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8:45 am
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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uhnw said:
I like the look you first land on the page. Not too cluttered. I would also suggest moving some of the stuff in the footer to the side bar – otherwise it will never be seen (at least by people like me who never make it much past the first half of the blog). Maybe move the blogroll to a page and you could add in a widget that shortens the archives to a dropdown menu.
Cheers
Jim
Thanks Jim. I will move the blogroll to its own page or move it down the fold and move my top commentors to the top right. I don't know what to use the footer for :) as no one usually sees it, may be I will put my disclaimer there.
I didn't do the drop down archives because I am new to blogging and it looks odd to have 2-3 items in a drop down. Now that I have survived for 8 months, it makes sense. I will change that too. Thanks again.
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8:59 am
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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Barb Friedberg said:
Suba @ Wealth Informatics said:
I gave my blog a makeover. I would appreciate it if you can take a minute to check it out and let me know what you think – any broken links, anything you hate or anything I missed… I will appreciate any feedback!
Now that I have the site working properly I should start writing again  and comment more (I read almost all of the yakezie blogs, but I am more of a lurker. I should get out of my shell and comment more).
Also, now I think I got the handle of the Thesis theme, so if anyone have any questions or need help customizing this theme, give me a shout.
Suba, Very nice site. How difficult for a non techy was it to use the Thesis theme? Ballpark time spent? thanks, Barb
It was ok. I know that is an abstract statement, I say that because there is a learning curve but nothing you can't handle. All the basic customization – background color, header image, how many posts you want to show in the first page, how many sidebars you want etc are just there in the UI. So it is very easy to put together in 15 mins. If you need more than that, you have to access what they call hooks. People said the open hooks plugin made it easier, but I found it easier to just work on the files itself. These are the customization I did – it comes with just one top navigation menu, I moved it to the bottom of the header and added a custom one on the top right, widgetized the header and added the social media/search box (I did this incase I decide to put a banner ad there later), added a 3 column footer and widgetized that, merged the 2 sidebars after my blogroll/archives to display ads, merged the sidebars before the sidebar content started to display ad. This theme also makes it exceptionally easy to do stuff without plugins, my adsense code is there without any plugin, so is my social bookmarking. I got rid of 9 of my plugins. If none of these customization interests you, it is pretty much out-of-the-box theme with a few clicks to make it ready for the show.
Sorry if I confused you too much. If you do need more than the clicks and not sure how to go with other customizations, give me a list of customizations you want (like may be you might want to highlight your ebook in the header or in a seperate feature box before the content), I will send you the code you paste it and you will be good to go.
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9:20 am
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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Sustainable PF said:
I like the look and feel, but i'll be the negativity on one thing i've read is a bit of a no-no.
First, the good. I really like how you've shifted the content to the left. This makes your content the first and most important part of your blog. I am considering a similar move. (we currently have 3 columns with the centre column containing the content)
The thing i've read, at least as it pertains to readers, that i'm not sure about and i'm sure others can give more information on, is that you do not show the full content of an article – the reader has to click a post. Sure this gives you a better idea which posts are being read in full, increases your view rate and reduces your bounce rate – but i've read a lot about blogging that says this is a PITA and that readers may simply ignore your content (or even site) as you are making them do more work.
Just my (naive and noobie) $0.02
Thanks Sustainable PF. I have debated that specific issue of having the full vs/read more. I will happy to hear your take on this a little bit more :) My worry is my content usually is long. Most of my posts are around 1000 words. Would you still like to see the whole thing on the first page? I was thinking this will take most of my first page. May be I will try putting the whole post for sometime and see.
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9:21 am
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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Frugal Confessions said:
Hello Suba!
I really like the layout and design (the post ad here image is really neat!). Very clean and crisp looking–great job!
Thanks Amanda.
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9:23 am
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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@BFS & @Aloysa I have cleaned up the footer a bit. I have changed the recent comments which just links to my website to top commentors with a dofollow links to their website. I will probably move that to the side bar, but I thought for now, that looked much cleaner than the recet comments and I am giving something back to my commentors as well. Thanks a lot guys!
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9:31 am
December 28, 2010
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Sustainable PF
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Post edited 10:16 am – December 28, 2010 by Sustainable PF
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
My Personal Finance Journey said:
What's everyone's take on whether or not to show the full content of each post? I recently embarked on a trial run of having a "show more" button as well.
I copied the way Everyday Tips did it – show the most recent post in full and only the beginnings of the rest. That way my daily readers can see my daily post without having to click anywhere, but I can keep up with my stats pretty well too. :-)
How did you configure this? Sounds like an interesting concept. In my dashboard I only have a choice of full post or partial post.
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9:37 am
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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Post edited 9:38 am – December 28, 2010 by Suba @ Wealth Informatics
I don't know BFS & Everyday tips do this, but as I said I contemplated doing this and if you don't want to play with the wordpress code, there are plugins to do that. The one that I found useful is Homepage excerpts – http://www.dailyblogtips.com/h…..ss-plugin/
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10:08 am
December 28, 2010
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Buy Like Buffett
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Sustainable PF said:
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
My Personal Finance Journey said:
What's everyone's take on whether or not to show the full content of each post? I recently embarked on a trial run of having a "show more" button as well.
I copied the way Everyday Tips did it – show the most recent post in full and only the beginnings of the rest. That way my daily readers can see my daily post without having to click anywhere, but I can keep up with my stats pretty well too. :-)
How did you configure this? Sounds like an interesting concept. In my dashboard I only have a choice of full post or partial post.
You can always use the more icon in your blog editor. That lets you separate a post wherever you would like.
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10:17 am
December 28, 2010
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Sustainable PF
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Where do I find this more icon Mark?
