Sephy’s Platzish

I’ve taken the first step in getting a theme out there for y’all to view - and I’m still quite a long way from having anything concrete. Why? That’s because I am taking the time to read the documentation on how to go about making a theme. I started this afternoon by printing a couple of articles out from the Codex - Theme Development and Designing Themes for Public Release.

As I was reading through the first article as I was working, I started getting bombarded by terms that made no sense. For example, the WordPress Loop (which is explained in another article or two) and the word concomitant (which, incidentally, is a correctly-spelt word in Windows Live Writer, while swear words aren’t - makes no sense to me!). I’m all for expanding language, but when using the word concurrent would suffice, why not use that one?

Anyway, I then read the article about designing themes, and one of the most interesting bits of advice was couched in a long blockquote section (which was on the first printed page, as I had printed it in WLW - which turned out really stunning because of the font it’s printed in ). The advice was something so simple, that if you think about it, this makes total sense, and even if you don’t think about it, you should see the sense.

That advice is - lay out your theme on paper first, and do it away from the computer. After getting that down solid, then you can start dealing with writing the code for it, and by solid, he means that you should have the layout decided on, along with the main colors of the site. Fortunately, I have a bit of an idea in my mind, but now I need to get those onto paper - and decide on some base colors to go with.

However, you know what? I know it’s going to be a quite challenging project to start with, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

The big news of the day in the world of blogging is the fact that a Release Candidate of WordPress 2.5 has been released, along with a post mentioning some of the changes to the admin panel that had been shown off in the past. Naturally, there was the stream of “all hail WordPress and their greatest version yet” type posts. Clearly, they’re excited about something.

About what? Well, I’m not sure. The cynic in me says that they’re excited because it’s something NEW! And, it’s from WordPress! That’s got to be the formula for instant success, right? Well, it is if you’re someone who, as a guy who advertises on the radio says, in relation to stocks, ones that are exciting, with things happening all the time to them.

However, there is another type of person - the one that he likes to have work for his company - the one who likes to find consistent performers, and items where you don’t have to change constantly. He admits liking something that a lot of people like - boring and consistent.

Anyway, so how does that relate to the latest news about WordPress? Well, the new version has completely changed everything in the backend of the admin panel, for, as far as I can tell, no discernable reason. Sure, there are the marketing speak things like “interviewing users” and making wide generalizations such as this one, which makes absolutely no sense at all to me -

The WordPress navigation has confounded even sophisticated users.

My response to that is that WordPress has a strange thing called a “learning curve.” If you can’t get the hang of the admin panel after a short amount of time, then I have to wonder if you really are taking the time to understand how it all works. Personally, it took about a week or so of using it to get the hang of where everything was, and then I was set to go. If, as they claim, “sophisiticated users” are having problems with navigation, then I sincerely question the level of their sophisitcation.

Another of the lovely generalizations is this one, from the beginning of the post -

The result is a new way of interacting with WordPress that will remain familiar to seasoned users while improving the experience for everyone.

I’d consider myself a somewhat seasoned user, having been using WP for about 6 months now, and is the new interface familiar? Uh, no. It might say WordPress on the cover, but what’s inside says that this is a product that was designed for beginners.

But there’s more

Apparently, I fall into a minority of people who do not ignore the dashboard. Their solution (as it was for the rest of the admin panel) was to gut the whole thing and make things less user-friendly. For those who aren’t familiar, this is what the WordPress Dashboard looks like currently on my blog -

In my opinion, this current dashboard look is quite simple - you’ve got the links to the things you most likely want to do right at the top - a new post, add a link, and edit your theme. Below that is the Development blog, and to the right is the Recent Activity panel, where you have the latest links to your blog, along with comments and posts, then the Blog Stats section - that’s something that I will come back to shortly, but at the bottom of the page is one of the best features of the dashboard as it is right now.

The links that are grouped under “Other WordPress News” are some of the more interesting links, usually by folks involved in WordPress and their associated projects, but the cool thing is that it’s a way to read some interesting posts written by interesting people. So far, I have not seen this mentioned in the new dashboard.

