To bling the blog, I began by completing the suggested actions of changing my nickname and setting the time zone appropriately. I downloaded several themes and settled on using one called Sparkling for now. I added a page for Collection 1 and Collection 2 and kept the About page and added some brief text to that. I tried including a header picture. The menu suggested I crop it to 300 x 76, but when I did, it came out full size but totally distorted. After a couple of ugly attempts, I settled on a background image instead. I also changed the blog name to Jean’s Blahg, then changed to Jeans’ site for sighting insightful cites, but will probably change to something simpler.
I installed the buddypress plugin thinking that was what I needed to connect with our class twitterfeed. Once installed, I didn’t know how to connect it to twitter. It does provide a nice drag and drop for photos though. I then discovered the twitterfeed was a widget anyway. I added a widget for our #nousion list twitter feed.
I think the table of contents plugin will be useful for my posts with rich reflections of the book chapters. I installed Table of contents Plus based on reviews, but time will tell if I am able to get it to cooperate for me. (later: It did! see post such as this one using the TOC)
I wanted to be able to quickly access the sites of my classmates and admired Hailey’s Blogroll links. I began creating links to each person’s site to then make a Link widget. I felt there had to be a better method of doing that. Since I didn’t know what that method might be, I instead created links to the People page Chris created as well as to the course itself.
I decided to create a static home page and then had to do a bit of searching to discover how to link to the posts. First create a blank page called blog, and under Reading in Settings set the posts to be on that page and About to be the static page and then add blog to my menu.
I made this video of how to add a static page, blog page, and menu items.
My end result doesn’t seem very blinged out, but it is an improvement on the default. I’m sure I’ll want to continue to play with the possibilities!
I think you did a fine job. Its how French Women Bling. Classic, readable – you recognize what she’s doing. I can’t wait to see how your Table of Contents works out. If you’ve got an “Archive” option, you can use that and simply change “Archive” to “Table of Contents. DH
Thanks for your feedback, Dan. I’m not sure I understand what you mean about the Archive option though. I’m hoping to use Table of Contents for pages that get long, such as my draft page I’m working on as I complete my rich reflections. Does that make sense?
I couldn’t figure out why my TOC wasn’t showing up on my post. Well it was because the settings were set for appearing on pages, not posts. It’s actually working now! and you’ll see it when the reflections post draft gets published.
Standby. I’ll elaborate shortly.
I am having similar problems with being able to use the plugins I have downloaded and figuring out how to use them. Do you have this problem with all of your plugins or just this one? I am not very good at this technology thing.
I’ve only tried the TOC+ plugin. I even have a hard time figuring out what those plugins are supposed to do so I can decide whether I want them.
Elisha: plugins can be tricky. Please don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it! I have a couple of test blogs set up so I can try plugins and provide assistance for specifics of the one(s) you are tying…
Your site is looking great! I use the same TOC plugin in the class site.
Plugins can do amazing things but they can be tricky. There’s no standard as far as how to actually implement them, how to use the codes, etc. But a little perseverance and … BAM, there it is! Nice work.