Our posts tend to be very long as well so I think playing around w/ the format would be handy!
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10:28 am
December 28, 2010
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Sustainable PF
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics said:
I don't know BFS & Everyday tips do this, but as I said I contemplated doing this and if you don't want to play with the wordpress code, there are plugins to do that. The one that I found useful is Homepage excerpts – http://www.dailyblogtips.com/h…..ss-plugin/
This is a great plugin – thanks Suba!
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10:44 am
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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@Mark The more iconi is great but the problem I had with it was, when I write a new post and want only the newest post to be full length and not yesterday's post, I have to go back to the yesterday's post and add a more in that right? May be I am missing something here, but more lets you add a breakpoint in the current post you are editing, it won't let you change from excerpt to full and viceversa dynamically. That is why I went looking for a plugin. If there is a way to do this without a plugin (other than changing some wordpress files) it is always great to do that. Plugins do overload the site.
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10:57 am
December 28, 2010
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Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
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Post edited 10:58 am – December 28, 2010 by Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
I show my first post and only excerpts of the rest via Atahualpa Theme Options -> Posts & Pages -> Configure Excerpts. Then I marked "Posts or excerpts on HOME page?" with Only Excerpts and below that set "Show the first X posts on HOME page as full posts?" to 1.
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11:24 am
December 28, 2010
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Sustainable PF
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Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
I show my first post and only excerpts of the rest via Atahualpa Theme Options -> Posts & Pages -> Configure Excerpts. Then I marked "Posts or excerpts on HOME page?" with Only Excerpts and below that set "Show the first X posts on HOME page as full posts?" to 1.
I just did this but it is not showing the first post in full …
I would very much prefer to use the theme to handle this to keep the number of plugins down, but I can't seem to make this work.
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11:39 am
December 28, 2010
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Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
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Sustainable PF said:
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
I show my first post and only excerpts of the rest via Atahualpa Theme Options -> Posts & Pages -> Configure Excerpts. Then I marked "Posts or excerpts on HOME page?" with Only Excerpts and below that set "Show the first X posts on HOME page as full posts?" to 1.
I just did this but it is not showing the first post in full …
I would very much prefer to use the theme to handle this to keep the number of plugins down, but I can't seem to make this work.
Are there any other things around that area that may need to be marked differently? I can take a look for you tonight. Are you using Atahualpa?
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11:52 am
December 28, 2010
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Sustainable PF
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Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
Sustainable PF said:
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
I show my first post and only excerpts of the rest via Atahualpa Theme Options -> Posts & Pages -> Configure Excerpts. Then I marked "Posts or excerpts on HOME page?" with Only Excerpts and below that set "Show the first X posts on HOME page as full posts?" to 1.
I just did this but it is not showing the first post in full …
I would very much prefer to use the theme to handle this to keep the number of plugins down, but I can't seem to make this work.
Are there any other things around that area that may need to be marked differently? I can take a look for you tonight. Are you using Atahualpa?
Yep, using Atahualpa! Like it a lot. I had the settings to full posts, then tried what you suggested but can't get the same results as I see on your page. Please take a look and feel free to email me (I feel as though I hi-jancked Suba's thread!) ?
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12:01 pm
December 28, 2010
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Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
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Sustainable PF said:
Yep, using Atahualpa! Like it a lot. I had the settings to full posts, then tried what you suggested but can't get the same results as I see on your page. Please take a look and feel free to email me (I feel as though I hi-jancked Suba's thread!) ?
I don't have my BFS email access from work, but I'll move my reply to a different thread called "Atahualpa Excerpts". :-) I'm going to look at my options again and start the new thread in a few minutes.
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12:03 pm
December 28, 2010
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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Sustainable PF said:
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
Sustainable PF said:
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:
I show my first post and only excerpts of the rest via Atahualpa Theme Options -> Posts & Pages -> Configure Excerpts. Then I marked "Posts or excerpts on HOME page?" with Only Excerpts and below that set "Show the first X posts on HOME page as full posts?" to 1.
I just did this but it is not showing the first post in full …
I would very much prefer to use the theme to handle this to keep the number of plugins down, but I can't seem to make this work.
Are there any other things around that area that may need to be marked differently? I can take a look for you tonight. Are you using Atahualpa?
Yep, using Atahualpa! Like it a lot. I had the settings to full posts, then tried what you suggested but can't get the same results as I see on your page. Please take a look and feel free to email me (I feel as though I hi-jancked Suba's thread!) ?
lol, no! Useful information can go anywhere :) I am/was not using Atahualpa, but it looks like it has a lot of nice feature. My old theme didn't have that option and now thesis doens't have it either (or atleast anywhere obvious). You might not need this but the "more" icon Mark was talking about is this
http://www.templatesnext.org/w…..shot12.jpg
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12:11 pm
December 28, 2010
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Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
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Okay, well, here is how my Atahualpa "Configure EXCERPTS" page looks:
Excerpt Length: 75
Don't Strip these tags: <p>
Custom read more: <span style="color:#777"> . . . → Read More: <a href="%permalink%">%title%</a></span>
Posts or excerpts on HOME page? Only Excerpts
Show the first X posts on HOME page as full posts? 1
Posts or excerpts on CATEGORY pages? Full posts
"…" ARCHIVE pages? Full posts
"…" TAG pages? Full posts
"…" SEARCH RESULT pages? Only Excerpts
"…"AUTHOR pages? Full Posts
Hope that helps SPF! Let me know. :-)
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12:11 pm
December 28, 2010
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Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
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1:23 pm
December 28, 2010
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Sustainable PF
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still isn't working Crystal. I set mine the same as yours (but exerpt length = 200) and still no go.
I may have to head to the help forum …
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