christopher0711

Thanks for the responses! For various reasons I had to upgrade to a newer version of WP and I was able to revise my site satisfactorily. I am sure others will appreciate and benefit from your contributions.

Tada!

https://wellspringwriting.com

Took me awhile to get to this, and it’s less than elegant under the hood, but at least it looks right.

Thanks again, WPYogi, for all your help.

Cheers, c

Hi again WPYogi, one more question if you have the patience for it.

One of the problems with getting the image to format well is that it’s now inserted as part of a “post” essentially, and subject to the limitations of the text. If I set up a child them, can I insert the image in the header, above the navigation menu but below the logo? I could then change the div width setting to something wider so the image would be bigger, and adjust the post width to 600px. Does that sound like a reasonable approach? Thank you.

Well I am happy I can repay your generosity in small way.

Thanks so much for correcting my oversights! I knew I was missing something(s) simple. Image is now scootched up a bit more and the spacing on the defined list is working now.

Still having a devil of a time trying to figure out why I can’t get the image up higher, and have it appear at normal size, but I’ve figured out how to make some other modifications in the MyCSS, which is very handy. Almost there.

Thanks again.

OK WPyogi, I tried the suggestions and played around, with some mixed results. The image is still riding a bit low under the menu bar and is far smaller that the original. Do I need to specify a target size or something? My eyes glazed over when I looked at the WP child theme explanations, but I will give it a go if you think that will work best.

I tried the post-entry code and the ul class. Neither seemed to have an effect. I’m probably doing something stupid and missing it. Parts of that code are greyed out in the MyCSS window, which makes me think they’re not finding a target for some reason?

Working on some color tweaking but I think the site is almost there.

I’m glad you like the little graphic. I created it quite simply. Perhaps you were being polite, but you are welcome to take it and use for a project or whatever if you wish.

Thanks again for all your help.

Hi WPyogi and thanks so much. I was able to put the banner image in using your method, but it was very unwieldy so I went back the original setting for Reading. Instead I put the image into the code for the page, but it’s smaller than is should be (the original is 997px wide).

https://wellspringwriting.com

If it’s easier to just copy it into each page I’ll do that. there is a pretty big margin below the menu that would be nice to get rid of, or plug the banner image in there if possible.

I playing around with the margins and line heights and got decent results for those on all the pages, though there is one strange result in the line height if there is a natural line break, it gets compressed.

https://wellspringwriting.com/?page_id=52

I plugged this in:

ul li {
line-height: 18px;
}

which helped but increased line size for all the lists.

Still working on it, and thanks again!

Oops. It now occurs to me that the most efficient way to get the right look re: margins/wrapper is to have the text on the right side wrap more tightly. Can I use “word-wrap” in the custom CSS and pick a letter value, like 100?

WPyogi, Thanks so much. Very helpful. I installed the My Custom CSS and it works wonderfully. I’m opting against a child theme at the moment as my site will be very static and I’m not going to make a lot of changes to the theme, but it’s good to have all my modifications in the custom CSS.

Re: Header, yes, I looked at Apperance-Header. I think the header image is actually the scratchy font title at the top. What’s there now is fine. What I am interested in seeing is what’s called the “home-banner” mentioned in this thread (halfway down the page):

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/home-page-on-pilot-fish?replies=69

Basically, I just want to replace the forest image (https://wordpress.danielatwork.com/project/pilot-fish/) with my own and have it be the visual at the top of the page under the site title. Something is still blocking that. Now that I am on this new theme, none of the modifications I did to the earlier theme are necessary now. I don’t know if any of that stuff carries over from theme to theme, as with content. I’m probably missing something obvious, but me combing through the editor is like a blind man combing through a haystack. Can’t tell what’s relevant.

The h1 is now gone (Hooray!), but I am not noticing any change in the side margins with the wrapper code, and I went up to 200px. Maybe I am misunderstanding how that works. Ideally, I’d like to scootch in both the left and right a bit.

Re: the list, ideally the line space on the bullet pointed lists (ul) would be smaller so the lines would be a bit tighter. But that’s really not a priority.

A lot of stuff I know. Thanks again.
Chris

OK, I was able to upgrade to 3.5.1 manually to the server, and Pilot Fish appears to be working as designed. I have some formatting issues but I’ll search about the forums for answers. BTW I was able to go straight from 3.1.3 to 3.5.1 without an interim upgrade. Thanks all.

I hope so too! Either way this is certainly a learning experience!

esmi, Yes, correct, Appearance sub-menu.

WPyogi, plugins deactivated. I don’t know what you mean by switching to the default theme. Sorry. Iooked around but did not find that option. I am running Pilot Fish out of the box as far as I know.

Like I said, I had made some modifications to the prior theme (Weaver), and wouldn’t mind stripping them all out if they are not already, but I think some must be there still. For instance, there is no header image on my site.

And, as it turns out, I was NOT running the most updated version. The update window said I was, but the dashboard reports 3.1.3. The host is updating the version now, so that may resolve the issue. I can’t believe they are not aware of the potential problem, but they may only update on request as an update could screw up someone’s site if their theme wasn’t compatible. Only explanation I can think of.

Thanks again to you both.

Ach, hate to reopen this question, but as it turns out I am running the most recent version of WP (my misunderstanding) and still can’t see the Theme Options. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong here? thanks.

Super. Not to belabor this, but it is a huge help to have people like you out there to assist us newbies, and in record time too. All the best to you.

I am afraid to say now! Maybe the best thing for me to do is contact them again and see what’s up. I’d like to be running the updated version obviously.

Thanks so much. Appreciate your help.

Aha! I had Theme Test Drive activated. Now I can see the Templates, but still not theme options.

Unfortunately, I can’t change the WP version myself. It’s the version that my webhost has and it’s applied, as far as I understand, by them.

Does the Theme Options allow me to make simple changes, like upload a new header image and do some tweaks? I only ask as I cannot see it.

THanks and super thanks for your blistering fast reply!