douglasjohnnienhuis

I think I might have found the answer to my own question. After carefully rereading the MiniOrange 2FA description, I noticed that it says that the free version is valid for one user. I assumed I was just one user, but perhaps not.

I’m guessing that a user is not defined as a person but actually as a website. So since I tried to use MiniOrange on two websites, it didn’t work. My two websites technically count as 2 users. And to do that, I need to use the paid version.

That’s just a guess, since the language isn’t entirely clear to me, but I think that is the issue.

Doug

I found the answer to my own question just by clicking on everything in the WordPress Dashboard until I found where the Username Changer key components were hiding. And they really were hiding.

It’s pretty simple as it turns out. Just in case anyone else needs some guidance, here is the deal:

1. After you have installed the plugin and activated it, click on All Users in the Users menu.
2. If you hover your mouse over one of the usernames, the items “edit” and “view” become visible.
3. Click on “edit” for the username you want to change.
4. Scroll down until you see the listing for this username. If the plugin was installed and activated correctly, there will now be a “Change Username” link beside it.
5. Click on “Change Username.” This will place your cursor inside the username field.
6. Type the new username that you want to use. Then click on “Save Username.”
7. Assuming there are no glitches with your theme, that should be it. You’re done.

It’s so simple that I’m now even more puzzled that there are zero instructions included with the plugin. Note that none of this is immediately visible. You only see the “Change Username” after you click on the “edit” link underneath the existing username. And even THAT edit link is invisible until you hover over the existing username. So if you don’t know where to look, you’ll never find it.

Anyway, it worked. So thanks to the makers of the plugin. It helped me out a lot.

Cheers,

Doug

I’ve tried a bunch of other things to figure out what is going on, and I noticed that there are some other problems:

– The default comments box is incomplete. There is a space where someone can type a comment, but the other boxes for email address or name are not visible. They’re just not there.

– The Google+ Comments box is far too wide. It spills over the edge of the column into the sidebar.

These problems on top of the Facebook tab and Disqus tab not working at all is probably sign that this plugin is not going to work with my theme. There are probably conflicts at a level that I won’t be able to fix.

So, I’m just going to remove it and go in a different direction.

Thanks for answering my other questions.

Cheers,

Doug

Thanks again for your help. However, I don’t think it worked.

I deactivated the Disqus Plugin. And I have everything enabled in the Social Commenting plugin.

Now I DO get four tabs: Default Comments; Facebook Comments; G+ Comments; and Disqus Comments.

But nothing happens when I click on the Facebook tab or the Disqus tab. There is nothing there – no comment box or anywhere to put a comment. I do get a comment box under Default Comments and G+ Comments, but that’s it.

Do you know what the problem could be? I’ve never seen a demo of this plugin working, so I don’t even know what it is supposed to look like when it’s working properly.

Thanks again if you can help me. I’d love to get this plugin working.

Cheers,

Doug

Here is a link to one of the posts on my site if that helps you:

https://www.thecyclingcanadian.com/successful-predictably-weird/

I don’t know if it shows up the same way for you, but for me, nothing happens for both Facebook and Disqus.

Thank you very much for the information. I was really confused about what was happening…

Do you have any advice as to what I should do now? Should I just deactivate and delete the “Disqus Comments” plugin? Will that cause any problems?

Cheers,

Doug

Thanks again for your help. The code snippets you provided for centering the featured image and increasing the font size worked perfectly.

I’m also impressed that these changes take place only when viewing the Post as a single page. On the Home Page, the Post appears with the regular default font size. And that’s exactly what I would want. I’m not sure how that happens (since I see nothing in the code that specifies one or the other), but I’m glad it does.

One unintended consequence I’ve come across is that the font size increase also applies to the mobile view. So the font change appears when looking at the post on a mobile phone. I’d never even thought about that.

That doesn’t bother me, though. It might even be a good thing. The default font for this theme is positively tiny on a mobile display. It’s probably too small for comfortable reading. Increasing it is likely a good thing for readability.

Thank you one more time, Mr. Case. I wish I had an expert like you around me all the time. It would have saved me a lot of grief. ??

I have to say I’m amazed. That bit of code actually did the trick. Thank you very much. I’m not accustomed to things actually working. My site generally blows up if I try to alter anything – even with plugins.

