It snowed again today. Is anyone surprised by this anymore?
You may have noticed things look a little bit different today on the blog. You might also have noticed that some things are broken.
Yeah, I’m making sweeeeping changes, and here’s why.
I did the last major upgrade to this blog in 2008. I found a WordPress theme I liked, modified it to look like I wanted it to look, and I’ve been changing the daylights out of it ever since.
I was still pretty happy with that theme, and I wouldn’t have even considered starting over, except for one thing: my phone. See, now that I have a cell phone that isn’t terrible, I am finding that I actually read blogs on that little screen – something I would have said was crazy just a few months ago.
Using my phone for my blog reading has gotten me thinking about how my own blog functions (or doesn’t) in a mobile capacity, and the truth is that WordPress has kind of moved into the 2010’s without me. There are newer built-in features that make it simple for a blog to function exactly the same way on a laptop, a tablet, and a phone, while still taking into account the specific requirements of each size display.
I want Polka Dot Cottage to function well in miniature. It actually does pretty well on a phone screen, if all you are doing is reading the posts. But there are so many extras I have added over the years, including both of my shops (which are kind of important to me). And all of these special things I’ve done require you to be reading on a full computer display.
How very 2008 of me.
So, I’m starting from scratch. I’m using a WordPress-created theme, and I’m building my own child-theme based on it. This will ensure that my blog design will continue to grow and evolve as the features of WordPress do the same.
I’ve been testing this theme over on my test blog for a few days, but I decided to go live with it now, even though it’s not entirely ready for prime time. Some things (like the shops) are hard to duplicate in a test environment.
So. I know there are things that are not quite pretty right now. And I know there are things that are flat-out broken. I’ll be looking at all of them over the next few days, particularly in the Downloads Shop. I am so excited for you to be able to buy patterns and tutorials right from your phone! Getting that up and running is a priority for me, so it will be in working order very soon.
As I dig deeper into some of the features of WordPress that I’ve been ignoring over the years, I am sure I’ll be taking advantage of some of them and introducing some nifty things around here. I can’t wait!
(I’m totally nerding out over here.)
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