Another new look

Here is a look at the Inanis Glass view of wordcurrents:



You can change the background and access many other things on the bottom bar:

The glass ball with the pencil in it to the left is where you go to change the backgrounds. The rest is pretty self-evident.

Fortunately, this blog theme is compatible with the version of WordPress I am using.

Here is the bottom bar with the menu open:




The menu on the left is what I see as administrator; subscribers see something like that; anonymous users see fewer options.



This is a pretty handy area, but you wouldn't know about it if you weren't either terminally curious or reading this post.

To get to it, click the ball in the lower left corner.

I have joined Blog Network on Facebook

This means that if you are a member of Facebook, you can click on the link, and join my fans. Yipee. I know you are excited. So am I (yawn). I'll just duck behind this bush to avoid the stampede.

"triptych": Experiment in poetry and photography

"triptych" is an experiment that uses two WordPress plugins: "Post Tabs" by Leo Germani, and "Grey Box Integrator" by Ajay D'Sousa. The one allows me to set up as many tab links as I want so that a clickable verse appears in each tabbed page, and the other allows me to set up words in a verse so that when you click them, a photo comes up in a rather impressive frame.

Here is what the post looks like:


All the words from "leaves" to "signs" are links; that is, the verse above the tabs is a link, each tab is clickable, and the verses below the tab are links. If you click a tab, you are taken to a new verse, and if you click a verse, you are taken to the relevant photo. In all, there are four photos, one for each verse.

Click on the title of this post to go to the wordcurrents post.

New wordcurrents theme revisited

So I was noticing that two of my stats collectors were showing zero visitors to wordcurrents, even though readers were still commenting on items and Google stats was showing a continuing readership. As an experiment, I went back to my old theme*, and right away, my blog stats all started working again. So I guess there is something about the theme that does not allow stats from most stats engines, including WordPress stats itself.

So now, although I have a new visual direction for wordcurrents, it appears that I cannot use it without losing statistics, my main feedback, since most people do not comment.

One other thing: I am using HTML redirect code on my root home page so that anyone surfing to riverwriter.ca will be directed automatically and almost immediately to wordcurrents.

*theme: a program that controls the blog's appearance. That includes page and background colour, frame outlines, number and size of columns, fonts, consistent graphics.

Blog problems and twists and turns

The new look at wordcurrents has come with more than one price:

1. My usage tracking services are not working, even though they indicate they are: according to two stats services, I have had no visitors since I made the intital change, even though I have had comments on the blog's new look.
2. Although I like the appearance of the blog, I prefer a three-column layout (which the new beta versions of the theme have, without the same colour choice). So I believe I will give the beta version a shot when I have worked out the wrinkles. (see below)
   
3. I have had to downsize the wallpaper to decrease loading times. The wallpaper loses something with the smaller file sizes.
   

This is a view of what the beta version looks like. The background wallpaper is also available on the current site; just click the buttons in the header to change wallpapers. The wallpaper in this screen capture is a photo I took of snow in the flaming bush beside our garage.

wordcurrents' new look

Here is a screen capture of one version of what my blog now looks like. I am using Vistered Little 1.6 by Nik Iliadis, a theme that allows me to upload backgrounds that the reader can select using the little swatches (in this shot, there are 29) at the top of the screen. Cookies keep each reader's choice so that the reader's view stays consistent no matter what I or other readers choose.



It also means that text is displayed against a black background, as I have always thought text should be. We see light, not dark.

I have provided a sticky post for reader comments. The blog is at wordcurrents

Traffic in my theatre reviews

Although I started wordcurrents as a poetry blog with occasional theatre reviews thrown in, the reviews have become the most heavy traffic on the blog. My review of Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad has had hundreds of viewers. Today the total count was over 750. Other popular reviews feature Talking With . . . by Jane Martin, Departures and Arrivals by Carol Shields, and Swollen Tongues by Kathleen Oliver.

One of the reasons for the reviews having more hits than the poems have is simply vanity searches: people search for their own names or they search for the title of a play they are thinking of seeing or producing. The only way my poems will have that kind of traffic is if I write a key word or tag that people are searching for. Should I pander to that tendency? Not easily.