Tag: WordPress

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Recently I saw a post on Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel pointing to a nice 3 column layout for a blog.

Doug wondered :

If you’re reading this and know of a similar blog theme, on any platform, could you let me know?

I thought it would be possible to use the Site Editor on a WordPress block theme and left a comment.

I’ve been watching quite a few WordPress videos from Jamie WP. I especially like his Remaking Famous Websites playlist. So I thought it might be possible to make a WordPress site that looked a bit like garry.net.

Jamie does these in 30 minutes. This took me longer, but I’ve not a whole lot of experience with the site editor. I decided to use Glow Blogs. It is free and easy for me to set up a site there. I serve as part time product owner so this is good practise. The disadvantage is that I can’t install any extra plug-ins or add any custom css1. Glow Blogs also runs a version or so behind WordPress.org.

I only did enough to see where I could go easily. I didn’t attempt to match styles or other features.

I got as far as Three Columns, this is not finished or polised but I managed:

  1. 1. a home page with some static content and a left hand navigation.
  2. a posts page with the same left hand column. A second column listing the posts and loading the latest post in the third column.
  3. finally a single post page with the same first two columns. The post tapped or clicked in the second column showing in the third.

To do this I created three page templates2. All are inside columns. All have the same first column. So I made that one as a pattern3. The second column is used twice, so I made another pattern for that. This stopped me having to fix the same thing in different places. I think this is the right approach.

I’ve ignored mobile and other possible pages. I didn’t touch archive, views for categories and tags for example . My aim was to spend a couple of hours on this.

I had trouble with a few things.

  • I had edited the Front Page Template, which should be used for the posts page. This didn’t show up. When I edit the posts page and then edit the template I see my 3 column. Unfortunately the live page still uses the old template. So given my time limit I just made another page to act as the posts page and made an ‘All posts’ template for that. This has a query loop in the second column, acting as an index for the posts.
  • The second column on the Posts & single post page should ideally scroll all of the posts. Probably inside a fixed height block with lazy load.
  • I think I should have used Template parts when I used patterns. but the result seems the same.
  • I am not sure how to hilight the posts selected in the second column. garry.net does this nicely.
  • I enjoyed poking around in the site editor. I can see the potential for creating different types of site. I am not convinced that access to the Site Editor alone would make much differences to busy teachers with a lot on their plate. Most Glow Blogs stick with the default theme. I am beginning to see how patterns and templates could make things easier for folk.
  1. WordPress multi-sites do not automatically support custom css. The Jetpack plugin used to do this but not anymore. I hope it will be added back in. ↩︎
  2. Well I did that finally, I made lots of mistakes first. ↩︎
  3. Again I did that a more than a few times. I think this should have been a template part rather than a pattern. ↩︎

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Listened to How I view WordPress

A podcast by Dave Winer tangentially discussing the WordPress drama. I’ve been testing his WordLand editor for posting to WordPress. It was especially interesting to hear Dave talking about the need of a range of different editors. He sees a need for a variety to suit different writers.

I’ve used a variety of Dave’s products and have always enjoyed using them. Dave’s products are opinionated in a thoughtful way that makes me think about what I want and need from software.

WordLand encourages me to think about the features I need and features I want. As I understand it, WordLand was based on an earlier blogging system, 1999 which I really enjoyed using.

I think my favourite way of blogging was when I used TextMate. Unfortunately TextMate & the blogging bundle has not been updated for years. Although TM supported quite a few WordPress features it lacks some I now use.

Like TextMate WordLand only support a subset of WP features. It certainly is nice to use for short status posts. Partially because it simplified all the boxes and features in the WordPress. I am continuing to use it to post to a WordPress.com site, for testing and nonsense and my local Raspberry Pi for short notes.

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The Advent calendar in Glow Blogs has now 15 wee activities for mid-upper primary. 5 minutes of Christmas fun or a brain break for each day. New ones appear at 1 minute past midnight.

I have learnt a bit about the Site Editor when making the Calendar page. I used the new, to Glow, Grid Block. Each grid contains a group with a display post shortcode. The Display posts plugin allows me to show a thumbnail for the post published on a particular day. If there are no posts it just shows text of my choice. In this case ‘wait for the date’. The posts are queued up by scheduling.

There is an Advent Calendar in H5P itself, but I like the display post approach.

Each post has a simple H5P activity. Matching games, quizzes and the like.The Site Editor in Glow blogs is a really powerful tool for creating different looks. I’ve enjoyed testing the cover block a bit this weekend.

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Listened to Episode 85: WordPress in Education – WordPress News on the WordPress Briefing.

This episode covers some suggested uses of WordPress in Education. I was please to hear it was not concentrating on tertiary education. The host Josepha Haden Chomphosy (Executive Director of the WordPress project!) gave some good reasons for using WordPress in schools. She also talked about the learning resources in WordPress. I am certainly starting to link to and embed these more in the help for Glow Blogs.

The show notes point to the Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024 – Problem Solving with WordPress. I feel a little bit jealous. I wonder if something of the sort could be done in Scotland?

I, obviously, believe the blogs & WordPress have a lot of offer education. There are three main components of Glow, Google Workspaces, MS 365 & Glow Blogs. Google & MS have a lot of onboarding and help aimed at schools. I wonder if a project of this sort could exemplify the use of WordPress.

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Likes My current Webmention setup by Nick Simson.

but I thought it may be helpful to share my configuration settings and demonstrate how I’m using both the Webmention plugin and IndieBlocks on the same site.

Helpful indeed. I wish I’d taken some notes as I went along on this site. I think I may have woven a tangled web.

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Bookmarked Disabled PostKinds Plugin by Ton Zijlstra.

My main issue with it was that it places key elements such as the weblink you’re responding to outside the posting itself. It gets stored in the database as belonging to the PostKinds plugin. Meaning if you ever switch it off, that gets wiped from your posting (although it’s still in the database then). This was a dependency I needed to get rid of.

This crosses my mind from time to time. I depend on without fully understanding the Post Kinds plug-in. I am halfway between Post Kinds and IndieBlocks as I use Blocks a bit more. I’ve used them a lot on Glow Blogs and am less worried about switching to them full time. I wonder about,

deploying small templates that allow me to mark a posting as reply, rsvp, favourite, bookmark, or check-in, within the postings I’m writing.

as mentioned in Ton Zijlstra’s post.

I wonder if these are an alternative to IndieBlocks or something else. Can you make templates with the correct microformats in the Site Editor? But that would not work as semipress is not a block theme so I guess the template would be php?

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I’ve now been running blogs with & for my classes since 2005. I still find them a really useful tool for teaching and learning. The focus and content has changed continually over the years.

Back in the noughties I was keen on having my class blog kept up by pupils (archive.org link).

I find this harder to organise now, not sure if it is my age, the demands of the curriculum or something else. Pupils in my class now post to their e-Portfolios1 and add pieces of work to the class blog which I collate into posts. I also pinch quotes from their e-portfolios for the class blog2.

Like my own blog here I still find my class blog a great resource to remember & review. Of course it is a curated view. Much depends on what I am finding most interesting at the time. I both enjoy reading back and use it as a tool when asked for feedback or a record of some sort.

I was somewhat cheered up by Matt Mullenweg’s birthday. Sometimes it feels like WordPress is focused on content management. Matt’s post show that blogging is still loved.
While content management is a main focus of Glow Blogs my love is blogging. I still think we are only scratching the surface of the use of WordPress in school3.

Posts Last Term (Oct 2023 – Dec 2023 on my class blog )

  1. Glow Blogs – WordPress blogs for Scottish Education ↩
  2. example of quote collection↩
  3. H5P for example ↩