To breaking point with the stupid visual editor

asdfasdf — nope, comes out as san serif, but is Times New Roman while typing…

Oh well… Computers and Other Mysteries.

—bf

Okay….
I have TWO published posts titled
THIS IS TEST 1 OF 2 https://wp.joshuatreestar.com/?p=1183
and
THIS IS TEST 2 of 2 https://wp.joshuatreestar.com/?p=1186

See if you notice any drastic annomilies. While viewing the editor, I note that the single sentence near the top (Copy of my previous…) shows up as default font size. I had highlighted ALL text and set to HEADING 5 (equiv to about 12 pt) but when “published” it appears as intended. The text near the bottom was intended to be Heading 5, but shows up as default on the editor AND on the published material.

The undesireable amount of vertical space is obvious.

This is all too curious.

–bf

Oh…. ALL the text highlighted and set to Header 5 remained as intended UNTIL I inserted the “second” pix. I chose a different pix in case there was something with the original three “aerocar” pix.

One last thing, before I go outdoors to feed a couple wild Roadrunners that are pestering me for food (what else?) the “comment” below the photos…

In these, no matter the text re-sizing issue, sometimes will be displayed as Times New Roman (or equiv) or san serif. Some will be color BLACK, while others will be “GRAY”. We users don’t have any means of ‘fixing’ a font or its color that I know of. I have not been able to identify any common denominator that might lead to the cause… it seems to be random.

—-bf

On WP, it appears, but I’ve not gotten any confirmation, that one can utilize more than one THEME on the same site.

You can switch themes but you cannot use two themes at the same time. You can also preview a theme. Changing a theme can cause things to look different as each theme has it’s own CSS (cascading style sheet). In WP the css controls basically everything from colors, to fonts, to size of fonts, spacing, etc.

You might want to look at wordpress.com. Although there are trade-offs, it is an easier environment to blog in.

I’ll be looking at the samples soon.

Thanks kmessinger….
I kinda figured that, but wasn’t sure. The “promos” for “try out this theme” and also indicating one can have more than “one” got me to thinking it “might” allow two or more on a single site, but I wasn’t “SURE”, so I’ve not “changed” from 2010 to 2011 for the same reasons you give on what css controls in one theme as to another.

Let me know when you have “looked at” the errant samples I posted on the site, so I can delete them… unless you suggest otherwise.

Thanks guy…
—bf

All the changes you see are caused by switching from paragraph to H4, H5, etc. In the style sheet different settings are in place for each of these. For example, the paragraph setting will allow the font to wrap but H4 will not. Colors can change under many conditions set in the CSS. It may appear to be random but remember we are talking 1’s and 0’s here – it cannot (unlike my memory) be random.

It can all be changed to do what you want it to do, even match the font in the visual editor with the font on the website itself BUT that requires working with CSS. CSS is used to make things easier (really!). With just html if you wanted to change a font size for your posts, you would have to edit every post. With css, you edit one line and everything changes.

There are some good books about css. Looking over at my bookshelf, I see CSS for Dummies and WP for Dummies – darn, there is a whole row of those “Dummies” books. But if the RoadRunners and other things make delving into the mysteries of CSS a problem, my suggestion about wordpress.com still holds as does just continuing on the road you are on. You blog looks pretty good and has good content – that is what it is all about.

Well sir… thanks for your assessment on the appearence and content on the site.

I did get WP for Dummies, AND I have her newest edition on order but it won’t be released till October. I can see I’ll need to build another bookshelf. I believe I understand what you’re saying about needing to deal with CSS. As for “random”, well, that what the annomoly “appears” to be. Certainly there’s nothing random of the guy with only two fingers. He counts “zero, one” and simply runs out of fingers and has to start over since he is just a “base 2” critter. And, “I” only have 9 fingers… zero, one, two….. as in base 10. (quip!) As far as my wild Roadrunners are concerned, they’ll just have to wait for their handouts. In fact, as I type, there’s one in the kitchen now looking for its share of the raw marble size hamburgers – sans onions ‘n pickles.

At this juncture, Master Kmessinger, I’ll delete the “posted samples” and delve into some CSS studies as a work-around. Thank you so much for sticking with this ancient ole goat who’s at least “trying”. Your assessment on my site’s content and general appearence is encouraging. I’m sure it’ll improve with age….. and if you sit in YOUR rockin’ chair and can’t get the damn thing going, that’s a mark of gittin’ older… an’ zeros and ones won’t help. ??

