Can you help me bring my blog into this decade?
-
Hello – I started my blog way back in 2007, and used it successfully for many years. Then, about five years ago, life happened and I had to abandon it. And while I was away, the mice were evidently busy playing, and now so many things about the interface have changed.
One thing that I want to update is what used to be the RSS feed – now that button just elicits a page of code. Should I be deleting that and adding a Subscribe button? And if so, how? I don’t want to monetize or publish a newsletter, just allow folks to be notified when a new post apprears.
And I have a bunch of old links to other blogs that are totally out of date, but I don’t see how to delete them. In fact, the whole dashboard is really unfamiliar to me now. So even though I’ve been poking around on my own, trying to solve these and other mysteries, I could really use some friendy support. Can you help?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
-
Hi there, much depends on what you want. I note that your site is using Sapphire, which is a very old and long-retired theme. Are you interested/willing to switch to a newer theme? https://wordpress.com/themes The reason I ask is because once you switch away from Sapphire, you won’t be able to go back to it.
Let me know and we can go from there.
-
Thank you, Jennifer! If I were to change the theme, would these things be easier to deal with? Is it because I’m using an old theme (to which I was pretty attached over the years), but hey, I am willing to do whatever it takes to improve the blog’s functionality.
-
If I were to change the theme, would these things be easier to deal with?
Not necessarily. :)
WordPress.com moved to using blocks for content creation and for widgets for a few years now. It might be worth your time to work your way through the new user tutorials to get familiar with these changes and there is a whole Education community to support you as you learn.
https://wordpress.com/learn/courses/getting-started/
There are more learning resources mentioned here: https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/new-to-wordpress-com-resources-to-get-started/
If you decide to change themes, you might want to look at Classic themes that have a sidebar so that your site width can adapt and can be easily read on all devices. Classic themes use the Customizer, which you will already be familiar with from using your current theme. (The reason that many older themes like Sapphire were retired is because they were not adaptable. I’m not going to suggest the newer full-site editing themes because that would be like going from a daily stroll to a 5k run.)
I’ll continue in a moment since this is already getting long. :)
-
One more thing about Themes, you can Preview your current content in different themes by using the Try & Customize/Preview & Customize button that you’ll see when clicking on the three dots at the lower right of every theme thumbnail. https://wordpress.com/support/themes/changing-themes/#preview-a-theme
As far as changing out the RSS feed button, I’m not sure if that specific button is still available, but there is a Legacy RSS Links Widget that you can add, as well as a Subscribe block or a Legacy Follow Widget. All these are added/removed from the Widgets dashboard in the Customizer
About removing old links, I believe that you’ll find those in your Blogroll Links at https://frenchletters.wordpress.com/wp-admin/link-manager.php If you don’t see them there, please post back and let me know.
-
Hm, don’t know what happened there. Sorry!
https://frenchletters.wordpress.com/wp-admin/link-manager.php is the link for your Links dashboard
-
Jennifer – you are a jewel! I’ll work my way through your suggestions as soon as I fortify myself with coffee. It did occur to me somewhere in the middle of the night that it might be easier to just start a new blog using all the modern stuff, and find a way to link it to the existing content.
-
Good morning, @abrabennett starting a new blog might be a solution for you. Keep in mind that
Your new site will have a different URL to the current one.
The older blogroll widget is not available on newer sites regardless of theme. In other words, there is no connection any longer between the Links Manager in the dashboard and the front of your site, unless you have the older blogroll widget active on your site. (There is a new Blogroll Block, but it behaves very differently.) The solution previously given by Staff to displaying an existing “blogroll” was to copy the sidebar blogroll links and then paste them in a List block instead. That means you’d edit the List block to add or remove links there.
You might wish to open a 2nd free test site to try things out before changing anything on your current site. You could also export some of your content to the test site.
You earlier mentioned the change in the dashboard and I overlooked adding these links.
Getting Started https://wordpress.com/support/getting-started-with-wordpress-com/
Accessing the older, perhaps more familiar, WP Admin dashboard https://wordpress.com/support/dashboard/
Please post back here if you have questions about any of this. If I’m not around, I’m sure another volunteer will be able to assist.
-
Yikes, I’m getting practically nowhere. Using your link I did manage to delete all of the old links to other blogs, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to delete the old RSS feed button and replace it with a simple Subscribe button or widget.