My theme came with a built-in Custom CSS file editor, so I used that instead of a Custom CSS plugin. I’ve never used either one before, but I just assumed they did the same thing.

I added that sample code you provided, and the post was suddenly in full width. And everything was still lined up and seemed to work just fine. I tested adding new pictures to that post, and the new pictures automatically sized to the full-width column and displayed exactly how I wanted them to.

You commented that this is a cumbersome way to do it, but compared to other things I’ve had to do on my blog to get the results I wanted, this isn’t cumbersome at all. I guess I’d just have to get the post ID number for each new post and add it to the list in the Custom CSS file. I tried adding another post, and at first it didn’t work. I figured it had something to do with the comma placement. I noticed you added a comma when you added a second post ID number. Anyway, I fiddled with that and tried every comma placement until one worked.

As I said, I was surprised that this little bit of code had the desired effect so easily. It makes me wonder why every theme doesn’t come with a full-width option for posts. If it’s so easy to do, and it adds so much functionality, why not include it? It seems like a no-brainer. (Then again, there are dozens of basic functions that themes and WordPress itself don’t have. And that puzzles me. It seems weird to me that WordPress relies on random plugins for even the most basic features. I always wonder why they aren’t just built into WordPress…)

So, the code works great, but there are issues, of course. Unintended consequences, but they don’t have anything to do with the code you wrote. The Featured Image, for example, is still functioning as the theme intended, so it is still automatically sized to the original column size and oriented to the left. I looked for a way to at least center the Featured Image, but those controls don’t seem to exist. I guess it’s controlled by the theme’s code and there’s no way to make changes manually.

Another issue is that the font size for this theme wasn’t meant to be used in such a wide column. So it’s a bit difficult to read across that long line and then shift down to the next line. The font is so small that you lose your place in the paragraph.

I figured out that I could add a bit of code to increase the font size, and it looked better in the full-width display. It was more readable. However, that new font size was applied universally, so it was also used on the Home page and on posts with narrower columns. And that screwed up the entire display of the site since it was designed to use a smaller font. So I guess I’m stuck with the smaller font for now.

I’m sure themes that include a full-width Post display probably take font size into account, and when you use a full-width template, the font will increase to compensate. But my theme was never intended to have any full-width Posts.

I imagine a skilled coder could change the style sheet so that the Featured Image settings and the font size change when full-width is used. But I think it would end up being more trouble than its worth to do that with my site. It would be simpler and more efficient to simply switch to a more suitable theme – one that already has a full-width Post option. I’ve been looking for a new theme, but I haven’t found one that I like yet.

Well, thanks again for all your help. That was far more painless than I expected, and I actually learned something. ??

Here is the site url:

https://www.thecyclingcanadian.com/

It would be great if what you suggest would work, but please don’t spent a lot of time on it. It’s really not worth it. This blog is just a personal hobby at this point with one regular visitor (me).

Any Post you click on will show up with a sidebar. That’s just how the theme was built and the only option available to me. But if you go to the menu at the top and select a photo gallery, that will be on a Page. And those use a Full-Width template. So going full-width is possible in this theme – just not for Posts.

My reason for wanting the option of a full-width Post, by the way, is to insert large photos in a blog post. I find that the photos in the regular Post columns are too small for my liking.

By the way, would inserting this CSS code that you’re talking about provide the OPTION of a full-width Post or would it make ALL Posts full-width? I’m not sure I would want that. Ideally, I’d like to be able to choose between Post formats – one with a sidebar and one that is full-width.

In the long run, I’ll probably end up selecting another theme. I think the company that made this theme (Arthemia) went out of business. So they aren’t updating it anymore. I suspect that some of the problems I’m facing is because this theme doesn’t play nice with the newer versions of WordPress anymore. ?? So I might be forced to abandon it at some point.

Thanks for the insight, Mr. Case. I appreciate it. I’m assuming from your answer about altering the archive.php, single.php, and style.css files that it’s impossible to do what I want: to somehow just use the Full-Width Page template for a Post.

Unfortunately, there is no chance of me figuring out how to customize those files myself. In another lifetime perhaps. I’ve tried for years to wrap my head around CSS and style sheets, but even the basics still elude me. I never understand what anyone is talking about. ??