Now, with the blog stats part of the dashboard. Right now, it’s in a tucked away place, mostly because it’s not something you concern yourself with that much, at least that’s how I’ve become over the last few months - I’m not too concerned about my stats as I used to be. However, the new version of the dashboard puts the blog’s “ego” front and centre with putting the stats (albeit without the number of comments) up at the top. It makes no sense to have it there, and then there’s something right below it that concerns me a lot, especially for new users to WordPress.

The line below it mentions the theme you’re using, along with the number of widgets you have. Next to that is a big old button that says “Change Theme.” I fear that having a button there will make people want to change their themes from day to day, which is something that you don’t want to do if you want to gain an appreciable readership. The current link - “Change your site’s look or theme” is much more subtle, and makes it sound like there is a process that you have to go through to do it. “Change Theme” makes it sound like you can just flip a switch and bam it works. Not good, if you ask me.

Let me just quote one last item from the post -

If you’re jonesing for the old look under your user options you can now select the “classic” colors and get those old blues back.

Now, that’s creative thinking, eh? Let’s change everything around, but you know, if you like the old way, you can have this new way look like the old way. Of course, that won’t change the fact that you’re totally lost as to where everything is supposed to be.

Cause for Concern?

Something that I noticed is that, if you go by the number of trackbacks on the post, only 59 posts link back to that post - quite a few of them aren’t even in English. However, a quick search on Google for blog posts that link results in (as I write this) 284 posts with a link. Now, this great disparity tells me either one of three things - 1. The use of a caching plugin has been insituted to handle the extreme load on the server; 2. There are a lot of trackbacks coming in, and they’re having a hard time handling the moderation task; or 3. They’re manually sifting through the trackbacks to make an editorial comment.

The third one is a result of my noticing that one of the first posts about the new release, Andrew Boyd’s WordPress 2.5: Perhaps I was wrong (posted sometime around 6 AM my time, about 6 hours or so after the original post was made), which had mulitple links back to the original post wasn’t listed amongst the trackbacks. The only ones that are listed there are ones that seem to be neutral (i.e. Mashable) or positive (i.e. BloggingBits).

Some further reading

If you want to read up on what folks are thinking about, there’s always the Aussie Bloggers Forum’s WordPress 2.5 Sneak Peek thread, along with the myriad of links provided by Google’s blog search (hey, Scroogle folks, would it be possible to make a Scroogle blog search? )

Also, if you want to look at what it looks like, you can take the WP 2.5 Demo Site for a test run.

What do you think

Comments are open for this post, so I’d invite you to leave your reaction to the happenings of WP 2.5, and if you are excited about it, for that matter, let me know, and also why you’re excited about the release.

One of the neatest programs to take the blogging world by storm (somewhat) has been Windows Live Writer, a program from Microsoft that allows you to create drafts, and publish to your blog from just about anywhere, no browser needed. I almost got to the point of downloading it, but then I thought of a program that was already on the computer.

The program is one that had laid dormant for quite a while, but is now again in part-time development - w.bloggar, a piece of freeware developed by a guy in Brazil, who has had this around for quite a few years now. It was the first offline editor that I had used (mostly because it worked with Blogger, and allowed me to quickly edit posts without having to deal with Blogger’s old system of constantly having to republish the blog every time you made a post.

There are obviously other offline editors out there (most notably WLW, which I have not used, but almost downloaded before digging this program out of the archives), but w.bloggar is the one that I’ve used almost exclusively, unless you want to count EditPad as an offline editor (which is just as valid) .

Getting started

When you download the program (if you want to use a portable version, that is available as well as a full version that can work with either Internet Explorer or Mozilla with an installer), you can go ahead and install it, or just run if if you downloaded the portable or zip versions. Now, since I’ve already got it installed and set up, I will just jump to getting your blog set up on here.

The program works as an extension of your blog; when you first start up the program, you may be shown this screen -

If you do start with that screen, then you’ll need to click on the little button next to the drop-down box and select new. This will bring up the new account wizard -

As you can see, you don’t even need to have a blog to get started with w.bloggar, but for the case of this tutorial, I’ll show you how to go about making a new account for a blog you already have (it’s fairly self-explanatory, so the screenshots will just be a guide).

