Blog Design Issues Resolved
If you happened to stumble onto my blog last evening and early this morning, you probably noticed that it looked very weird. No, it wasn’t your computer or browser. The design was messed up.
What happened was I trying to fix a simple write error by changing the permission settings for a particular directory. Instead of fixing the simple problem, I inadvertently created a much bigger problem. The main functions of the blog still worked and navigation shouldn’t have been a problem, though.
Without trying to sound too “techie,” the read/write permissions that I screwed up caused my WordPress theme to not show up. So, you saw my blog, but without the header and other graphics. The layout was also messed up as a result.
I’m just happy everything is working properly again. I have folks from the Warrior Forum and my web tech guru from Niche Power Group to thank for helping me resolve this issue.
This is a good lesson to remember that if you plan on making changes to your blog, no matter how small, to first make a backup of your blog in case something terrible goes wrong. All I can say is… lesson learned!
Tags: blog, Directory, niche, permission settings, theme, warrior forum, Wordpress, write error
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Tagged with: blog • Directory • niche • permission settings • theme • warrior forum • Wordpress • write error
Filed under: blogging • Wordpress
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It is an interesting way how you share your experiences with your visitors It sure will help them learn for these experiences as well as signposting them to professional help
Mmmm If you do not mind I shall expand on this strategy myself
Cheers
Charles
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@Charles Boustany, Hey Charles, glad you like it. Don’t mind if you do.
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Hi Alan,
I’m very glad to see your blog is back. I tried several times from Firefox & internet explore yesterday and I thought something wrong with my computer.
Good experience and good advice on backup your blog before doing anything.
Thanks
Kha
Kha Ton’s last blog post..Ways To Work From Home On Your Own Blog
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@Kha Ton, Hi Kha, LOL… no, unfortunately it was my blog. I strongly recommend backing up your blog on a regular basis, and especially if you plan on making any changes. You never know what might happen.
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Thanks Alan! Very good reminder. Especially the part about making changes no matter how small. I had this very problem before but I won’t need to learn that ever again. Thank you!
Truby
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@Truby Johnson, Yeah, it usually only takes one time to learn the hard way, and then you make sure to never do it again. I’ve learned that small changes can have big consequences.
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I noticed that your header has changed from repeating across the top to being cut off.
Not sure if you are aware that you site doesn’t display well on large monitors? I have a 1440×900 monitor and there is about 250 pixels of white space down the side of your site.
David Hopkins’s last blog post..mod_rewrite Quick Reference and Cheat Sheet
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@David Hopkins, Hi David, I removed the repeating header on purpose. I’m aware of this, but I’m not sure how to change it so that it’s centered for all resolutions. Any ideas?
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You’d need to find the HTML that is displaying the header image and then wrap that with a div. Then get this background image:
http://www.replaceyoursalary.com/images/wp-header.gif
and put off a small strip of it that just has the blue and black banner on it. Then set this new image as a repeated background of the new wrapping div. CSS would be something like:
#wrapping_header { background: url(img/header_bg.gif) repeat-x; }
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@David Hopkins, I changed the code from that to make it non-repeating. I don’t want it to repeat. What I wouldn’t mind doing is having the entire layout centered on the page, so when you’re looking at it, everything is in the middle rather than all to the left, especially on higher resolutions such as yours. At my resolution, it fills up the entire page with no white space on either side.
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What you can do then, is put the entire site in a div and add to that:
put that as the first bit inside the body tag and then add a closing before the end body tag.
Ideally you would move that css to s stylesheet, but that should do the trick.
David Hopkins’s last blog post..mod_rewrite Quick Reference and Cheat Sheet
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@David Hopkins, Okay, I’m not the best when it comes to code, but I’ll give it a try. Thanks!
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David Hopkins
Sorry. Your blog stripped out my code.
You need to wrap the contents of the body in:
<div style=”margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;”>
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@David Hopkins, No problem. I’ll give it a go tomorrow. If I have any questions I’ll let you know.
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@David Hopkins, Looking at my templates, which are in PHP, I don’t see any body tags. Is there something in the CSS I should change, or should I just use that code in the main page template somewhere? Sorry, a bit code illiterate… LOL.
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David Hopkins
You should find the body tag in header.php. You need to insert the div I posted above with the automatic margins inside the body tag. Then you need to open the footer.php and add a closing div tag, </div> before the closing body tag.
You might be able to add the:
margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;
to body in CSS. I am not sure if that will work though.
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@David Hopkins, I managed to get the body centered, but the header is still left-aligned. I added the div tag before the header function and right after the body tag thinking that should have worked, but it didn’t. Any ideas?
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David Hopkins
I don’t know. The best thing to do would be to take a 1 pixel width slice of your banner image and set it to repeat across the body element:
body { background: url(img/header_bg.gif) repeat-x; }
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Alan Mater
Twitter: AMater
@David Hopkins, Good idea. I’ll give that a try and see what happens. Thanks!
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