First – thanks to all who donated. All of you/John shocked me with that last night…much more than I was expecting. I truly thank each and every one of you who donated (or who did in the past).
So that said, I’m going to be doing a few things over the next few days:
- Update remaining items on the list.
- Re-apply the customizations post-update.
- Add up/down buttons to the mobile site
- Fix the mobile site (style, mostly)
- Figure out a better way for embedded video
- Perhaps Twitter cards?
- Read More will work, darn it
- Hopefully, a return of the apostrophe in nyms.
- A number of other smaller tweaks and fixes.
- Larger text or “Reader” view for iOS for mobile site.
- Add comment count to prev/next post buttons
- Twitter and/or images for FPers in comments
- Back button (once theme update done) will be back
- apostrophe in nym makes comments go to moderation – this is a FYWP bug that may be fixed today, but is dependent on WP fixing that code.
That said, I’ll be using this post as a testbed and general problem reporting area.
Requests, suggestions, etc are very welcome. For those with the knowledge/skillset, specific references to CSS files/lines/classes/etc. that you think could be improved are very welcome. I am a jack of all trades, master of none, so I know that many readers have much more in-depth design knowledge and I welcome their advice.
I don’t expect any major bumps, but there will be minute or two here and there where the formatting may look screwy – I have to update the theme, then copy the new files to a work folder, then restore the current version of the theme so I can work on the tweaks without affecting the main site.
Once all updates and the above list are done, I’m going to work with our wonderful hosting company, Hosting Matters, to figure out why the repository-restoration kills the site by doing an incomplete recovery. It’s always tougher to function in someone else’s hosting environment than in a server where you have complete control, but I have faith in their excellent technical chops and incredible customer service.
Once again, if you’re looking for a good host for a personal, professional, or corporate web site, give them a look. They’re a great value, have great tech, and are very knowledgeable and skilled – true pros, ahead of the game, and incredibly responsive. Did I mention that they’re proactive too? Over the past year, they’ve notified me a few times that they detected a DDOS attack and similar brute-force pushes and that they’ve taken care of it, before we had a chance to report the slowdown!
Once again, thanks to all for your generosity and general good-will. These days there’s nothing more important than maintaining our bonds and collectively realizing that no, we’re not crazy – those fucks in charge (gods help us!) ARE. I will do my part to help keep this fantastic community of grumps, animal lovers, and wiseacres going strong.
Truly, y’all are the best.
raven
Drive on brother!
Major Major Major Major
Twitter cards?
tofubo
The entire post was in spanish, your code needs work.
Jerzy Russian
Can there be a reader view for the comments for the mobile site? I want an easy way to enlarge the words but have them wrap around. I already have large font selected in the system preferences (iPhone 6S).
JJ
Thank you for all you’re doing.
Alain the site fixer
@Major Major Major Major: It was a reader suggestion. Not being a Twit, I have to do more research. And yes, technically, I do have a couple of Twitter accounts but I don’t follow anyone or use them to write any comments. You may have noticed, but I’m wordy..I love words, love to caress, extend, and use them; Twitter, with its limits, have never been of much interest.
Note to Amir – I love punctuation, and overly-rely on exclamation marks! (Yes, your comments about them have sunk in and I do think more often whenever I lean towards using one, so I do use them less. Now if only I could release my love of the comma)
Alain the site fixer
@Jerzy Russian: That’s an interesting idea. I suspect I’ll need to craft a custom stylesheet for iOS. I’ll take a look, though that’s going on the bottom of the list.
Another Scott
Feature Request: On the left and right flyout buttons for the Previous and Next posts, it would be nice if you could include the number of comments along with the title (e.g. “Title (nn)”) when the flyout is activated. That way we can keep track of any changes in the thread without clicking again (and loading the page again, and putting more load on the server). That is, if there’s some way to get the number of replies without reconstructing the page, somehow. It would be especially handy on the mobile version, but a great help for me on the desktop site (where I do most of my browsing).
Thanks for your efforts here.
Cheers,
Scott.
PaulW
DIE SIX DIE
Alain the site fixer
@Another Scott: Good idea. Added to the list. I won’t respond to all good ideas on this post, but I’ll add to the list what makes sense.