Best to ya sir… its been a pleasure. Kudos.

—bf

Happy to find this post! I too am having difficulties with line spacing in 3.2. It is intermittent and, now that I read this, where I have seen it most seems to be next to an image. I never had this problem until 3.2 and have never even tried to adjust my font sizes or styles other than bold or italic. Come to think about it, my problem may include a proximity to images and bold text. At any rate, I am guessing that this is a bug that they will fix in a future release. I can manually control line spacing in HTML until this is resolved.

Thanks!!!

Craig…
Interesting! Someone “else” actually has similar annomilies.

As mentioned above all this, I finally got a used book on CSS and after a week of study I finally got to page 4 which sent me back to page 1. I think I’m in an endless loop. I think I’ll skip the last sentence and go on to page 5 anyway.

Craig, I also noticed “another” issue with changing font size even WITHOUT an imbedded image. Today, I put up a “post” (hidden from the public) where I had text only. Each short line was then changed from the default text size (which happens to be “Header 4, or (h4) as it appears in HTML. I went with each, h1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & h6. Then I’d “publish” the post and observe the results. In a couple iterations I noted that some (not all) font sizes would not “hold”. I’d go back and check the HTML and sure enough “it had changed”. I was using the drop down menu to select the size — not css or html. Then I tried changing the html, and observe the published result. Seemed to work. But the minute I CHANGED TEXT COLOR… another line of text would change its size!!!!! A bit more “playing” this game finally resulted in getting the colors changed AND the font size changed that actually held.

This was done mainly so I could actually “see” what the results might look like, and some random text colors were selected to view what the HEX code would actually produce on the screen… from a visual point of view.

I’m reasonably certain that if I imbedded an image, things would get screwed up. There is certainly some connection in wp 3.1.3 with theme 2010 and the visual editor not being all that “user friendly” as it is unstable during the aforementioned activities — which, would be a common, normal activity to imbed images and change font size.

I guess we’ll have to wait for an update, a bug fix or go with using CSS and HTML to make the changes and expirement.

Best to you Craig… post another comment should you come up with something that helps… or a fix.

–bf

Thanks, Bill! I am way too inexperienced to mess with the CSS:) I just want it fixed. The squeaky wheel sometimes gets the oil so I’ll keep squeaking:)

Thanks!

Crag

G’mornin’ Craig
Well, it’s still mornin’ here on the Pacific Coast…

Suggestion to get “heard”…

Drag yer fingernails across the ‘ole slate chalk board. If nothing else, it’ll make the hairs on their neck stand at attention. Then pull back 60 yards and punt.

I did find, however, kmessinger‘s suggestion quite useful regarding learning the basics of CSS & HTML. Tutorials from beginners to ??
https://www.tizag.com/beginnerT/. After a couple hours of just reading that stuff, I was able to confidently modify things with success, albeit a bit more time consuming in lieu of WYSIWYG visual editors. Text colors now is a “snap” where I have a “device” that picks an existing color from something being displayed (even out of photos) where the device also displays the HEX code for that specific color. I tested this out by displaying “non-standard” colors by “publishing” the test page where I could view the results; and found that nearly all colors I played with came out looking as I expected.

One thing Craig, I noted, while in Visual Editor, that changing text size, bold, underline, color (etc) that the editor “appears” to be squirrely when “setting” text attributes. Just a moment ago, I did a “test” with 4 lines of text… changed each line with various attributes (color, size, bold, underline, italic, etc) leaving the last line unchanged. On one “pass” the last line remained as expected. On another “pass”, the bottom line was underlined where I did not invoke that attribute for that line as I was changing attributes on the line of text above it only. I looked at the html, sure enough it somehow got changed. I went back to visual editor, “un-underlined” the offending line of text. Then it “held” as I expected.

Bottom line? While I certainly cannot come up with a “solution” to the error condition, I find that I will just have to work my stuff keeping within the editor’s quirks and modify the html as needed. BTW, this “test” was without images imbedded, which I’m certain would add unpredictable results that may not be “fixable” without going into CSS (etc) to make the changes.

Certainly, WP tech folks should look into this visual editor and fix the unstable quirks. However, we amateur users are getting all that WP provides absolutely free which says we need to be grateful for what is provided and bite the bullet on parts that don’t work to our expectations.

Keep in touch Craig… we beginners need to stick together!!

–bf

BTW…. take a look at the very bottom left of “this screen” under the “post” button. Note how many “Like” responses… 305 thousand +.