If I decide I really need full-width Posts, I’ll just find a theme that allows for that and has it built in. Trying to alter my current theme myself would just lead to disaster. As I said, I was hoping that I could just open up a menu somewhere and select the Full-Width template for a Post. But I guess it doesn’t work that way.

I actually do understand the difference between Posts and Pages. That’s one thing I’ve figured out. It’s just that I found a couple of plug-ins that promised to automatically give me the option to have Full-Width Posts. I installed them, but it turns out they don’t do that. They create Full-Width templates for Pages. Not for Posts. So the guys who wrote the documentation for the plug-in described it incorrectly. And I find that happens everywhere. That’s the kind of thing I was thinking about when I talked about the confusion between Posts and Pages. Even plug-in developers seem to use the words inaccurately.

Thanks for your help.

Hi, Eduardo.

Thanks for replying. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one with this problem. I suspected that it was a problem with my WordPress installation or my computer. But if you are experiencing the same thing, then perhaps it is an issue with the theme itself. I tried to find other people using this theme, but none of the people I found were using the menu system down to three levels. They all stopped at two.

Your workaround is a clever solution. I tried it out, and, unfortunately, it only gets me so far. When I insert a single item at Level 2 (with no Level 3 items), I can then move my cursor down the list one more item. But as soon as I get past that new item, I can’t go further. The selection flips back to the next Level 2 item again, just like before.

I’m sure if more people have this problem, and it becomes clear it is a problem with the CSS, then the authors of the theme will try to find a fix. I’ve asked them about it myself several times, but I haven’t received any replies as yet.

If a solution comes my way, I’ll post it here.

Thanks again.

Doug

Hi, Flirtilizer

I don’t think it’s broken exactly. I’ve been dealing with the same problem, and as far as I can figure out, it just can’t do what I want it to do. There are no options in the menu that will give me proper results. The best I can do is to get the landscape images to display properly and the portrait images to display much smaller. Or I can get the portrait images to display properly, but then the landscape images are much smaller. Or, finally, I can get landscape and portrait images to display at the same size but with black bars on the sides or top and bottom of every single picture.

I think this is how it works: There are only two settings in the options menu that affect how the image is displayed.

1) Default size (in pixels Width X Height)
2) Stretch Image true/false/fit/none

As far as I can tell, you can’t leave the default size blank. I tried inputting no numbers here and I ended up with no pictures and no slide show at all. The default size is Width (W) by Height (H). This, to me, seems to be the heart of the problem. No matter what numbers you put into these boxes, it is going to screw up either your landscape or portrait images. It should have an option for “long edge” or something like that to keep all pictures the same size.

For example, you could set the long edge to 480 pixels. In a portrait image, it would be 480 pixels high, since the height is the long edge and the width would be set proportionally. A landscape image with this same setting would be 480 pixels wide, since the width is the long edge, and the height would be set proportionally. Then it doesn’t matter whether the image is portrait or landscape. It always shows the same and shows the entire picture. However, this option doesn’t exist in NextGEN Gallery Slideshow.

If you want black bars on just some of your images, the numbers you enter in the Default Size should be proportionally the same as the original images you uploaded. I always upload images that are 600 X 800 (long edge is always 800). That’s a ratio of 3:4. So whatever numbers I put into the Default Size have to be 3:4 or 4:3. The exact numbers you choose I guess depend on how big you want the images in your slide show to be based on your blog layout and the width of the column. The problem with this method is that some pictures will display smaller than others.

If you want all your images to be the same size, then you should enter identical values for Width and for Height. Figure out what the maximum width of the column in your blog is (I don’t even know how to do that. I just guess.). Then enter that number for both. If your column is 500 pixels wide, you could enter a Default size of 500 X 500 or 480 X 480. Then all your images will display at exactly that size. However, the portrait images will have black bars on the side. The landscape images will have black bars on the top and bottom.

The only other option in the menu that affects how images are displayed seems to be the “Stretch Image” option. The four settings here (true/false/fit/none) are really confusing, but in the end, it seems like only one setting is of any use at all.

