cpmjohn

Sorry, I misunderstood/misread your PHP knowledge.

To correct a mistake in my last post, https://www.goHTSN.com is a cgi script, not php. John

TalkBack:
https://www.scripts.oldguy.us/talkback/
Nice sample: https://www.1914-1918.net/hallofmemory.php

No to be argumentative, moshu, but “very convenient user interface (the admin panel)” is a stretch…except for you php gurus. It’s not at all intuitive, after a week at it, I’m still unable to modify https://imcool.com/wordpress/ to be anyway near useful and user friendly to visitors.

I’m pulling its announcement, or at least any graphic, from my print magazine. I thank you all for your help but I just don’t have time to put my life on hold to learn the thousands of terms, commands, code, etc., to produce a workable site. I sit this one out for a month or so (to hopefully get over the frustration of failure).

There probably are many online magazines written in WP, but I’ll bet none were constructed by a novice like me. I’m not complaining…”a man’s got to know his limitations”…chuckle. I do have a nice running php-driven site, https://www.goHTSN.com, that uses the Article Manager script. That’s more my level. Cheers,
John

moshu and Shari,
Thanks, I appreciate the reality check. Clearly I have to read and learn the lingo. Hear that it took “several hours a day for a couple of months” for Shari to come up to speed on WP themes helped my ego a lot. My “rush” is to make something “now” to produce good screen dumps for my extremely late print magazine. Ain’t gonna happen.

I’ve printed out the Codex for Pages and already see where I was off base. I’ll make sure to learn “posts” as well. I’m still not convinced that Blogs are the thing I’m looking for. TalkBack’s Comments on html pages may actually serve my purpose. Has anyone else bridged that gap? What does WP do that I can’t do with html/TalkBack comments?
Thanks again,
John

Shari, I changed “Pages” to “About this site.” No problem.

Then I pasted a copy of that complete line below it (to create a “Hot Topics” heading/category). However, that carried along the same underneath links with it, which I don’t want. How do I remove those links, or can’t I? (Is this a “Page” thing?)

I added <?php bloginfo(‘description’); ?> and see that it just added the same upper heading sentence. Not at all what I wanted.

What I really want is to be able to create “Categories,” like Air Conditioning, Engine Cooling, etc., and have them show up under the bold text “Categories” title. The categories themselves should then take the reader to a page that shows links to blogs, pages and articles dealing with each that specific subject. Or can a blog not do that? (Maybe what I need is just html with comments?)

pramodd, I now understand what you mean; editing the individual components of the theme. What’s tough for a beginner is figuring out the internal code; adjusting something doesn’t always produce what logic says it should.

How do I move my “Opening Remarks” from “Categories” to “About this site.”?
Thanks,
John

Thank you Shari and pramodd.
You’ve reinspired me. I am re-reading the template tags doc, but it difficult to comprehend.

My plan is to create easy access “test” and “original” folders on my HD for header.php, sidebar.php, edit index.php, edit single.php, etc. This will make it easy to modify the files, upload them and then upload originals if I really screw things up…chuckle.

New questions:
1.Will I be able to add a lefthand sidebar to this “theme”? I’d like to eventually add adsense code.
2. I I upgrade to WP 2.2, will I have to rework all of this code? (What files actually get changed in an upgrade?)
Thanks again, John

You said: “3. Obviously, to edit anything in the sidebar > you’ll look for sidebar.php file.
Find this line:
<?php wp_list_pages(‘title_li=<h2>Pages</h2>’ ); ?>
and replace Pages with whatever you want.”

I finally found the second sidebar.php, it contained the wp_list_pages command. However, after studying it, I have no idea “what pages I should use to replace what pages.”

Clearly I’m no where near ready be working on this program, and, moshu, I don’t expect you to put up a tutorial. What I would like is a chapter and page in the “Codex” (?) where I can find this info. Again, I keep going from one section back to another to get definitions and explanations.
Thanks,
John

It wasn’t FrontPage at all. I had changed passwords and wp_config.php did not get updated. (I don’t know why, however.)

Yes, I have it unzipped on the hard drive.
yes, I do and will make a backup of those files before messing with them. I always do it with html files, even when using FrontPage.

Of course, I keep a copy of the unzipped WP also. (If things really get bad…chuckle.)

Thanks,
John

1. Okay, will do.

Understand plain text editing of php files, no problem.

2. “You should open your template files 9the ones in your theme directory) on your computer and edit them in a plain text editor…”
Confused. Edit them on my computer or first download them from the imcool.com/wordpress web folder, edit them and load them back up to web folder?

3. Again, do I download these from online folder, edit and resave them, and then upload to replace existing files of same name?
Thanks, John

I’ve been going through that tutorial for four days. It’s all circular. I haven’t yet found anything that helps. That’s why I thought I’d ask for help…I really need a “win” right now or I believe I’ll give up. (I also have a tough time reading the narrow columns; wish it closer to normal text pages.)

Let me try for just one: how/where do I change the black text “Pages” to say “About this site”?
Thanks, John

“When you say you want to modufy the “text’ does it mean the text itself or its look?”
Your question says it all: I’d like to control/create/delete/move/edit both. Where do I modify it at, including changing the order of appearance, text size, etc?

Specifically, I’d like to change the black text “Pages” to something more descriptive. I’d like to have a black text topic for “About this site.”

About doubling, I’d like to have a black text topic of Categories, and then add subcategories beneath that and then pages. Can it be done.
Thanks for your jumping in. Wish I could explain my needs better, but I’m a FrontPage html guy; php is still Greek and very frustrating.