Happy Monday morning!
Well, as I said in my last post, I'm not happy about the new blogger interface. Well, the old new interface that's been around since last year. Until recently, bloggers had the option to continue using the old interface which I found much easier to use when posting, arranging, and linking pictures.
The new interface, without HTML code adjusting, automatically has pictures opening in a separate light box, which I absolutely don't want. I used to be able to link the pictures so that if you clicked on the picture it just reloaded the whole blog page. OR if you wanted to share a friend's picture (with permission of course!), if it was clicked on, it would open their blog page or whatever page you had it linked to. With the new interface, as is, if you click on a picture and if you don't link that picture, the picture opens in the lightbox and from there anyone can right click it and save or copy your picture in the original size you uploaded no matter what size you displayed in your post. Again, something I didn't want. Beyond that, if you DO want to link the picture to any site at all, it is a clumsy operation and awkward visibly on the blog. Half the time I try to link a picture, the link can't be hidden as it used to be but instead appears as ugly text in a weird spot next to the picture even if I leave the "diplayed text" blank. If you don't want the ugly visible text, you can't link the picture half the time. Other times, I link it (and erase the text to display) and it works just fine. But more on that in a minute . . .
In addition, you used to be able to grab the corners of your pictures and drag or pull to resize your image to EXACTLY the size you want. Now, you have to choose one of the predetermined size choices - nothing as exact as the way it used to be. So the new interface has TAKEN AWAY flexibility and ease of use. Don't you hate it when the powers that be make it harder to use something instead of easier?
So, I bought a custom Wordpress blog and have been playing with that. The whole picture issue is what it used to be here on blogger and I was so relieved about that at first. Unfortunately in Wordpress, I have found it much harder to design the page. Here are few of the issues there: I can't find how to have 3 columns for instance AND I had to pay $99 just to be able to customize the few things I wanted so far, like font, colors, banner, etc. To get a 3 column blog, as I have here, is not something I've figured out yet. I'm afraid it may involve an additional purchase or possibly having to download Wordpress software and then finding and paying for a host site to host the blog. Very confusing and daunting. In Wordpress, the gadgets are called widgets and the page where you place these widgets is confusing to navigate. You can add the widgets to predetermined widget areas but there is no "map", as there is in blogger, of where those areas are on your blog page - I'm left to guessing where to add them and then previewing to see where they ended up.
As you can tell by now, I am not happy about the blog situation. And of course, this is the case just after I had recommitted myself to building up my blog with more consistency, frequency and features. I was wondering the other day if my new enthusiastic plans had crossed paths with fate when I discovered the new interface was mandatory as if to say . . . "don't do the blog thing". But I can be stubborn even when fate seems to be telling me something and I'm not ready to give up yet.
This means, however, that any viewers I may have managed to keep here in the crazy last 2 years will have to endure some more inconsistent and rather boring posts until I get it situated or decide to live with inconvenience.
For those interested, and back to the picture linking . . . if all else fails, I did find a tutorial on how to adjust the HTML code to prevent your pictures from opening in the lightbox. That tutorial is HERE. It's a little confusing but if you read through it a couple of times, you'll get it. I tried it and it worked as you can see with the picture below (it won't reopen in a new window or lightbox). Before finding the tutorial, I had resigned myself to just making a smaller version of my pictures before posting. If you select the option to post the "original size", I had read it won't open in the new window or if it does it won't be that big original size it would have been normally. In other words, you can make a blog version of your image smaller than what you might normally, and upload that smaller version and then choose the "original size" option. That way, if someone copies or saves it, it's just a dinky little file that would be poor print quality.
It's interesting that if you do use the tutorial and edit the HTML, and after you do, when you click on the picture in "compose" mode, the little blue box now appears with an option to edit the link there. If it just would do that in the beginning in that little blue box, it would make much more sense and be much easier.
Paradise Girl
Digital. Image credits: Mostly from my new Autumn Junque kit at DeviantScrap.com
Resolve
copyright by Marsha Jorgensen
10/17/2012. All rights
reserved.
Digital. Image
credits: Tumble Fish Studio kits
at DeviantScrap.com
Beyond the linking and image sizing issues, am I the only one that experiences clumsy composing around a picture? For instance, if I add a picture and then want to continue typing below it, I have to hit "enter" several times to get the cursor below the picture again to continue typing. That even leaves the HTML code weird with about a million "break" codes and it's hard to get the line spacing right (like no space between the picture and the next line or too much space between the picture and the next line). It's very hit and miss for me.
What a long boring post for most of you! I will get this all figured out soon. Until then, I was kinda hoping by posting all of this some mystical magical force would cause some blogspot employee/glitch fixer to indulge me and fix these things.
