Title-Bars

In a fit of boredom, and in a similar vein to the changing of the top image on d4d™ according to certain important days, I’ve now also bunged in a little bit of code to change the D4D title (at the top of the window) every day.

It’s nothing overly special, and just changes it once a day, but what the hell, it was a couple of minutes work. PHP makes things like that really really easy.

Makes mental note of needing to get out more.

Possibility of Downtime

Just a quick notice – d4d™ may be inaccessible between 9 and 10am today, as 34sp are doing some behind-the-scenes server-type work.

Twunting About

Well, I’ve fixed a couple of problems that had been pointed out to me – most of which I knew about anyway, although the problem with the green stylesheet was a new one on me. Still, that’s fixed, as is the problem in the comments boxes where the comment text box overflowed loads.

The problem with the archives is a right fucker. I’ll figure it out, I know, but for now, well, I can’t be arsed. It’s a job for sometime over the weekend. Or next week at work, when I get sick of figuring out helpful error messages like “Exception occurred”. Light relief, and all that guff.

For now though, I’m off to watch some of the shite TV that TiVo (or Herself) have decided I should watch.

Header Graphics

Well, I’ve finally got the date switcher working on the header graphic, as yesterday showed. It’s actually a dead easy bit of code, I’d just never got round to it.

So anyway – what other dates should I change the header graphic? Obviously d4d™’s birthday is on the list (or will be when I make the actual graphic, but hey, I’ve got ’til August) as is World AIDS Day (ditto).

But what others should be on the list?

Fixed

Well, turns out the fix was simple. So why wasn’t it documented in the update process? *shrug*

Anyway, if you’re in the same position of suddenly being thrown into the shit by WordPress Templates, what you need to do is this :

In your index.php file (i.e. the file your blog runs from) right at the top where it says

require(‘./weblog/wp-blog-header.php’);

add in

$wp_template_redirect = false;

so that it looks like this :

$wp_template_redirect = false;
require(‘./weblog/wp-blog-header.php’);

That’ll fix it for the moment. Well, until WP decides that’s shonky, and well, why would anyone NOT want a WP template?

Thematic

OK, having done a fair bit of research, I think I’ve found a few ways to get the theme sorted and/or restore d4d to its former glory.

Because of the way the style switcher works/worked, I think it’s more likely to need a retrograde step instead of a progressive one. But it’s still a pain in the arse that it needs doing at all.

As Gordon points out in the comments to the post below, yes, WP’s Development Blog kind of mentions themes. Back in December. And that’s fair enough. However, what’s not fair enough is that the upgrade instructions don’t mention them at all, nor how much they’re likely to really fuck up the blog’s appearance ’til you figure it out or think “Oh fuck it, I’ll stick with that theme for now“, which is what I did.

Now, without blowing my own trumpet too much, I know what I’m doing when it comes to websites, PHP, databases, and the like. But if Joe Public were to try upgrading WP the way I did, he/she’d be right up shit creek, with no hints or pointers towards a clue at all.

And that’s not the way to do business, or to keep users.

Tossers

I really can’t explain how furious I am with WordPress right now. The upgrade instructions simply say

Upgrading
Before you upgrade anything, make sure you have backup copies of any files you may have modified such as index.php.
Upgrading from any previous WordPress to 1.5:

1. Upload the new files, and be careful not to overwrite anything important
2. Point your browser to /wp-admin/upgrade.php
3. You wanted more, perhaps? That’s it!

And that’s fucking untrue. Because of the way they now do it, the “themes” seem to have been split off into a seperate section, you have to split up the old index.php file into all these new pieces, and then figure out how the stupid bastards have put it all together. Sounds easy? Trust me, it isn’t.

Not only do you have to do that, you have to figure out just how they’ve coded the themes, and then work out how to register your own. Right now I want to find a WP developer, and rip their bastard throat out.

To coin a phrase, thanks a fucking bundle, WordPress, you utter utter cunts.