I thought it might be a good idea to upgrade a bit to the basic plan, and right away WP assigned me a (my name) domain that I don’t want. Can I just ignore it and set up another site? Does the upgrade apply to any/all sites I have or just the unwanted domain?
My preference really is to keep my legacy blog, but I’m not sure how to make it work smoothly again. WP used to be so easy to use, and you did give me lots of instructions, but evidently I’m not techie enough to follow them!
-
Hello again, happy new year and kudos for sticking with it. (high five!)
Like everything else, take things one step at a time. Let’s start with the most time sensitive issue.
Custom domain: Did you purchase the Starter upgrade plan or only a custom domain? I’m asking because it seems like your custom domain currently redirects to frenchletters.
Can I just ignore it …
You do not need to use the custom domain you registered unless you want to. You can also cancel that domain within 96 hours of purchase.
…and set up another site? Does the upgrade apply to any/all sites I have or just the unwanted domain?
If you want to use that custom domain on a different WordPress.com site, it means that you’ll also need to move any upgrade plan you purchased for frenchletters or buy a new plan, in order to use it on that different site. In other words, each site needs its own plan.
Let us know what you want to do about the above.
Sapphire theme: Because your theme was retired so long ago and is no longer available for new users, I’d really recommend changing themes at this point. A recent WordPress.com platform update broke two other older themes that were retired around the same time as Sapphire. Any of the Classic themes with a sidebar should work for you. Looking at your current set up, I’d suggest having a look at Independent Publisher 2. And again, once you activate a different theme, you won’t be able to reactivate Sapphire.
The RSS Widget: Widgets are changed in the Dashboard at Appearance>Widgets or Appearance>Customizer>Widgets It’s the same on both Sapphire or Independent Publisher 2. The RSS widget like you have looks to be retired, but you should still see it as a Legacy Widget and you can remove it. At Widgets you can also add a Subscribe widget block.
Again, one step at a time.
-
Jennifer – I am trying to follow your advice about converting to Independent Publisher. In customizing the site for conversion I see no way to remove the retired RSS widget. I see a message suggesting that I use a custom HTML widget instead, but there’s no link to find that and I don’t see it anywhere. Nor do I see how to add a button to replace it, a subscription button. There’s a subscribe widget block, but clicking it doesn’t seem to add anything to my trial page. Since you warned me that once I convert I can’t go back I want to be sure that everything is working correctly before I do it. Might you be able to help me again please?
-
Hi again @abrabennett
In customizing the site for conversion I see no way to remove the retired RSS widget.
Since I don’t have access to that RSS widget, this is a more general explanation. And I’ve given instructions here for the older WP Admin Widgets dashboard, which might be more useful for you.
If you go to https://frenchletters.wordpress.com/wp-admin/widgets.php you should see a section in the middle of the screen named SIDEBAR. If it is not already open when you land on that dashboard page, click the SIDEBAR title or click the down arrow at the right side of that title bar to open it.
The first thing you should see in that SIDEBAR widget area after opening it are the things that appear at the top of your current sidebar, i.e. the text “Subscribe to French Letters RSS Feed” and the Feedburner RSS icon, which is inside a Text widget. You can edit the text “Subscribe to French Letters RSS Feed” to read “Subscribe to French Letters” and delete the Text widget containing the Feedburner icon by clicking on it and then clicking DELETE on your keyboard.
Next you can add either the Legacy RSS feed widget or the Subscribe widget or both. You do that by first typing a forward slash / below the text “Subscribe to French Letters” and type “Legacy”. The Legacy widget will be added and then you’ll need to choose “RSS Links” from the widget’s drop down menu. Leave the default options for now as they are automatically linked to the relevant feeds.
Next, hover your mouse below the widget you just added and you should see a dividing line appear with a plus sign in the middle of it. Click on the plus sign and type the word “Subscribe” in the search box. Click the Subscribe icon to add it to your sidebar widgets.
After you’re done adding the widgets to your sidebar, make sure to click the UPDATE button at the top right of that dashboard to update the widgets in your site’s sidebar.
I’d still like to refer you to the support doc on Widgets, which gives the best information about adding, customizing and removing widgets on your site.
As a volunteer, I don’t think I can add anything further here. I hope it’s helped to make it a bit clearer. If you feel you need more help with this, with the Starter/Personal plan you do have access to direct support by email at https://wordpress.com/help and by clicking on the Contact Us button there. Or by letting us know here. Cheers!
- The topic ‘Can you help me bring my blog into this decade?’ is closed to new replies.