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Thank you, but this plugin doesn't seem to address the blog grid. You'll see what I'm talking about on the demo page for the eleven40 theme:
http://demo.studiopress.com/eleven40/
The homepage displays the full content of the most recent post, and then below that are post excerpts displayed as a two-column grid.
Instead of a two-column grid, I just want shortened posts with "read more" links.
I wanted to add . . .
Be sure you change all three lines of code that reference box shadow. That way the shadow will display the same in different browsers.
It's an easy change to make.
In your WordPress dashboard, click on Appearance and then edit, and then in your stylesheet search for #wrap.
You'll see three lines of code for box shadow. The width of the shadow is set to 25px, which is huge. I'd try under 10px. The color is also quite dark. I'd set it to a softer gray like #ccc, #ddd, #dcdcdc or #999. You could also choose a very soft pastel as the shadow color. Here's a great chart to choose from:
http://www.hitmill.com/html/pastels.html
You'd want to choose the lightest or second to lightest colors.
🙂
It's even easier to screw up when using FTP.
You can inadvertently make edits directly in the parent files, thinking you're in the child files. Also, even though the sFTP access through Synthesis is secure, hence the s, there are still vulnerabilities.
CyberDuck, a free FTP client, was just recommended to me by StudioPress support and WP Engine. This is what they use. So I'm going to download that and join the ducks.
🙂
You're right, Susan. They say "we," but I think they really mean Synthesis. I'm just getting a repeated response from StudioPress support:
We have rolled out a change that turns the WordPress code editor off.
The reason for this is that, we have experienced large numbers of users crashing their sites by editing PHP from within WordPRess (a PHP application itself) we've removed the WP editor system wide.
You can use FTP and a text editor to achieve the same in a much safer fashion.
We also highly encourage backing up or making a copy of any files that you edit so that you can easily undo them should issues occur.
They are only indirectly referencing hackers/security and instead are focused on their customers as the cause of any problems. Yesterday I pasted some code from the Code Snippet page into the functions file, and my entire website shut down. I sent a support ticket. And now I'm being told that actions like what I did yesterday are the reason they're doing this. They said nothing about hacker vulnerability. They say this was a system-wide change, but I'm feeling like only a handful of customers have been hand-slapped and have had their WordPress edit features removed.
Now I need to examine the FileZiller software I download and somehow figure out how to evaluate it in terms of security protocols??? This is why I chose Synthesis. But now a third-party software program is involved, and I have no way of knowing if it's going to lead to more problems. And what's their support like? So let me guess: This is where people start chiming in about GREAT programs that have high-grade security in place, but are expensive to buy, right?
I'm totally baffled.
Also, if this such a serious (and sudden) concern, does this mean my blog posts aren't safe? And that I should not blog via the WordPress dashboard anymore? This has now caused me to question the entirety of WordPress.
The only thing I'm questioning about StudioPress and Synthesis is how they handled this sudden shut-off. Nothing more.
This is what StudioPress support just told me:
Due to large numbers of users crashing their sites by editing PHP from within WordPRess (a PHP application itself) we've removed the WP editor system wide. Â You can use FTP and a text editor to achieve the same in a much safer fashion. Â We also highly encourage backing up or making a copy of any files that you edit so that you can easily undo them should issues occur.
Did Sucuri just make this announcement? Or has this been a known problem for years and Synthesis is just now making this decision? I'm really upset and very confused. I am brand new to this company and am extremely disappointed that they didn't send out a warning to their customers. I find that to be incredibly insulting.
Could someone please clarify this . . .
If Synthesis is using top-grade security measures (one of their biggie marketing tools), how is my dashboard any more vulnerable than my Synthesis account or my FTP access, which uses sign-in information that can be found in my Synthesis account? Doesn't this make FTP clients a huge target for hackers, now?
Aren't they just shuffling off the problem to someone else, since they don't own/operate the FTP side of things? What protections do I have when I use FTP? How is that protection any different than what's in place for my WordPress dashboard?
So is it safe to assume that WP Engine is going to do the same thing? Does this mean the dashboard is going to become defunct? I downloaded FileZilla and am trusting I'm safe using their software. But now I'm feeling very concerned about this entire experience, because I'm not seeing how anything can fairly be considered safe. The logic just isn't connecting for me.
I trust StudioPress and Synthesis. I'm not a coder or an expert, so I completely believe they did this for good reason. But with no emailed warning/caution/explanation??? That really concerns me.
FTP isn't an option for me. It's important knowing how to use it, but there's no way I'm changing font colors and doing simple things via FTP.
Something happened, and it's not our fault. But I did tons of research before joining Synthesis and trust they'll get this figured out. I'm just kind of bummed with the timing.
Hi Krystn!
Do you recall what your steps were up to the missing edit link? It seems this may have nothing to do with the plugin update I did this morning.
As a new StudioPress and Synthesis, this makes me uncomfortable, but I'm sure there's a way they can fix this.
🙂
StudioPress support sent me this link:
http://websynthesis.com/ftp-connect-and-edit/
I told them this makes no sense. Sure, I can do my editing via FTP, but that's what the WordPress dashboard is for. All I did was update a plugin. Is that what caused this problem?
They said Synthesis turned off the edit link and then told me to read the article. They didn't offer any additional help. So I'm expected to know what this means? Why on earth would they turn off the edit link?
How do I fix this???
Lovely website. My only suggestion is that you soften the shadow along the sides of your content. I think it's too overpowering. Very subtle would be best with your design.
I'd love some guidance with this.
On my blog grid of excerpts, I only want the date to show. I can easily suppress the comments link with CSS, but the hyphen between the date and comments link still displays. How can I remove this without also removing it from my full posts?
Thanks for the links. I followed the advice in the WP Beginner article and turned off link notifications from other blogs. They said 99% of the notifications are usually spam, so I followed their advice and turned it off.
And from the other article, I learned that tags aren't used by SEO or Google. Am I understanding that correctly? You can easily add tags to each post, and I always thought the primary purpose was SEO, but apparently it's more of a service for readers.
So does this mean I don't need to add tags? It won't in any way affect rankings, traffic, SEO, Google, etc.?
I can add tags to my comments in this forum. That helps people find what they're looking for, but it does nothing outside of this forum, right?
It seems I can't delete threads I've started, even if there aren't any comments yet.
So I'm just posting back here to say, I figured it out. The StudioPress folks created a bypostauthor class, but left it blank in the stylesheet. You can easily add a color to the post author's name.
Cheerios!!
Thanks, Mary!
I don't think this will put the symbol at the end of the last sentence in my posts. But I'll play around with the code and see if I can figure this out. There are examples of functions that place signature lines at the end of a post, but I need this to appear directly in the post itself.
🙂
That's a great idea. I'll create a function for this instead of a short code.
I'd prefer to add it to my functions file, but I haven't done this before. Do you know of any helpful instructions on how to do this? I thought I saw a tutorial on StudioPress, but I can't find it.
Thank you.
Thanks, Susan. Other forums really jump on people when new threads are started for topics that have been recently addressed. But I'm glad to know that I can just start a new one here. I wasn't posting here for help, but just wanted to follow up and offer a solution once I learned how to fix this problem.
Support sent me that same link you gave me. It was very straight forward. I downloaded FileZilla for free, logged in to my Synthesis account and obtained my FTP username, password, and domain, and was up and running quickly. It was easy finding the child file, so I deleted the code in functions.php that caused the problem, uploaded it, and the problem was fixed.
But I feel that the Code Snippet page needs to provide some instructions. Like the OP, I simply pasted the code into the file, and suddenly my entire dashboard and website shut down. The changes I made weren't the cause of the problem, so it may be a matter of where I pasted the code. PHP is very finicky.
Hopefully this will help someone who searches for some help and finds this thread. I came here for help, but found an incomplete thread.
