2nd attempt to work with WP theme …

First and foremost if you could provide a link to the website then it would be easier to see what you have done, and envisage what you are trying to achieve. After all a picture says a thousand words or so I am told ;-).

Also if you are worried about messing the theme up then take a copy of the theme and then change the copy.

To make a copy of the theme simply copy the theme folder, then go into the folder with the copy of the theme and change the text

Theme Name : Twentytwelve

to

Theme Name : xxxxxxxxxx

so you know which theme to activate from the dashboard.

Then you can change the copy all you want but you can still switch back to the Twenty Twelve theme if you so wish.

Sorry, I thought I had given the Url. Here it is. https://inspirations.motdaugrnds.com/

Thanks for the infor about copying the theme. Hopefully this time I will do better. (If I mess it up again, I doubt I will try WP theme again as I’ve spent literally hours/days trying to understand and work with them. They sure don’t operate like html pages I create in that, if what I thought I did in html doesn’t turn out the way I had intended, I could toy around with coding and find out what I’ld done wrong. With the WP and my not understanding the type of coding it uses, trying to toy with coding in a theme is simply foolishness for me.

I would suggest that the image you are uploading is not the size that the theme is expecting. So The image is being stretched to fit the space which is why it is blurry. On the theme where you upload the header page it will probably suggest an optimum size. If you can adjust your image to be this size, make it bigger in your case, then the image will probably not be blurred.

I think there may be a fundamental misunderstanding about what WordPress is. It looks like you have linked directly to each post which I think is why the look of the blog is different for each of the posts.

Normally a post is categorized in some way and then a page can be used to show a specific category of post.

So I would suggest that you :-

1. Create some categories for your posts
2. Create a menu and add the categories you have created.

I think this may solve a number of the issues you have.

I would highly recommend you work your way through the documentation on here which I think will help you to achieve your goals.

Thank you.

Yes, I’ll double check the size of that picture. I thought I had done that; but I may have uploaded the wrong picture.

I did not intend to link directly to each post. I only set up two pages to be used for posting, giving them only a title. I actually have not created any individual posts at all. Any post showing was the default “hello” type post, which I keep trying to get rid of.

Yes, I want two categories, i.e. one for inspirational blogging and one for spiritual blogging. Thus, the hyperlinks would lead to the individual pages that cover these different categories. I don’t understand the menu thing because I thought the categories cover it all. (I will go over and read those links you put in your post about categories and menues.) Seems however, the caegories and menues only show up at the bottom (root), which confuses me as I thought I had two vertical parts instead of the top header, middle and bottom footer.

Well, I went over and created two menues. The first was “What inspires you?” I placed this name into the “menu name”, then clicked “save menu”. Then I selected my “Inspirations Blog” page and clicked the “add to menu” button. Then I clicked “save menu”.

Next I did it all again only with the “menu name” as “What keeps you grounded?” and “save menu”; then selected the page “Spiritual Blog” and “save menu”.

Then I loaded my https://inspirations.motdaugrnds.com page and discovered nothing had changed about it. Neither of these menus showed up. This page still has the 3 hyperlinks just under the picture, the latter unwanted. This page also still has the text in the middle of a white page without any side column showing up. (I did notice a symbol of a magnifying glass on the right side up just under the picture that I did not place there.) Then this page only has what is apparently the “footer”…a black place all across the page with lots of words in it (“Recent comments”, “archives”, “categories” and “meta”). None of these are hyperlinks; however, there are 5 hyperlinks listed under the “meta” (none of which I placed there nor have any idea as to how they would be useful for me), i.e. “site admin”, “log out”, “entries RSS”, “comments RSS” and “www.ads-software.com”. I doubt I want these available to the public.

I also went over to read about placing “categories” on my site; and did not find any clear step-by-step instructions as to how to do this as I did with the “menu”. Can anyone give me guidance to continue getting this blog site workable? I’m still only wanting this one blog site to have the static page and two different blog pages hyperlinked that a viewer can choose to post on. Also, I’m still wanting the “what inspires” hyperlink at the top just under the picture to take the viewer to my primary domain of motdaugrnds.com/inspirational . Also, when the “Inspirations Blog” up there under the picture is clicked, it shows up with “Nothing Found” on it. It was done the same way as the “Spiritual Blog” which shows up with “Spiritual Blog” words on it.

Sorry I’m having to continue to ask for help. I don’t want to keep bothering people. I do want the WordPress theme to work out; thus, my questions.

Twentytwelve only has 1 menu – but you can add a large number of items to the 1 menu. “Menu” refers to the entire “navigation bar” that goes across the header part of the site.

After you’ve created a menu – then you can add or remove items from that menu in the screen for that menu – use the panels on the left to add items – check them and click “Add to Menu.” You can drag/drop the order you want once they are in the box on the right side of the screen.

To remove an item from the menu – click on the item’s right side flippy triangle – it opens that item – click Remove at the bottom of that opened panel.

Sounds like you also need to add a Custom Link to your menu – to add a link to your main site. When you have the menu screen open, click on the “Links” bar – put the URL for your site and whatever name you want on that menu item and click “Add to Menu.”

For post category menu item, click on teh Categories bar – that opens a panel where your categories will show up – check whichever categories you want as menu items. Click “Add to Menu.” Now those menu items will go to a posts page of those posts.

If you have not created categories yet, do that first under Posts > Categories – and make sure you assign the categories to whichever posts you want to appear on those posts pages.

The things in the footer are widgets – you can remove them under Appearance > Widgets.

Thank you so much helping.

I didn’t know the Twentytwelve theme only permitted one menu and that it showed up in the header under my picture. Guess I didn’t even need to create a menu after all. (Spent the day creating two menus and moving one posts page into each, which seems wasted time now.) I am wondering, since I didn’t create any “menu” at all until today, how was it I had those hyperlinks running across the header part of my site just under the picture?

Yes, I did find I could add pages to the menu I created today. (I actually created two menus and added one page to each….so I thought.) Yes I did remove several “pages” (items) from one menu that way. As stated above, my creating a menu when there was already one in the header was wasted time for me.

Adding a “custom link” would be nice. I want one going to my primary domain. I’ll go do as you suggested regarding this.

I have not found a “categories bar”; so I don’t know how to open a panel where my categories will show up. What you’ve said about “…check whichever categories you want as menu items. Click “add to Menu”. Now those menu item will go to a posts page of those posts.” is confusing to me. Is this on the page where I created a menu and added items/pages? If so, I’ve already done that. All I have to add as items are the two posts pages. I’m not following what you have said about “…Posts > Categories – make sure you assign the categories to whichever posts you want to appear on those posts.” Are you saying to go to Posts > Categories and assign the two posts pages I have? I’m real confused about this and may be getting categories and menus mixed up.

Apparently, since I can only have one menu in this theme, I need to go in and remove one of the menus I created, set up a category (giving it a name) and put the two posts pages in there. But, since they are hyperlinked under the header, why even create a category? I think I’m confused as to what I actually need to do.

Thanks, I’ll go over to appearance > widgets and remove the items in the footer…am wondering if that will remove the black area as well…guess I’ll find out.

Thanks for hanging in with me.

Yes, you DO need to use a Custom Menu if you want to control what shows up in your menu (and add category items and custom links). IF you don’t set up a custom menu – WP uses the “default menu system” which adds all of your pages and a posts page to your menu.

Just pick one of the menus you created – it makes no difference what it is called – and work with that – select it under the Manage Locations Tab and then click on the Edit Menus Tab.

On that screen, there are several “bars” (for panels that you can open by clicking on them) – one is “Links” – use that one to add custom links as I described above.

Another one of those is “categories” – click on that to open it. You may not have any categories created yet – Yes, this is a totally separate, different part of the Dashboard – see this:

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Posts_Categories_Screen

When you create a post, you need to assign the category(s) you want to it – so that it will go under the menu item you want.

Then go back to the menus screen to add those category items to your menu. Now you should be able to click on the menu item for that category and get those posts listed.

See if that helps.

Well, Maybe I should leave things as is. The picture is up; and though I changed the size to the exact size that theme called for, it is still blurred. However, it is there all across the top of the page where I wanted it.

The “default” menu is housing the 3 links I wanted to show up, i.e. one to my primary domain, one to where people can post about “inspirations” and one to where people can post about “spiritual” matters.

The text is there, albeit in the middle of wasted white space.

There is no black footer with unwanted links.

I know it isn’t a great blogging site; but for my first, maybe not so bad.

I do need to fix the “inspirations blog” page that menu link takes the viewer to; and I have no idea how to do this. (I had created it exactly like I had the “spiritual blog” page that the menu takes the viewer to, but it didn’t turn out the same. So I have no idea how to fix it.) When I click that “inspirations blog” link and that page comes up there is “nothing found” on it though it does say “ready to publish your first post? and has a link “Get started here.” So I guess I’ll just post there and see what occurs….well I did click that “Get started here” and was taken to a posting page where I put in a title and a message. Then I returned to this “inspirations blog” page to find what I had just created showing up there and a “leave a comment” hyperlink. So seems this page is now working too.

I may not need to do anything more to the “spiritual blog” page. That page has the words “spiritual blog” as what looks like a “title” in that it is not a link. The “edit” link is under that and a “leave a reply” under that with my email address showing and a comment section. So I’m guessing that page works correctly for others to use to add their posts to this blog page.

I think I will look around and see if I can find a way to take away all that wasted white space on my static front page. Seems that theme set the page boundaries in which text can appear; and I sure don’t want to mess up what I’ve done already; so maybe I can just add a color to cover all that white, though I don’t like that idea. Still it would be better than the white color.

I am grateful for the help of each one here. Seems the aesthetics of that Twentytwelve theme showing up prior to choosing it is not the same as how it shows up once chosen, i.e. prior to installing it there was a header, then two columns, then a footer. Once installed, there was a header, only one column, then a footer. Also, if whoever advertised that theme could have given the simple instruction about the default location for menus, that would have saved me a lot of time. Still, I am so grateful someone took the time to create some type of theme framework for people like me to work within.

Again, thanks to all for your patience and willingness to help.