Administrative Note
Over the last couple of days I rebuilt our WordPress template. Since my CSS skills sucked and my PHP was non-existent this took longer than I’d hoped. But it was necessary (and fun) as modifying the template I snaked was no longer getting the job done. (Seriously, I was unable to make the links in the aside column blue no matter how hard I tried.) Now I actually understand the bulk of what’s going on in the template files and have more control over the site. And the site finally looks basically as intended in the original design. I’m sure most folks won’t even notice. But if you do find problems/bugs/issues, it’s likely an oversight on my part, feel free to let me know. I’ll fix as we go. We now return you to our regular programming.
BTW, have I mentioned how much I love (and sometimes hate) WordPress?
Join the discussion 2 Comments
James D Kirk
March 20, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I am SOOOOO with you regarding this post, Hillel. I have just last week finished the EXACT same process with respect to our WordPress powered site at BoldlyGoing.com.
My business partner, Joseph, initially started out doing all the code/engineering, even though we both have the background. I had been the “front man”, the “business Admin” guy, the accountant, the… well you get the drift.
Ultimately, some other responsibilities and duties required Joseph’s attention, and I was “impatient” and felt we needed to move the sites look, feel, and functionality development along. So, I jumped into the guts of WordPress and started ripping, pulling, and rearranging. Much like what I imagine you’ve been doing with jacksonfish.com.
Like you, I’ve found I love and sometimes severely dislike her behaviour. (Yeah, we had to start referring to WP as a “she” when Joseph made the mistake of saying out loud to me once that if WP was a woman, he’d want to marry her!)
Thus, I got into the template, that Joe had started and was trying to get it to look like the comps he’d delivered to me, got thoroughly frustrated and decided it was time to learn how to create a theme from scratch. So I did!
Wasn’t easy, but I am SO glad that I learned from that level up because when my good friend AndyBeard(.eu) posted something about theme designers that should be shot (I think he actually said “fired”) for not coding the page such that the content is the foremost set of code to show up in the HTML, I realized I was a sap and should have fired myself.
But having learned the process from the ground up and being a stickly, perfectionist (or “girl coder” as I’ve come to be described ;) ) I was able to get in there and pretty quickly recode the theme and use (what I think is some impressive) CSS to allow the content of the page to come first, but display what I want, where I want in the browser window. That part wasn’t easy, but it was informative and I’d say a bit fun (amidst some choice curse words directed at individuals nowhere in sight!)
So, from one WP coding Vet to another, Congratulations! And your site looks great, by the way!
Christine
March 21, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I promise you, you are not alone in your love/hate relationship with WordPress. The site design looks really beautiful – great work!