The first screen you’ll see after selecting that you want to add your current blog as a new account is one where you can select which blogging platform you’re using (the program supports a whole host of them), along with setting an alias for the blog you’re setting up. For this tutorial, I’ll use my testing blog and aptly call the account Sephy Test.

In the next screen, this is where you put in the information about your blog - since I like to keep my test blog’s address somewhat quiet, I’ll leave the sample stuff in there for the shot. Anyway, simply put in the address of your blog (only the domain name, i.e. www.sephyroth.net), and then in the Path box, put the directory that you have WP installed on, followed by xmlrpc.php (so, if your blog is in the /blog/ subfolder, then you’d put /blog/xmlrpc.php; if it’s in the root, then /xmlrpc.php). You can also adjust the port you use, turn on encryption, and choose if you want to use UTF-8 encoding.

The next screen is quite simple - just put in your username and password for your blog - if you want to save it, go ahead, otherwise you can leave the box unchecked.

And, that’s it - you’ll now be in the editor window, ready to make a post to your blog! (well, of course, now I have this post in there as a draft, but you know what I mean.

Touring the editor window

Now, let’s take a quick tour of the editing window. The first few buttons on the first toolbar are fairly obvious, through to the spellcheck.

After that is one of the features that I didn’t even know about until starting to write this (in fact, there’s a lot of hidden stuff in here - so if you decide to get it, do some exploring!); as a matter of fact, it’s quite a handy feature - custom tags. This button allows you to put in your own HTML tags that you use frequently (i.e. for me, one making a centre-aligned paragraph would be useful because of all the pictures I post).

Then you have a control area - Options, a pseudo-logout button, which brings you back to the w.bloggar start window. Next is your blog list - if you use Blogger, this is a very handy tool - it will retrieve your full list of blogs, and you’ll be able to select the blog you want to work on. The next button (the one with the red checkmark on it) is the Blog Properties button, if you click it, you will be brought to this window, where you can make custom settings for previewing, how you upload your images (yes, you can upload images properly to WP - with thumbnails!), and media information -

The other buttons of importance on the first row are the next one - go to blog site, which loads the blog in either IE or your default browser (a simple option you can switch in the options), and the Posts button - if you click on the down arrow next to Posts, you’ll be able to edit the last number of posts, or choose a post number to edit (if you know the number of the exact post you want to edit, that is ). The Template button that you see at the end, before the Help button is grayed out because you can’t edit the template for WP blogs, only for Blogger blogs that use classic templates.

If you select a number of posts to edit, you’ll see this dialog, from which you can select a post to edit (by the way, it doesn’t have to have been made in w.bloggar to edit) -

The second row of buttons is a standard formatting bar, with a couple of buttons that are important at the end - first is the upload button, which allows you to upload a file to your blog. There’s also the Post and Post & Publish buttons - Post is used to save a post as a draft on your blog’s site, and Post & Publish is used to publish the post to your blog.

This is what the Upload dialog looks like -

Now, in the main body of the screen, you have your basics, like post title, and categories (which are culled from your category list; if you want to use more than one category, click the ellipsis to bring up your tag list and tick as many boxes necessary. The tabbar that is there is used to create options - More is for if you want to have a jump in your post, and preview allows you to look at your post in what should be your blog, but so far I’ve had issues with getting it to work properly with WordPress.

One of the features accessible from the More panel is the Advanced options. This is where you can set your trackback and comment settings, along with text filters (if enabled), and edit the date and time.

Using these advanced options has created an interesting problem - if you choose to edit the time of your post, WordPress will read that as having been posted at the time you set, GMT. For example, if I set a post in w.bloggar to have a timestamp of 4 PM, my blog would think that it was published at 10 AM, or 6 hours behind server time. However, if you use the current date & time option, it will publish the post at the time it currently is on your blog.

