Help with updating a few things: share link locations, categories, and more

It always breaks my heart to say this, especially to people who simply want to share their stories on a personal blog. But you’re using the commercial theme, Weaver II Pro. WordPress support volunteers are not given access to any commercial products. So we’re unable to install your specific theme and provide you any meaningful assistance.

I was able to track down the free version of the theme (marked OBSOLETE) from the developer’s website. My responses below are based on this free version: I’ve way of knowing (other than purchasing!) if the PRO version you’re using works the same way.

For the best support, please reach out to your Weaver II Pro theme’s vendor: https://forum.weavertheme.com/

1. The copyright in the footer is out-of-date.

Try Appearance => Weaver II/Pro Admin => Main Options => Footer. If the PRO version works the same as the free version I was able to install, then you should see a “Site Copyright” section where the date can be found and changed.

2. The links at the top of the home page only seem to work on the home page (subscribe, etc.). When reading posts they don’t seem to be live. Any idea why?

All the links on the menu work for me. I tried from different computers (Windows 11 & Ubuntu Linux) and mobile phones (iPhone & Android)… and all the links worked the first time and every time.

3. I have nice share links on the left side. I believe those come from the Simple Share Buttons plugin. But I also have redundant (and sometimes not working) share buttons embedded at the end of posts and pages. I would like to get rid of those, but can’t remember where those came from.

I don’t see any “Share” links or buttons in the left sidebar or at the bottom of post/pages at all. See a screenshot below.

4. I have a category, Politics, with a link at the top. I think that’s a category I created a few years ago. If I edit categories do they just appear there? Are the posts there automatic? I was thinking of making use of categories more so subscribers can see what they are interested in and not get notifications of things they are not interested in.

No, the new categories will not appear automatically.

Go to APPEARANCE => MENUS. From there you can select to add the newly-created categories to your menu. Once you add the categories to your menu, clicking the new category link on your website will display the posts in that category automatically, exactly like the current POLITICS category.

Note that WordPress itself doesn’t send new post notifications. That feature is from a commercial plugin you’re using: Email Subscribers Premium.

Good luck!

OK, I just did some further digging… and it seems my privacy blocker was blocking the share buttons. I tested your site from a virtual machine with no protection, and I was able to see both Share buttons (left sidebar and bottom of pages).

Incidentally, the menu links also stopped working outside the homepage after the share buttons started working!

That suggests the two may be related… and, indeed, they are!

Firstly, both the left sidebar share buttons and the ones at the bottom of pages/posts are from the same “Simple Share Buttons Adder” plugin.

You can configure the plugin to enable/disable either set of buttons independently.

And for the reason the menus don’t work outside the homepage, the first clue is that the left share buttons are not on the homepage ??

Indeed, as you can see from the first screenshot below, the left share buttons cover the whole width of the page (you don’t see this normally because the background is transparent). So when they’re aligned with the menus, they create a transparent layer over the menus, making the menus unclickable.

If you scroll down the page such that the menu is ABOVE the horizontal pane covered by the left share buttons, you’ll realize the menus now become clickable.

How to fix this?

1) Consider if you really need these always-in-your-face left share buttons. Also, note that, as seen in the second screenshot below, the left share buttons cover part of the page on small/mobile screens.

If you CAN do without them, you may disable the left share buttons ONLY in the plugin’s settings, or completely disable and remove the plugin to get rid of both the left buttons and the ones at the bottom of posts and pages.

If you DO need the left share buttons, then add this custom CSS code in APPEARANCE => CUSTOMIZE => ADDITIONAL CSS to limit the width to just 100px so it won’t cover the menus.

#ssba-bar-2.left {
max-width: 100px;
}

Thank you very much! So far all I’ve done is tweak the Simple Share Buttons settings as you suggested, removing them from the left side. I set it so they just appear before a post or page, at the top of the post or page, and it works just fine, and makes the top menus work from inside the posts.

I might move them below the posts/pages since they are a bit large and distracting there.

It’s late now, but I’ll look at the other stuff you recommended in the morning. Thank you!

I’ve done some other changes as well, including changing to excerpts instead of whole blog posts. It makes the site much easier to navigate.

Some people were suggesting ditching that old theme altogether since it is basically obsolete. So I’m considering that as well.

Thanks for your help!

Appearance > Menus and adding categories also worked. Thanks.

I’ve made a lot of progress. But, alas, everybody is warning me about how out-of-date Weaver II is. Even the Weaver site says it’s obsolete.

Some people were suggesting I just use TwentyTwentyOne instead. I tried it, but some of the preview images are getting truncated.

For example, in the Live Preview of TwentyTwentyOne the preview image for one of my most recent posts looks like this:

This is how it looks at my current live site: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zQDo2fBkjFbixax8A

And this is how it looks in the Live Preview: https://photos.app.goo.gl/b1Nvss83DHHpHAqB7

Any idea how to fix that problem? Or a suggestion of an alternative theme?

Thanks,

doug

But, alas, everybody is warning me about how out-of-date Weaver II is. Even the Weaver site says it’s obsolete.

Yes, you should definitely switch to a new theme, for (at least) two very important reasons:

1. The old, maintained theme can break anytime (due to WordPress/plugin/server updates)
2. As the theme is unmaintained, should a vulnerability be discovered by bad actors, your site may end up being hacked.

Some people were suggesting I just use TwentyTwentyOne instead. I tried it, but some of the preview images are getting truncated.

… Any idea how to fix that problem?

This is a common problem that occurs whenever you switch themes.

Here’s why it occurs: when you upload an image, various thumbnail sizes are created automatically for different sections of your site, and these sizes are theme-dependent.

So when you switch to a new theme, for existing posts, the new theme will be using thumbnail sizes created by the old theme, which may not be optimized for the new theme.

That’s the problem you’re experiencing.

Thankfully, there’s an easy fix: use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin (search and install from the WordPress dashboard) to automatically regenerate all existing image thumbnails to the dimensions optimized for the new theme (and optionally delete the old thumbnails).

Note that this is a one-time use plugin: you can safely disable and remove the plugin after it’s done its job of regenerating your thumbnails.

Or a suggestion of an alternative theme?

Ah, that’s a difficult one. And that should tell you I’m more of a techy type than the creative sort ??

Personally, I’m an old kid on the block, and I much prefer the simplicity of an old-style 2-column layout with a fixed width to the newfangled full-page themes. But that’s just me… you should probably listen to your regular readers!

That said, considering the simple requirements of a personal blog, any theme should suffice… as long as it’s 2 columns with a fixed width actively developed and supported by the author ??

Good luck!

I just noticed your reply. I didn’t get an email notification of it this time. Thanks.

One question – why is the preview image (which isn’t tiny) considered a “thumbnail”?

Oh, I see. You can regenerate them just for preview images. Trying that now. Also adding an extra Twenty Twenty One options plugin so I can add my header image back in.

Thanks,

doug

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by douglerner.

Unfortunately regenerate thumbnails didn’t fix that image. If it’s the only one I’ll try to manually adjust it.

doug