WordPress frustrations!

Hi everyone,

First post from me in a long time - sorry to not get onto this excellent forum as much as I would like, I've had a very busy year!

One of the latest projects that I've begun working on is working as part of a team on a website that is in the process of transferring fairly large amounts of material from an HTML / CSS based website into a WordPress-powered site, obviously using WP as a Content Management System. This is being done for two reasons:

1) The old website (again worked on by a team of individuals) is full to bursting with non-standards-compliant, old-fashioned coding

2) The new website should enable future team members who do not have any HTML skills but may be talented writers or have other interesting content to share to upload their material directly.

Unfortunately, I'm encountering a few frustrations using the WordPress interface and I was wondering whether any of the more experienced WP users here had any tips or tricks to share that might help. Here are the problems I'm encountering:

1) The WordPress Image Uploader I find really arduous to use, the Flash-based version that allows me to upload multiple images works for me in Firefox but fails for me in IE6, IE8 and Safari for Windows (my browser of choice). When I upload multiple images to try and create a gallery it places them in a jumbled order and I have to spend time re-ordering them, and then I have to click on each one and input the alt text, hyperlinks (if any), etc. This would be fine for just one or two images, but some of the pages I'm working on have galleries of 12 thumbnails linking to 12 larger versions of the images and I find this process takes much longer than uploading the images elsewhere and then doing all the coding by hand.

2) Again on the Image Uploader, I had hoped to be able to use its' ability to auto-generate thumbnails of images to do away with having to create separate thumbs for images I wanted to display larger versions of, but unfortunately the interface I'm using forces me to accept a default thumbnail size of 150 x 150 - which means I still have to do it the old-fashioned way for most images.

3) When working in the visual interface, if I want to increase the dynamic white space between any of the elements (such as between images in a gallery, or extra line breaks between paragraphs), it doesn't matter what I do hitting either the space bar or return bar, it automatically defaults back to the standard line- and character-spacing between elements. If I go into the HTML interface I can tweak this slightly, by using old-fashioned code such as &nbpsp; several times to increase gaps, or placing elements within a table and using table cellpadding.

However, this doesn't help for creating extra line breaks - the WP HTML interface doesn't require the break command (< br / > - obviously without the spaces), which is helpful in some ways, but it also means that if I want to use the break command for adding extra line breaks, I can't because it doesn't recognise it! I can work my way around this by creating an empty paragraph (so, < p > < / p > - again, obviously without the spaces) - but, if I then toggle back to the visual interface, WordPress automatically deletes this empty paragraph and defaults back to its' default line spacing!

4) If I want to create an image gallery, everything has to be on one line because even the HTML interface of WordPress accepts pressing "return" on your keyboard as inserting a line break. Creating a gallery that looks like this (again without the spaces):

< img src="pic1.jpg" alt="pic1" / >

< img src="pic2.jpg" alt="pic2" / >

< img src="pic3.jpg" alt="pic3" / >

...creates a gallery of images stacked one atop the other, because WP automatically inserts the line breaks!!

-----

I'd been really looking forward to working in WP but right now am finding it more a hindrance than a help - does anyone know how I can get over these problems above? So you know - I have no access to the CSS file styling the site and am limited in the amount of control panel access I have, I literally have a pre-designated WP interface in which to work.

As ever, I'd really appreciate any advice that you guys are able to give me, and thanks for taking the time to read this long post!

Best wishes,

Chris

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tony Rolfe on September 9, 2010 at 10:57

Hi Chris,

The main problem that you have is that you cannot get access to the css. If you could then you could change the

tag properties to include higher margins to increase the spaces between line breaks. On the image gallery, are you using a plug-in? I would recommend Next Gen Gallery:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/

It is very customisable and uses its own css so doesn't interfere with the rest of the sites css. You can also add all the tags etc from within the control panel for the plug-in and upload lots of files at the same time. Then all you need to do to add it into your wp page is add a little snippet of code.

Wordpress is a great tool if you have access to all of its attributes and style sheets - once you get used to how it works you will love it. The seo capabilities of it are amazing as well!

Hope this helps?

Regards

Tony

Permalink Reply by Harvey Raybould on September 9, 2010 at 11:00

Hi Chris,

Hope you are well and glad to see you back. Do you know which version of WordPress you are using?

Regards

Harvey

Permalink Reply by Chris Davis on September 9, 2010 at 14:54

Hi Tony,

Thanks so much for this very informative reply. I'm very interested to read about the Next Gen Gallery - it looks like a very useful tool and sounds like just the job!

I don't believe that the current image uploader I'm using is a plug-in, I believe it is just the standard image uploader that comes packed with WordPress...however, I would stress that I'm working in a site that someone else set up, so I'm not fully aware of what plug-ins they have and haven't installed.

I will have a word with the administrator of the site about the Next Gen Gallery plug-in, as it looks like it could solve a number of the problems I'm experiencing. The in-built watermarking feature would also save me a massive amount of time, is there a way that a watermark could be set as, for example, a website logo transparent .png file rather than just text?

I agree with you that a lot of my frustrations are caused by not having access to the .css file for the site - another problem I'm experiencing is that for certain things I'm having to apply inline styles all the time, rather than being able to create class or div rules.

Another quick question - in either the CSS or the higher-end control panel of a WordPress-powered site, is it possible to set the HTML interface so that it will accept < br / > tags as legitimate commands, or set it so that multiple line breaks inserted by hitting the return key will be interpreted as same? E.g., if for one page I want an area that is laid-out like this:
Here's a line of text

I want this line of text down here

...can this be made to work?

Again, I really appreciate your expert insight into these matters, and look forward to hearing from you again.

Many thanks again,

Chris

Tony Rolfe said:

Hi Chris,

The main problem that you have is that you cannot get access to the css. If you could then you could change the
tag properties to include higher margins to increase the spaces between line breaks. On the image gallery, are you using a plug-in? I would recommend Next Gen Gallery:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/

It is very customisable and uses its own css so doesn't interfere with the rest of the sites css. You can also add all the tags etc from within the control panel for the plug-in and upload lots of files at the same time. Then all you need to do to add it into your wp page is add a little snippet of code.

Wordpress is a great tool if you have access to all of its attributes and style sheets - once you get used to how it works you will love it. The seo capabilities of it are amazing as well!

Hope this helps?

Regards

Tony

Permalink Reply by Chris Davis on September 9, 2010 at 14:59

Hi Harvey,

Many thanks for your message. I'm delighted to be back with you guys on Compila Exchange and hopefully now my schedule will calm down enough for me to post regularly again.

In answer to your question, the WordPress site I'm working in has been put together using this theme - as far as I know, the only modifications to the site have been setting the colours, etc., in the CSS.

http://www.studiopress.com/themes/streamline

So, I'm not sure which version of WordPress that theme was constructed using, but I'm guessing that it's a reasonably up-to-date version. If you have any knowledge or insight to share, as always I'd be very appreciate of any help you were able to provide.

Thanks again for all the help, it is very much appreciated! :)

Best wishes,

Chris

Harvey Raybould said: