Here’s what WordPress describes when they say a theme is a system to “skin” your weblog, but so much more.
Luckily, the new WordPress theme, Twenty Seventeen, was announced and launched just in time to make my progress less like 3 am and more like 2 am.
Anywired’s Day Seven: Choose a WordPress Theme.
Stealing time from here and there causes major disruptions in concentration.
The next morning or at lunch you try to pick up from where you left off.
- What did you have in mind when you wrote that?
- Where did you file your draft?
- And, as any writer will tell you that’s the nature of the beast.
- It comes with the territory.
- However, you don’t unnecessarily over-complicate things like I do.
Only those with the same Myers Briggs tendencies – ENTP on a good day and INTP on a bad day will recognize the problems.
Oh, and in my Volume Two set of books I’ll reveal similar but different coded temperaments.
For figuring out those internal organizational cultures made up of competing tribes.
Talent Cultures.
ENTP is also known (in my original research) as PMBI which is short-hand code (actually this is the code – 101HDIHHS) for Paradoxy-Morons, Breakpoint Inventors.
The disrupters, usually found in tech companies.
Or possibly, INTP aka SPURCs, the Systematic-Professionals (113MEKHIMM) who are typecast as Unbiased Research Conceptualizers.
The people antidotes for the fake news disease, aka knowledge workers.
And running Knowledge Laboratories as a way to grow and learn through short trial and error, experiments.
See I can’t help myself.
Where was I?
Day Seven.
Right off the bat I was confused.
Themes?
Templates?
Pages?
Posts?
Pluses and Minuses, Discuss – Talk among yourselves.
WTF?
And, on top of the confusion I recall AnyWired recommended showcasing your portfolio.
Shouldn’t that be in the mix as you try to choose which theme will make your life easier while giving you a solid platform to add more functions and features?
One last note.
You know when you wake up at night and you look over at the clock and it displays 2:00 am?
I feel some comfort in knowing I can get up, turn the lights back on and jot down the brilliant flash of insight or fleeting dream sequence, turn the lights back off and climb back into bed for pretty well- rested continuation of blissful sleep.
Contrast that with 3:00 am.
- That, to me, presents a no-win proposition.
- Anxiety.
- Problem unsolved.
- No win set up for an exhausted nights sleep and the energy depleted next day.
So my trick.
I began noting comments about where I was when I left off in a running journal under the heading of “2 am”.
It helped me pick up where I left off at zero dark thirty, or at a faux breakfast meeting before work or at an extended lunch during work.
And, where I felt the bottom had been pulled away from my floor and I fell free fall into Dante’s Inferno, as “3 am”.
The gawd awful technical issues that prolonged the progress on my goals I clearly tagged as “3am”.
And, it began with a pretty reasonable first step.
Review wordpress.org’s themes in its theme directory, right?
Oops.
This might take time.
Why?
You can choose among 2,883.
At least, you can view by Featured, Popular or Latest and use their “Feature Filter.”
Those filters help you choose among layout, features and subject to narrow your selection choices.
TMI
Let me go back to find out just what a theme is.
Then figure out what I need and why.
Here’s what WordPress describes when they say a theme is a system to “skin” your weblog, but so much more.
“A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog.
These files are called template files.
A Theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software.
Themes may include customized template files, image files (*.jpg, *.gif), style sheets (*.css), custom Pages, as well as any necessary code files (*.php). For an introduction to template files, see Stepping Into Templates.”
But, even today, some of WordPress instructions are hopelessly out of date.
“WordPress currently comes with three themes: the default Twenty Fifteen theme, and previous defaults Twenty Fourteen theme and Twenty Thirteen theme.”
Now four (Twenty Seventeen theme).
“You can switch between Themes using the Appearance admin panel. Themes that you add to the theme directory will appear in the Administration Screen > Appearance > Themes as additional selections.”
Of course I didn’t know it at the time.
I felt I should record this under “2am”.
Here’s where “3 am” drained me:
“If your host offers the cPanel control panel, and the Theme files are in a .zip or .gz archive follow these instructions.
Note: This assumes the Theme you download is a compressed (.zip) file containing a folder under which all the Theme files reside.
1 Download the Theme .zip file to your local machine.
2 In cPanel File Manager, navigate to your Themes folder. If your WordPress is installed in the document root folder of your web server you would navigate to “public_html/wp-content/themes” and if you have WordPress installed in a sub-folder called wordpress, you would navigate to “public_html/wordpress/wp-content/themes”.
3 Once you’ve navigated to the Themes folder in cPanel File Manager, click on Upload file(s) and upload that .zip file you saved in Step 1.
4 Once the .zip file is uploaded, click on the name of that file in cPanel, then in the panel to the right, click on “Extract File Contents”, and that .zip file will be uncompressed.
5 Follow the instructions below for selecting the new Theme.”
As if.
Again, where was I?
Choose a theme and showcase your portfolio.
Seems simple enough.
Here’s my initial strategy.
Realizing I’m an associative thinker I needed to discipline myself.
I’d only worry about activating the first few of the websites in my network of enterprises.
Know Laboratories – knowlaboratories.com
The Knowledge Path – theknowledgepath.com
Knowledge ATMs – knowatms.com
And, then later
Knowledge Banking – knowbanking.com
Best West Road Trips – bestwestroadtrips.com
Western Skies and Island Currents – westernskiesandislandcurrents.com
I felt the last two sites clearly needed a way to show travel photos and videos and might require a theme that showcased my content as a portfolio.
From the WordPress Theme Directory I found two themes Shapely and Travelify from Colorlib.
And, for now, know that most of my notes about them filled the “3 am” categories.
But, here’s where after the first few months of floundering I found many tips and definitions that helped me make enough sense to move forward, https://codex.wordpress.org/Administration_Screens#Categories
Luckily, the new WordPress theme, Twenty Seventeen, was announced and
And, launched just in time to make my progress less like 3 am and more like 2 am.
Oh.
By the way, shouldn’t WordPress and “Twenty Seventeen” to their list of themes they offer?
Just saying.
Day Six: Who Should Take the First Step the Chicken or Egg?
Day Five: Repeating 1st Grade
Day Four: Packages for Producing Profits
My one hour a day devoted to practicing my writing had already expanded to four or five hours a day before work, at lunch, after work and into the early evening.
In my ignorance I felt I couldn’t answer what came first, the chicken or the egg.
A year ago I couldn’t find a name that came close to what I thought the book was about, when it was completed.
What about domain names?
Tsunami.
Minimum requirements, and choosing one from the crowd can be a chore. Just like flowers need the right environment to grow, WordPress works best when it’s in a rich hosting environment.
Sigh of relief.