I think this is what happens with the four options (based on my tests):

Stretch Image is “true.”
The images aren’t stretched at all. The picture box is filled completely with the image (no black bars anywhere). But (depending on what you input for height and width) part of either the landscape or portrait is cut off. So it’s a useless setting. Who wants part of their images to be cut off?

Stretch Image is “false.”
Again, no images are stretched in any way. However, in this case, you see all of each picture no matter whether it is portrait or landscape (assuming, of course, that the default size you selected has the same proportions as your uploaded images). This is the only setting that does anything remotely right, so I think it is the only possible option.

Stretch Image is “fit.”
Images get distorted – stretched or shrunk – to fit into the picture window. And look terrible. I have no idea why anyone would ever want to do this.

Stretch Image is “none.”
This is the craziest setting. I have no idea what is going on with this one. When I have my default size matching a portrait image (long edge up and down), the portrait images show perfectly. They are resized to fit the picture window and the proportions are good. However, the landscape image isn’t resized at all, and all I see is a tiny portion of the image – just whatever would fit inside that window area. When I have my default size matching a landscape image (long edge going side to side), the exact opposite happens. I have no idea what is going on here. In any event, it’s a complete mess, so the “none” setting seems pointless as well.

In theory, there are lots of possible combinations between Default size and Stretch image. However, I think only “Stretch Image is false” is of any use. So that gives only three basic options:

Default Size Stretch Image
3:4 false
4:3 false
1:1 false

The first one makes portrait images larger whereas landscape images are smaller and have black bars on the top and bottom.

The second one makes landscape images larger whereas the portrait images are smaller and have black bars on the sides.

The third one makes all the pictures the same size but shows black bars on all of them.

At the moment, I’ve settled on the 1:1 option with Stretch Image is false. Based on the width of my column in my theme, I chose 550 pixels as the right size. So it’s 550 X 550 (1:1).

Here is an example from my blog with those settings:

https://dougnienhuis.com/?p=1935&show=gallery

Just click on (Show as Slideshow) to see how it looks.

Hope this helps a little bit. Let me know if you’ve figured out any other tricks.

Doug

The post

Hi, SpencerFinnell.

Well, I did a test with Firefox, and it fixed the problem. The pictures inserted exactly where I put the cursor and not at the top of the file.

I went back to Internet Explorer and tried again there, and the pictures all inserted at the top of the post no matter what I did. So somehow the problem is in how Internet Explorer and WordPress interact. That seems really strange to me, but that’s apparently the way it is.

The other, more minor, problem about how my screen changes when I go from Visual view to HTML view is still the same. It does the same thing in Firefox as in Internet Explorer.

So, hats off to you. Internet Explorer was the culprit.

Thanks again. Doug

Hi, SpencerFinnell.

Yes, I am using Internet Explorer. Do you think that might be related? I can try an experiment using a different browser and see if it changes anything. I won’t be able to do it until I’m at home later, though. I’ll report back how it goes.

Thanks.
Doug

Thanks for the help. I’ll try all those things, but I suspect the problem is something else.

What I’m talking about happens before any of the coding should have any effect. I’m just inserting an image into the post in the “Add New Post” window.

The problem seems to be related to the way the cursor and text jumps around in WordPress in general. This actually has been driving me a bit crazy. What I mean is that I put the cursor into the text window in the “Add New Post” window where I want my image to be. But the second I move the mouse pointer out of that text window to click on one of menu buttons (like the “Add an Image” button), the slider on the right side of the window zooms all the way to the top, and I can’t see where I put the cursor anymore. Then when I insert the image, it ends up at the top of the post. This is long before I publish or even save the post. So I don’t know that HTML or CSS or PHP coding could be having an effect yet.

This also occurs when I switch from the Visual window to the HTML window. I’ll see a problem in the layout in the Visual window. So I want to look at the code and tags there. So I switch over to HTML view, and I’m thrown to the top of the post again, and I have no idea where the problem is anymore. I have to scroll all the way back down looking for the code that might be causing the problem. It’s easy to spot in the Visual view, of course. But the cursor won’t stay where I put it when I switch to HTML view. It makes it very hard to pinpoint any problems.

In my searching around the Internet for a solution, I’ve come across lots of people talking about this same thing, and no one seems able to fix it. They just learn to live with it.