and Contact or a total of four pages for upgrading to the cheapest but Essentials Pro plan.

And I could see that my most prolific commenter John Jr had liked the first three static posts from the Essentials Pro plan Wizard setup templates! That makes me happy to know!

The READ BLOG button page is taken from my OLD WordPress page, which includes my one and only favorite WordPress block/widget called Blog Post.

This Blog Post block/widget is set to Infinity Scroll and Full Content view. (In the past my favorite was the Excerpt view set at 100 length maximum.)

For some reason, when I edit my saved WordPress posts/pages under the second plugin’s platform, I’m forced to use their features. This is good because these are two different databases/separate business entities.

So I can’t edit the appearance of the second plugin’s WordPress blocks/widgets, which look like HTML codes or texts or pre-formatted.

I’ll find a way to force my brain to accept either the simple version or keep my Features page consistent and pretty like the other three pages that got one Likes each from/by John Jr.

That’s all. End status report 1410 PST.

20250126-0138. Welp, I’m pretty much done with at least two pages from the Wizard setup templates. But editing my weblog site is still far from over as I continue to test and notice all these small details that need fixing!

I’ve learned nothing new except be patient. There’s two plugins. And between those two plugins, I find myself literally hunting down which pages (from the super long post ID numbers) are supposed to be good/already published.

Some are duplicates and are trashed waiting to be permanently deleted. I found out that I really need only three templates from the “hybrid” plugin: search results, archives and page error 404.

I was surprised that the Single Post and Single Page are NOT necessary; since the”hybrid” plugin could pull both my pages and posts that were already published under the original host.

But I still have the option of editing my posts/pages under the regular plugin and the “hybrid” plugin. Either way, it’s a convoluted setup and I spent more hours wondering how one page piggy-backs on the other page.

I could tell which pans is supposed to be the good/live from the “instances” that is supposed to be shared across the entire site such as the headers and footers.

Each post and page could handle its own template instead of “inheriting” the global settings. And I think that’s where the confusion arose. I was trying to force ONE page with its unique post id upon the other pages on a global setting.

But I think a global settings capability would require a plan upgrade double-up from the cheapest, my essential plan, to the most popular plan. But as it stands, I really only needed the essentials. You know, just to practice designing a website in case I should go into business to earn some income.

But for now, it’s just blogging for fun.

End of status report 0152 PST. Edited 0310 PST.

20250125-0537. Welp, I did it again. I signed up for the Essential Pro plan and made my weblog site beautiful, in my opinion of course.

Unfortunately, the permalinks are messed up. So I’ll keep testing to find out if I could revert back to the normal version.

I pulled an all-nighter just to get at least four parts working: header, footer, single post and the big main one: home page.

I still don’t understand how to tweak the layout and styles and spent too many hours trying to perfect the alignments!

I almost forgot to download and install the plugin. And thank goodness for the “wizard” template samples.

I selected the “correct” layout for starters and just plugged my ideas to make the home page “nice”.

The only real links are located at the top of the header. The rests are images and text.

So that’s it for me. I have the other templates to “fill-out” for fun. The single post template worked out fine.

There isn’t a page template; so I’ll end up spending time to fix at least three (static) pages. Corrections: I have two to fix. The KJV project is fine.

Somehow the hamburger drop-down feature doesn’t work. So I opted for a link.

That’s all. Good morning. End of status report. 0550 PST.

20250124-1655. I created two new images for my site icon and background header, because my “Jetpack Boost: Image Performance Guide” indicated that my “Image File Dimensions” do NOT match the “Expected Dimensions”.

So after I’ve edited my two new images and uploaded both images into my Media files, my “Image Guide (Beta)” said that “the image is exactly the correct size for this screen.”

And so instead of seeing the annoying/concerning/irritating image red-dot indicator, I saw the green-dot indicator. And through its hover mode pop-up screen/window, I was able to see that the dimensions are good for both my new site icon and background header.

For the background header, I removed the opacity from 50 percent to 100 percent and set the faint brownish font colors to dark black HEX number 000000. So I could always set the opacity back to 50 percent through the Image block.

That’s all for now. End of status report 1704 PST. Edited 1706 PST.

20250124-0911. I’ve been tweaking my weblog site (again)! This time I’ve added back a cover image sporting my two airplanes spewing forth chemtrails, which unfortunately is still NOT visible on mobile views.

I’m trying the Coral Dreams global style of greens and blues. The “blogging/drafting” mode or post.php edit page “inherits” the Global Style: the post title is bluish and HUGE and the “Type / to choose a block” area is “green”.

That’s all for now. I can’t think of anything else to share. End of status report 0929 PST.