The status bar has the usual stuff - date, lock info, insert/overwrite status, and a couple of other things - first, the WordPress logo is clickable - that will bring you to the account properties, where you can adjust the settings from the original setup, and the notes brings you to the Media page from the Blog options dialog

Using the Editor

It’s simple to use the editor in w.bloggar - it’s just like using any other plain-text editor (EditPad, or the WordPress “code” view), where you need to insert the HTML code manually, but the program does give you a generous helping hand, by way of the Format and HTML menus, along with the HTML toolbar.

You’ll notice that the HTML toolbar and the HTML menu have the exact same layout, save for the Custom Tags item appearing in the menu and not the toolbar as it is already in the main Toolbar. If you want to try a preview of how it would look on your site, you can try the Preview tab, but it has some pitfalls, as this is what a preview of this post looks like in there -

As always, your mileage may vary with your platform, but so far I’ve had issues with WordPress, and when I used this for Blogger, they didn’t have the customised CSS functionality that I remember.

Give it a go!

If you’re interested in giving w.bloggar a go, check out the download page - there you’ll find links to download all the versions of the program. It is Windows-only, with a selection of languages available. If you’re adventurous, you could always use the first stable version, but then you’d lose a lot of the additional functionality of the newest versions, including uploading files.

I have to say, by the way, that I’m actually pretty sold on this program again - it’s simple to use, there isn’t that much of a learning curve, and the best feature of all - I’ve had it running for quite a while, and done a lot with the program today, and it’s only using 17 megs of virtual memory, and 25 megs of RAM; I bet Windows Live Writer can’t live up to that.

I read with great interest your article referencing the dream PC of the “future”, 2005 to be specific, (Trends, August 1995) with your crazy projections of 100 gigs of storage, a gig of memory, and the truly zany 10 Ghz processor speed, weeks of battery longevity and a 100 megapixel screen. Oh, and 4 ounces? I really don’t think so, even though the MacBook air comes closer than any other full-featured computer yet.

Sadly, your prediction of a PC running on something called photonics hasn’t panned out yet, but you did appear to be right on about 6X CD-ROM drives being nothing more than a fad, and they found a better name for those 5GB Super Compact Disk you mentioned in your article - DVD; the 10 gig version is called a double-layer DVD. Fully rewritable CD- and DVD-RW discs still haven’t been perfected either, but with as cheap as DVDs are, I don’t think there’s a worry about needing to be able to rewrite a disc.

I did derive great joy over the letters you have chosen to publish in relation to the story you ran about hot web sites of the time. I’m slightly disappointed that you never did follow Nicholas Duffy’s suggestion of the 100 hottest FTP sites (or, for that matter, 100 hottest IRC servers, 100 hottest Gopher servers, etc.).

My favorite letter, though, is this one, exalting the virtues of the list and its availability -

What a superb report on the Web. Not only did you provide a great collection of excellent Web sites, but you also made the list available in Hypertext Markup Language on your home page. This is the sort of thing that makes the Web and PC Magazine great.

Dave Meyer, via PC MagNet

One of the best things about reading through your magazine back in the days when I was a 12-year-old (11 at the time of this particular issue’s publishing) was going through the classified listings in the back of the book. While the solicitations to purchase barcode machines and toner for $45 are wonderful, you must have loved selling those ads for the adult lines and BBSs. I think this sentence will justify your joy in selling these ads - Adult pages - 3.75, Security - 1.25.

I wonder how many people called Erotica East, based in Hong Kong, to get access to Adult GIFs, Hot Chat, and other “FREE” services, only to get a lovely $500 phone bill for that international calling? Also, I tried to call the 800 numbers in the adult section, and none of them worked, except for one which asked me to make a collect call-back…

That’s led me to trying out other telephone numbers…I gotta say that some creative marketers have taken advantage of some simple to remember words after the 1-800.

Oh, and did I mention those new 800 area codes - 888, 877, 866 and 855?

Anyway, I hope you keep up the good work, and I just looked and your home page is still quite organized.