I’m working on embed video right now; only Youtube seems to work right. Grr
Gin & Tonic
As a very long-time fan of The Prisoner, thanks for that opening.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
When do my comments, even with nothing but safe words, stop going into auto moderation? I’ve been here since dirt.
amk
This time take the keys with you. Don’t leave them with the punk kids. Ever.
And that’s an order.
TaMara (HFG)
My back button no longer works – it was only working with alt/arrow left – now that takes me to the front page. I’d really like backspace to work again. Chrome/Win10
jo6pac
I’m using IE 10 the site loads much faster than it did. Thanks
sharl
I’m with G&T – thanks for the video. I was a huge fan of that weird-ass show when it came out way back when.
Sadly, there was much unhappiness about how McGoohan ended the short-lived (17-episode) series…
Major Major Major Major
@Alain the site fixer: seconding Another Scott’s idea. The data is in the WP loop already right?
amk
also. too. shouldn’t you have a more sexy name…. like Alain, the Programmer? jus’ saying.
HeartlandLiberal
You know what I would like? The primary font to not be this light gray, which is hard as hell to read, and so low contrast. This seems to be one of the most prevalent and unfortunate trends in web page design right now. It is just hard as hell tor read.
John Cole
@amk: Alain, the Company Computer Guy
Alain the site fixer
@Gin & Tonic: It’s never been more important to keep effective and powerful anti-Fascist/anti-authoritarian creative arts in mind. The past is no longer the past, it was prologue.
Alain the site fixer
@TaMara (HFG): Back will be back, as it were. That’s a post-update, polishing thing.
Another Scott
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: It’s probably the apostrophe in your ‘nym. Some bug gets tickled sometimes (probably in a broken WP plugin that got updated) for those of us who have (or had) one.
Cheers,
Scott.
Alain the site fixer
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: its the apostrophe. Last WordPress update f’d that up (reawakened a 10+ year old issue). I have an update to do today; perhaps it will fix this.
If not, change your nym to remove the apostrophe and your first comment with the new nym will need approval (this goes for all devices, so when you change one, change them all)
amk
@John Cole: this is not a military academy, cole, ffs.
MrSnrub
Thanks for all of your work!
Gin & Tonic
@Alain the site fixer: When that show first came out, I was 14 and watched it with my father. *His* father vanished in the Gulag when my father was 14.
TaMara (HFG)
@Alain the site fixer: Because you are awesome!
NotMax
@Alain the site fixer
Absorb Strunk & White’s Elements of Style. Keep it handy and refer to it frequently.
Alain the site fixer
@Gin & Tonic: It truly never occurred to me that a not-insignificant portion of my fellow Americans would be siding with the bad guys/the State (likewise with the Empire/First Order.) I guess us hippie/lefty types have been right all along.
Ok..taking a short break here. This video embed stuff is nothing but disappointment followed by frustration. I’ll take another stab post-update as I suspect it’s the theme and they won’t help until I’ve got everything fully up-to-date.
Alain the site fixer
@NotMax: Been there, done that. it was required from 4th grade on (prep school).
I don’t agree with some written English (American) traditions. For example: I like a lot of the German sense of capitalizing nouns or at least important things; it’s easy for a reader to get lost in a sea of words and allowing an author to add Visual Emphasis helps readers to visually interpret the author’s stress.
As a son of a linguist, I must point out that language – written and spoken – are constantly evolving. Rules are not permanent, they are temporary conventions.So have your fun, life is too short to limit commas (or semi-colons, dashes, ellipses, parentheses, etc.)
sharl
@Gin & Tonic: Wow. Even as a kid I knew that The Prisoner was an allegory for real world events and history, but I don’t have that kind of personal connection via a family history (that I know of). That had to really bring it home!
NotMax
@Alain the site fixer
Like Dockers and penny loafers (sans socks) prep school?
If so, my deepest condolences.
Alain the site fixer
@NotMax: Yeah. Jacket and tie every day, modeled after English Boy Schools. It was great for many things as it modeled character, not just minds and bodies. On the other hand, predatory pederasts; horrible shaming and hazing; and abusive, bitter old men weren’t “on the brochure”, shall we say.