Some glitches

  • I’ve run my Worpress based website for about four years now. It’s very basic in intent and expression. I don’t go into editors and I don’t do code.

    The site is https://www.rockbeareguitars.com. It’s served me pretty well but the functionality is pretty awful on mobiles and tablets. Specifically :

    – Clicking on items in the menu bar makes pages jump around and doesn’t usually lead to the page or enable clicking on submenu items. It’s also impossible to scroll down to even see menu items which are below the fold.

    – I have the glass image magnifier widget installed, and I’ve checked it’s activated, but it doesn’t work on mobiles/tablets

    – When I click on gallery thumbnails, it should take me to the full image but does nothing.

    As more and more of my users turn to mobile devices, this is disappointing and frustrating. I tried installing a mobile optimiser (WP Touch Mobile Plugin) but didn’t like the way it rendered the site and menus on mobiles much at all.

    WordPress and all plugins are fully up to date.

    I’d really appreciate it if someone out there could have a quick walk round the site on some mobile devices, confirm these observations and give me some advice as to how to sort this out.

    In closing, I would reiterate that my knowledge of Worpress is elementary and that I cannot code at all.

    Thanks for listening and I’ll hope for some incoming I can a) understand and b) use!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • Really I think it’s time to update your theme to a device-responsive one, even a newer WP-default theme. TwentyTen was a fine theme, but its age is starting to show in how it gets handled by different devices. I’d do that before I spent gobs of time trying to sort out the individual issues that are bugging you.

    WordPress and all plugins are fully up to date.

    You didn’t mention which version of WP, but at least one plugin (Glass) is more than 2 years since an update, and your 2 plugins for disabling right-clicks haven’t been updated for a year and a half. Those are all falling behind and may be contributing to your site’s performance issues. A lot has changed in the last couple years for WP, and plugins that don’t get support get to be liabilities for you and I as site admins.

    Thread Starter rockbeare

    (@rockbeare)

    Thanks, Bill, very helpful – and I understood every word!

    I thought that themes were updated but I understand that may be true for some but not all. I go into my site admin at least once a week and always update everything that is notified.

    Trouble is, I love the Twenty Ten theme, even if it is used my so many people. It’s just so clear and I fussy – it really lends itself to my needs and I haven’t seen anything that works as well. From your greater experience, have you come across a similarly-clear theme that is also more up to date and mobile-friendly?

    I also use Twenty Ten for my much smaller personal website, which is much more stable. I use far fewer plugins on that, so before taking more drastic steps, I may deactivate and delete any surplus widgets and see if it helps stabilise things.

    Any more thoughts very welcome, but thanks once again for your response, appreciated.

    I believe Twenty Ten did get an update a few weeks ago. But as a five year old theme, it predates the big push for mobile-responsive layouts and thus has need for a plugin like WP Touch.

    I also liked the clean layout of that theme. It may be worth trying out Twenty Fifteen (or even Twenty Thirteen) to see how it suits you. It too is clean and readable, but with the benefit of being responsive on smaller devices. In addition, as a WP default theme, no doubt it will be kept up to date for some time to come at least in terms of security issues.

    Lastly, it would be a good idea to try disabling your plugins to see if your issues from the original post above change at all. If it turns out to be one or two plugins causing the trouble, replacing them may buy you an extension with your current theme. Good luck!

    Thread Starter rockbeare

    (@rockbeare)

    Thanks again, Bill. I deactivated most of my plugins and functionality improved a bit, but strangely the site continues to render and the glass magnifier works on my iPhone but not iPad. And it’s fine on a laptop.

    I have also edited the site so that there is another way of navigating via jump pages when the secondary drop down menus don’t appear, so for now the site works for all comers even if it’s not optimal.

    I also had a good look at alternative themes – not much success but while doing so I noticed that Twenty Ten is still the number one WordPress theme. This doesn’t surprise me as all the others I look at are too dark, cluttered. folksy whereas Twenty Ten is uniquely clean and straightforward.

    Best wishes / ‘Rockbeare’

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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