Sincerely,
Sephyroth
via the Internet

It’s less than a year until the date when all the TV stations are required by federal law to switch off their old analog signals and start broadcasting in digital only. Of course, the push is on for everyone to get an HDTV, but the reality is that while it would be awesome to get one to take advantage of the full signals given off by these digital channels, you only need to get a DVD recorder - they have digital tuners, which can pick up HDTV signals, but not broadcast them in full HD.

However, if you do want to buy yourself a new HDTV set with, say, the $600 you’re getting from the government, or from your tax refund from this year, there are a few things to keep in mind.

First - when shopping around, make sure that your set has two coaxial inputs - one for cable and one for antenna. That way, you can pick up the cable channels you’re already getting on your analog TVs (and which you will still receive after the air stations go dark). Also, you might be able to pick up extra channels from your cable company’s digital packages, and sometimes even get the on demand programming, depending on how your cable system’s set up. Of course, the other coaxial input is for your antenna that you have (admit it!) on your roof, even though you haven’t used it for nearly 15 years ever since cable was installed…not that I’m guilty of that.

Not at all.

The cool thing about the antenna input is the fact that you will get extra channels than you would get if you got your HDTV via cable or satellite.  Let’s take an example of the stations in this area.

First up is channel 4 - 4.1 is the main TV signal, in mixed format between widescreen HD and 4:3 Standard TV, 4.2 is a digital-only weather channel, NBC’s Weather Plus (people in the city will jump up and exclaim that it’s on cable, but it ain’t here!)

Next is channel 6 - they only have 6.1, the Fox signal, comprised of HD programming, 4:3 programs, and some widescreen programs

Channel 10 is where digital comes alive, literally. This is the great thing of having two PBS stations in the market run by the same broadcaster. Channel 10’s digital signal has 7 separate subchannels - none of which are on cable - 10.1 - MPTV World, featuring rebroadcasts of PBS and local programming, 10.2 - V me, PBS’ Spanish language channel, 10.3 - MPTV Kids, featuring all children’s programming, 10.4 - Create, a channel which airs overnights on 36, but this is the 24-hour feed of cooking, craft and other awesome PBS shows, 10.5-7 - MPTV Extra; weather and traffic video, with different audio tracks - classical music, weather radio, and world radio network, which rebroadcasts national broadcasters from around the world.

Channel 12 has just one digital channel, featuring ABC’s HD feed, with the lovely added bonus of a constant 12 logo on the screen, because we wouldn’t know we were watching channel 12 without that logo on there in addition to the ABC logo…

Channel 18 also only has one signal, featuring the CW’s HD programming.

Channel 24 used to have a second digital subchannel featuring The Tube music network, but from what I have heard, they suspended that channel.

Channel 30 has a digital channel, but nothing in HD. I think the less said about their programming the better…

Channel 36’s digital feed (the other PBS station in town) is dedicated completely to delivering HD programs. It’s a 24-hour HD channel, commercial free.

The next channel worth mentioning (aside from some random religious channels and a shopping channel) is 55 - the Pax network (now called ion, which stands for infomercials on now). They have 4 digital channels, none in HD - 55.1 - ion Main feed, 55.2 Qubo children’s programming, 55.3 Ion Life and 55.4 Worship.

Channel 58 is an interesting channel - during this time of year, they actually drop the HD feed because of the running of the NCAA tournament - which takes up 58.1-58.4 (and the same channels on cable 581-584). During the rest of the year, 58.1 is the main CBS feed, 58.2 is the rebroadcast of channel 41, an independent. It has been rumored that they will be adding a classic TV network to their lineup in the next couple of months, but nothing firm has been mentioned.

Oh, by the way, those are just the Milwaukee channels. Who says that we can’t get the Madison channels as well? If the weather’s right, Chicago isn’t out of the question. Nevertheless, all the choices offered by FREE HDTV are probably better than what you get on the digital packages on cable (though satellite is a different question).

Now, if only we could get something like the UK has with their Freeview program, encompassing a ton of free TV, along with a ton of digital radio. Ah well, I guess beggars can’t be choosers. We get our TV truly for free, the UK has the licence to deal with…