It’s been a while…
Just upgraded to WP 2.2. DreamHost’s 1-click install. So easy.
Now using Brian Gardner’s Silhouette theme. Nice and clean.
With 2.2, I definitely want to upgrade the main blog. As my earlier procrastinating posts here show, it’s the theme that’s holding me back. But I need to just do it. No more K2.
Can I make the switch very soon, I wonder…
Elegant Tarski
I’ve just installed Tarski, described as “an elegant, flexible WordPress theme.”
Definitely elegant.
Potential candidate for my main blog. Let’s play a while.
Testing plugins
Part of the prep for upgrading my main blog is to check out the various plugins I have running on that site. While I’m confident most will run under WP 2.1.1, now’s the time (and the place) to be sure beforehand.
A couple of updates I’ve installed here - latest versions of Sidebar Modules (1.0.7i3) and WP-Backup (2.0.1).
As I’ll be intermittently trying things out here in prep for the main-blog upgrade this weekend, some things here may or may not work correctly during this week. One other thing, too, is trying out some style ideas with K2. That will undoubtedly produce some odd appearances and functionality.
Bear with me…
K2 perseverance…
Well, let’s give K2 one more shot.
I’ve just upgraded WordPress to the latest version 2.1 and K2 to version 0.9.1 RC1. Both upgrades went smoothly with no issues, thanks to Dreamhost’s one-click install/upgrade service for WP and Steve Lam’s K2 upgrade guide.
The thing is, I really like K2 notwithstanding my constant frustration with trying to figure out how to do things.
So one more go at understanding K2 to see if I can use this latest version on my main blog when I upgrade that to WP 2.1.
Enough with K2
I’ve upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.0.7. WP 2.1 is just around the corner - and the current release of K2 is not compatible with WP 2.1.
So enough with K2 experimentation. Trying to figure out simple things like date/time display config on posts is wasting time anyway.
Back to the Cutline theme for the moment.
Trying to figure out K2
Still thinking about what do do with the design of my main blog. Keep K2? Find another theme? Leave things as they are?
I’m inclined to stick with K2, notwithstanding my frustration in trying to get some help to figure out how to do certain things. If I do stick with it, I want to install the latest version 0.9.1.
I’m now trying to figure out what to edit in theloop.php so that each post includes the time as well as the date.
I’m no expert at PHP editing, and it looks as though some major changes in the PHP code have been implemented in the development of K2 0.9.1 compared to K2 r167b which is the version still running on the main blog.
For instance, with 0.9.1, the code to display the text “Published by neville December 24th, 2006 in WordPress and Themes” that you see in the previous post is this:
<?php /* Date & Author */ printf( __('Published %1$s %2$s','k2_domain'), ( $multiple_users ? sprintf(__('by %s','k2_domain'), '<span class="vcard author"><a href="' . get_author_link(0, $authordata->ID, $authordata->user_nicename) .'" class="url fn">' . get_the_author() . '</a></span>') : ('') ), '<abbr class="published" title="'. get_the_time('Y-m-d\TH:i:sO') . '">' . ( function_exists('time_since') ? sprintf(__('%s ago','k2_domain'), time_since(abs(strtotime($post->post_date_gmt
. " GMT")), time())) : get_the_time(__('F jS, Y','k2_domain')) ) . '</abbr>' ); ?>
At least, I think it’s in there somewhere.
I can see that the code for displaying the time is there. What that does is show the time if you hover your mouse over the date. Sort of cool, I suppose, but I don’t want that.
What I do want is to actually display the time in a post, just as it currently does with r167b on my main blog.
But I cannot see where to make that happen.
Not only that, the syntax looks entirely different in 0.9.1’s theloop.php compares to r167b’s.
Here’s the code in the r167b theloop.php that takes care of displaying the date (and, with my customization, the time) in a published post:
Posted <?php /* If there is more than one author, show author's name */ $count_users = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->usermeta WHERE `meta_key` = '" . $table_prefix . "user_level' AND `meta_value` > 1"); if ($count_users > 1) { ?> by <?php the_author_posts_link(); } ?> on <?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?> at <?php the_time('G:i'); ?> UK time
Doesn’t seem to bear any relation to the code in the 0.9.1 theloop.php, does it?
This is a pretty fundamental thing for me and it’s a big headache just trying to figure it out on my own.
I’ll persevere a little, but if this is indicative of what the new K2 version will be like, then this theme’s not for me.
K2 with theme
I’ve installed the latest K2 update, version 0.9.1, that was released in August. Running it with the Blue-K2 theme. [Edit Dec 24] Actually trying out a variety of themes so how this site looks will change. The name of the theme currently running will be shown in the footer.
This version of K2 is much, much better than the older beta 2 r167b I’m still running on my main blog. That’s very much a beta by comparison with 0.9.1. Setting options is a far simpler and easier process.
Plus the Sidebar Modules version 1.0.7i2 I’ve installed are light years improved from the older pre-plugin version I’m still running on the main blog.
I need to explore K2 more thoroughly. Maybe I’ll continue with it if I can upgrade the main blog with 0.9.1. Not too much custom code to worry about.
Trying Hemingway
Playing with different Wordpress themes, I’m settling on Hemingway for the moment.
I’ve always liked this theme so here’s an opportunity to try it. Quite different to a standard weblog theme.
Back to Kubrik
I’m not really sure I like the new K2. Fonts are larger and I don’t like how they look compared to the previous beta (which I use for my primary blog).
Neither am I sure about the Sidebar Modules so I’ve disabled the plugin for the moment. I’m going to check out the WordPress Widgets plugin.
Reverted to the default Kubrik theme for the time being.
Something else, too - pages load with a blank. In Firefox, if I then click on the ‘Go’ arrow to the right of the address bar, pages then load. I wonder if that’s to do with the WP-Cache plugin.
K2 installed
K2 0.9 theme applied. Also Sidebar Modules 1.0.5.
No major setting changes in either yet.