I’m still playing around with setting up photos in some kind of gallery view, so these are just a repeat of stuff you may have seen elsewhere.
The plan was to use the Nextgen Gallery plugin, but the latest update crapped out and doesn’t work. I can go through the trouble of getting a patch and figuring out how to apply it, but in my simple mind, that’s bullshit. Release something that works. Don’t make me work around it.
So, I have Jetpack installed on this site. I have a love/hate relationship with Jetpack. I love all the modules that come with it even though I don’t use most of them and it seems extremely stable. Which it should be. I think it’s made by the same people that make WordPress, so it damn well better work seamlessly. What I hate is that I had to register with WordPress.com. I didn’t want to do that. The most annoying aspect of that is that it is always asking to sign in to WordPress, even if all I’m doing is leaving a comment on another’s WordPress site. BUT, the most annoying is that when I go into my dashboard it will sometimes ask me to log in. Apparently the developers of Jetpack don’t understand the concept of the little Remember Me check box. The damn thing obviously doesn’t work for more than a couple of days at a time. It obviously has severe memory issues.
Anyway, they have a module called Carousel built into Jetpack. A basic gallery feature.
I used it in another recent post. I’m used to sizing photos so they fit the width of the blog column, that’s why I chose the themes I use. This one allows me to go with an 8 inch width on images. I noticed with the Carousel gallery I might be able to go even bigger. The ones in the gallery below are sized to 12 inches wide.
I’ll know in a second if it works…
Ken G
14 Sep 2014Well, it worked. The images are bigger in the gallery.
But, I have a choice in the general preferences to make the background either black or white. Black tends to work in most cases, but not this one.
Would be nice to change the background for each individual gallery based on the needs of the images.
This one could stand to have a white background.
Ken G
14 Sep 2014Switched it to white. Might leave it that way till I get annoyed.
RK Henderson
14 Sep 2014Looks great to me, Ken!
Robin
Rusty Ring: Reflections of an Old-Timey Hermit
Ken G
14 Sep 2014Thanks Robin, and now to borrow from you…
I think I’ll go sit a spell and dwell on that black or white.
Jim McClellan
14 Sep 2014I so feel your pain! I’ve been working with WordPress for more than two-and-a-half years. The only thing I can imagine would be worse is to try to learn a new platform now!
Ken G
14 Sep 2014No kidding Jim. I think the developers of these things think we share their interest in doing things like patches and troubleshooting.
No, I want to put up a few pictures and some words and have absolutely nothing go wrong with either. That’s it.
I think that’s why G+ failed, as far as I can tell. Another Facebook, oh boy. After a week or so I gave up. Like I want to start that all over again.
Richard Velders
14 Sep 2014I don’t give a darn what techno process you use. I love your photos no matter what way you present them.
Ken G
14 Sep 2014I’m trying to develop some kind of consistent working method Dick. Over the winter I want to move the images only over to a site I set up for that a few years ago.
It’s funny, I’m expert at developing working methods in the graphic arts for work, but I fall flat on my own stuff. Too many options and I want to try them all.
Howard Levett
14 Sep 2014I was in the process of preparing to switch to WordPress. Thanks for scaring me away…don’t mess with success.
Ken G
14 Sep 2014Now Howard, that wasn’t meant to scare anyone off. I host my own WordPress site and have 3 others sitting out there languishing. I wouldn’t use anything else.
I wouldn’t go with wordpress.com. I’m a firm believer in controlling your own content and not entrusting it to others. I don’t like being forced to sign up with them just to use Jetpack.
If you switch to wordpress, then maybe I can comment on your blog. Right now the only option I have is through a Google account. Which I have and which I have no interest in doing. But then, maybe NOT having me comment on your posts is a good thing…
Mel
14 Sep 2014I recently switched over to WordPress.com with my blog. I have enjoyed what I have been able to do so far with it. I would recommend it to other Bloggers. That being said, in time, probably will host the site with someone else using WordPress.org so I can better control content as you speak of. Also, Ken added your blog back to my Blog Roll on my new site.
Ken G
15 Sep 2014Hey Mel, I’ve been dealing with things digitally since I touched my first Mac in 1988. I learned the hard way that you have to control your content, others can make it go away on a whim.
And thanks for the Blog Roll addition. I’ve been a real slacker on keeping up on mine. I do have all of you bookmarked. I think of site maintenance as a winter thing, which will be here soon enough. Right now it’s too nice out on any given day to be sitting here fussing with a computer.