Drop Shadow Boxes – help to use in widget areas

I use Catalyst/Dynamik. Using a Plugin like Use Shortcodes in Widgets should do the trick, if your website is even still up.

Thank you. I will remember that for the future. In the end I decided to use background images on the homepage, which has the advantage of viewing as intended on older browsers. However it did mean changing to non-dropbox background color/border for mobiles/tablets in responsive design, which I guess I could have avoided if I had used the above. Site is now published at https://www.carolematthews.com.

Okay, a few things. Help yourself to a cuppa, because I couldn’t resist opining on a few of my pet peeves (which can apply to your particular website, too, @fionastoreydesign).

1. Download this favicon.png and upload it to your wp-content/themes/catalyst/images/ folder, replacing the current Catalyst favicon. The favicon is the image you see in your web browser’s tab. I just used the pink heart, but you can use any image. Just make sure it’s square, 16 x 16 pixels. The one I made won’t look like much until you upload it and put it in the proper folder. Then clear your browser’s cache. And go to https://www.carolematthews.com/wp-content/themes/catalyst/images/favicon.png and click refresh. It will show better.
2. Page Speed Grade: (47%) | YSlow Grade: (71%) | Page load time: 5.29s Total page size: 881KB Total number of requests: 75. These are not good numbers. You’ll need to start by installing a caching plugin such as WP Super Cache (what I use on my domains), W3 Total Cache (complex to set up), DB Cache Reloaded Fix, or Hyper Cache. This way, users will be served static html pages instead of dynamic pages, thus drastically reducing page load times. You want your pages, generally, under 2 seconds. Here are the recommended settings for WP Super Cache, a pretty good guide in general. Use WP Super Cache, or whichever you choose, to minify your css and html. But be careful of minifying your javascripts, as that screws up some scripts. I don’t minify javascripts.
3. Once it’s installed, at these rules near the end of your .htaccess file in your root, underneath #End WP Super Cache:
   

   # protect the htaccess file
   <files .htaccess>
   order allow,deny
   deny from all
   </files>

   # protect wpconfig.php
   <files wp-config.php>
   order allow,deny
   deny from all
   </files>

   # manual caching – force use of browser cache
   FileETag MTime Size
   <ifmodule mod_expires.c>
   <filesmatch “\.(jpg|gif|png|css|js|ico|pdf|swf)$”>
   ExpiresActive on
   ExpiresDefault “access plus 1 year”
   </filesmatch>
   </ifmodule>

4. The last of the 3 rules will add expiry headers to your images, which you really need to do — leverage your browser caching.
5. It will also compress plain text component with GZip, which you badly need as well.
6. Get rid of the plugins you aren’t using. Are you using Comment Form 7? Rotating Text plugin? If you’re not using something, deactivate it.
7. Lastly, please go into your wp-admin and use Catalyst for what it’s worth. You want your sites to be responsive (or fluid). This means that they’ll fit accordingly in all screen resolutions, mobile devices, etc., without having an awkward scrollbar at the bottom. Catalyst makes this easy for you. Here is what you do:
   1- wp-admin >> Catalyst >> Core Options >> Content >> at the very bottom on the right, check off “Activate Responsive Design Options In Dynamik.”
   2- That’s all you need to do. But if you want further options, you can go to Catalyst >> Dynamic Options >> Responsive (which will show up now), and adjust any settings there (although I never do).

Just a few pet peeves of mine. Didn’t mean any offense. Everything above should take you 10 minutes. But it will increase your speed scores by decreasing page load times and make your websites far more efficient in the future. Since this isn’t the appropriate venue to talk about these things, if you’d like to contact me, just use my username @gmail.com …