It's Important To Read Not To Glance

In this post I am going to insert some photos that have nothing to do with the subject of this post. Instead of the individual photos in a row, I am going to use the option of putting them into a tile. Let me know which type you like. You can still click each photo within and enlarge them.

When I started yesterday I was wanting to convert all my WP categories into WP tags. They were like tags in my Blogger blog, but WP has tags and then categories which can also have sub-categories. It looked simple to do, shouldn’t take to long … but what started with my mistake led into an all day affair in WP.

I followed the prompts after seeing a tool called ‘category and tag converter’. As I clicked that link it sent me a page with a list of blog sites. I GLANCED at what it said at the top but did not READ it carefully. I am not sure why but it has happened most of my life. It’s where you glance at page but you don’t read the page. That cost me a LOT of time yesterday.

I glanced at the page, saw ‘WordPress’ and clicked the link. While thinking it was strange the next page was asking me to upload my blog .xml file … I played along, downloaded my .xml file and then uploaded it like the prompts wanted.

Then … coincidence came into play. While checking to see what happened after that uploaded file, making sure my blog was still there. I clicked on one of my photos on the newest blog post. Trouble was I couldn’t click on the photo … something that did work before the upload I thought. That was the wrong thought.

So now my focus went from the hows and whys of converting categories to tags … to why aren’t the photos enlarging like before. Now I didn’t have the option of even clicking them. I emailed a couple of friends that were online to see if they saw the same thing. They did.

So I did what I always do when I need answers for almost anything. I searched on Google. That search listed a lot the same questions that I had, but most of them were dated years ago. Time consuming reading. I finally decided to log into WP forum and check there. Couldn’t find anything that was exactly what I was having problems with.

By now though I am reading and not glancing at the pages of information.

Long story short. I had an answer from a WP tech rep. In 15 minutes she has checked my blog, corrected one of the photos to enlarge when clicked and sent me a file that showed me exactly what to do. How’s that for service?

Of course that led to more time but I had a lot of time on my hands while the snow melted outside. I’ve been needing something to keep my mind busy this past week or so and moving my blog to WP came at the right time. Although it was time consuming, I love that kind of work. Maybe I should go back to a two year college and formally study web design or learn how to build apps. For the past 10-11 years of doing stuff like that off and on, I’ve always enjoyed it.

So I have her instructions. I am not thrilled with what I have to do to fix those photos but it is the process of inserting photos that I did not notice. What is interesting ALL of the posts transferred from Blogger, each photo enlarged with a click … just like I wanted.

The mistake of uploading my blog back up files and installing them over my blog that was already there … had nothing to do with the photos issue!! All of that was self-imposed errors because I glanced at a page and didn’t read the page.

The WP process of inserting photos into blog posts does not and will not enlarge the photos automatically like Blogger does. I was told this morning by the same WP tech rep they are working on that automatic function.

There are a few extra steps that will have to be taken every post with every photo. It IS very time consuming, say if you have 8 or more photos you want to insert into your blog post and have them enlarge to beautiful photos when your readers click them. Yet, there is a visible difference in the quality of the photos on a WordPress blog compared to my blog on Blogger.

I like having that option even for myself. Click any of the photos below to enlarge them.

So things are fixed. I would like to learn more about how WP works, so today I will READ not GLANCE at the pages I look at.

I have to run, Stella is howling for lunch to be served.

Warm this morning in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana with dark gray clouds to the west bringing temps in the teens by Sunday with snow tonight.

Oh … that process to convert Categories to Tags … Took less than 2 minutes