Facepalming Over Layouts

This fellow to the left here has the right idea in mind when it comes to a novice tackling the overwhelming challenge of creating a layout on an alien blogging platform. First of all, I would like to apologize for the unannounced hiatus I took from writing on the blog before I continue this entry any further. I have been having the biggest lack of motivation and creativity in my history and it’s been creating a huge impact on the list of goals I wanted to achieve this summer. More than three-fourths of that list will not be complete. Hopefully the challenge of creating a new website can be achieved, and therefore here we are on the topic that I initially wanted to discuss.

I’m ‘facepalming’ myself right now, actually, as I have an extremely bad case of writer’s block. I’m not sure how to cure it either. I need to stimulate myself more when it comes to writing. I find that it’s easy to write when faced with a conversational situation, but when I open up a blank Word document and try to write a mere sentence, I freeze up, close the document, and become depressed due to the fact that I failed yet again. I don’t even know why I’m typing this now. It’s just a factor that has been bothering me personally. Even though we migrated away from the main subject, maybe this random mumbling can help in the stimulation of my writing abilities and recalling skills. Okay, let’s try this again . . .

In June, I made the purchase of brokentypos.com, which is hosted on Host Monster. I installed the new blogging platform that I wish to transfer Buddy Foote’s Blog v.2 to and really – that’s all I did. The new platform is Wordpress. I came into this project with optimistic dreams and a head filled with innovative ideas, until I saw what I was faced with. Creating a Wordpress layout is not as easy as making a Blogger layout. In Blogger, you only have one file to edit to change the layout of your blog. On the other hand, in Wordpress, you have a multiplicity of .php files (and .css file) to torment you. I read a variety of topics about creating layouts, including scanning sections of the book, Wordpress for Dummies, at Borders, but yet I still feel overwhelmed by the project. I could always cheat by importing a premade theme into my Wordpress files, using that temporarily, and then create a homemade theme whenever I feel prepared enough to take up that challenge so that I don’t waste a few months of paying for my web host, but I sort of want my own touch to the site before it’s opened to the public.

I am faced with a few problems that I’m debating over before I start production on the new site.

One sidebar or two sidebars? I currently enjoy having two sidebars, but with the addition of pages that will be implemented into the blog thanks to that function with Wordpress, will needing all that space to organize oneself be necessary? We might be able to do away with the author profiles that are currently on the left sidebar altogether by substituting them with an ‘About Me’ page for each author – maybe even adding a separate navigation bar for the authors. Will a lot of the features of the sidebars even be needed? Statistics? No – Wordpress has a widget that can handle that. Shoutbox? No – getting rid of that in the future site (to promote commenting). ‘Ask The Author’? No – this feature will either get a total overhaul or be completely removed. Blog Spotlight? Yes – even though it was only changed twice since the summer of 2007, I’m hoping that a simple PHP or Javascript script can add new content each time the page is refreshed, making this feature fresh and useful. ‘Author of the Month’? Maybe – however this feature may not be implemented into Broken Typos at first; even if it was, it would probably get a small spot on the sidebar with a page mostly devoted to the feature. Affiliate section? No – this section will be totally extinct on the new website; even if it exists, a page will be enough to get the job done. So in conclusion, we need a sidebar for: an ad or two (money is needed to pay for the host), recent comments, calendar, recent entries, archives, possibly collapsible author profiles, ‘Blog Spotlight’, etc. The question remains: one sidebar or two?

Wordpress is overwhelming in the fact that I’m used to dealing with only HTML and CSS, but Wordpress forces one to work with XHTML, CSS, and PHP. Actually, the majority of the template is coded with PHP. Therefore, one must understand how the code functions, what its uses are, its limits, and how it’ll alter your site. I particularly dislike the ‘if’ statements. Like – if no posts are found, then it’ll display this message. Sure, it’s handy, but I’m just intimidated by the complexity of what I’m facing. Therefore, if I create a homemade theme, do not expect it to be the best you’ll ever see. It’ll be two or three boxes with a logo, background filled with ‘broken’ typos, and bam, I’m done. Yes, it will be more complex than that, but that’s just the general picture. It will be more stylish than Buddy Foote’s Blog v.2, though. Also, we will be abandoning the white-text-on-black-background color scheme that has been plaguing Buddy Foote’s Blog v.2 ever since its creation on July 24, 2005 (yes, the blog’s birthday is in three days). Instead, the blog will have black-text-on-white-background.

To the right here is a little preview of the background that will be used on the new site. Do not fear – a solid white background will be used on the sidebars and main content area to make it easier to read. Also, I’m hoping to achieve a modern design by the use of borders alone surrounding the content areas. Another problem is that I don’t know what to do in terms of a banner for the site.

That’s all I’ll discuss for now. Yet again, please answer the question: one or two sidebars?