Greetings loyal followers!
No, I’m not implying that I’m updating a great blog in the title; I’m not that narcissistic, but I didn’t want to just change things unremarked. Like any great undertaking this is a work in progress, and I only hope it will progress in good time. I’m unsure if some of the changes will require me to have a paid site, which I’m planning on doing anyway, but I’d like certain things to be available for my loyal followers before I go forward with that.
Please let me know if any of the posts are difficult to read. Since it’s now a black background with grey, and I can’t seem to change the default font without updating the CSS, I want to make sure it’s still easily readable. I can change it in new posts, but to fix older ones, I’d have to do it one by one, and there are over 700.
I…think that’s actually the only major thing. I’m able to read it fairly easily with my awful eyesight, but please let me know if you’re having any problems.
I love and appreciate you all!
TSN
The Shameful Narcissist Speaks 
Everything’s better in black
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You don’t have to tell me that 😀
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We all know black background blogs are the best! I had the same issue with mine a year ago where the text was too dim over the black. I can read this on my laptop but probably not on my cell while out and about. That was the feedback I got too. With the theme we’re using I was able to update the font to be brighter. No option for that with your font?
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The only issue I’ve seen with your blog is the search box. It’s black against black lol. I can usually figure out what I’m typing though. If you use the WP reader, it *should* be okay, because I think all blogs are uniform on that.
No…there’s no option. I’d have to go into each blog post and update it, but once I upgrade to .org site, I’ll be able to do so. I need a CSS code, but you can’t alter that unless you have an upgraded blog. I also want to make the header transparent, AND I have to update almost all of my banners since they’re either too big, fuzzy, or the header covers words.
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That search box will be the death of me. Haha I actually just PgDn until the whole blog is visible then ctrl+f. My theme doesn’t let me modify the search bar colors at all. One big reason to upgrade again! As for the reader, yeah I think that’s uniform.
These WP themes are very very limited.
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You can’t change it even though your blog is updated?? That’s ridiculous!
They really are…I thought they’d be a lot more versatile, but you have to have an upgraded one. Don’t get me wrong, even the free ones are pretty stellar, but when you learn more about what you want to do, there is quite a limitation.
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Yeah so the way that WP has their upgrades structured is in tiers, as I’m sure you’ve seen, so I can attest that the first upgraded tier does not allow you to do any aesthetic changes to your theme. I’m pretty sure that’s reserved for the next steps up. Eventually I’m planning to get the highest tier, the business plan, since that will allow us a much greater range of freedom. It’s cool that the options are there, and I hope you find that magic combination that works for you!
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I’m going to go for the Premium tier! I saw the first one, and it really doesn’t do much. I wanted to try to do this in June so it would be as far away from my Amazon Prime payment as possible (January) lol, but September will have to do. I’m super picky about aesthetics, and I’ve been wanting to upgrade my bog for a while now anyway.
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Looks good. 🙂
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Whoohoo!
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It looks the same in the app reader… 😉
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Ha! That app reader is terrible if you’re trying to hide spoilers :p
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This is lovely Adrienne! I’m having a little bit of a hard time reading the text, but I think that’s because I have my night-time dimmer on.💁🏻
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I’m going to try to make it brighter very soon! I’ve been wanting to update my blog or a while, but I wasn’t sure which theme I wanted to use. Then I found one used by a couple of bloggers I follow, but couldn’t figure out what it was (never realizing there’s a button at the bottom that lets you check, but apparently there’s a LOT of things that you need to change using CSS, which you can’t do unless you have an upgraded blog.
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Blog design, something about I always feel a bit insecure (I test a lot and I think that my current design is the one that has lasted more). Like others, I find the text a bit dark but still is readable (I’m on my PC right now). I usually like the grey text with black background so if you make it a bit brighter as you say, I think it will be perfect. Search option, contrary to others, is working perfectly.
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I follow quite a few blogs with that, too! To be honest it’s hurting my eyes less than the white background with black text I normally have, but I have light sensitive eyes. If all goes well I’ll be able to upgrade my blog by next week 😉
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Gray on black is so much easier for me to read than gray on white — I can never understand why people do that, especially with finely lined fonts. I like the look of yours — it’s kind of night-timey engulfing and mysterious.
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Well that’s great! A few people have said that grey on black is a bit hard to read, so I was going to manually change new posts to white so it would stand out a bit better. WordPress sets the defaults for the font per template, and you can’t change it unless you have a .org updated bog. I’m planning to do that soon, and I’ll be able to do so much more! I really do love the new aesthetic. It hurts my eyes less than the white background, which means I can look at it for longer.
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I like the black, but the text is gray and hard to read?
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That seems to be the major complaint and it’s totally valid! Once I upgrade, I can change that, but WP seems to have default fonts and colors for their templates, which is annoying. I can probably manually change the color per post, but to change it for everything I need to use CSS, which is only available when you upgrade. I have no clue why they hell they’d pick grey font against black.
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I love the background! Not a huge fan of grey-on-black text, but I can read it on my computer as long as I have the brightness up. If it’s a pain to fix, it’s not a deal-breaker in regards to readability, though.
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That seems to be the main complaint! WordPress pretty much has a default font and color for their templates based on what background you use *grumble* Once I upgrade I can change that, so for the time being I’ll see if I can just change the font to white manually. There’s so much you can do when you have a .org blog. You can use CSS to alter ANYTHING.
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Yeah… Only some are really customizable, I found… I’m considering investing in one of the “premium” layouts if I can find one that customizes to the way I want. Good luck!
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I initially thought that you had to have a premium layout to have a premium blog, but I think you can upgrade and keep which ever one you want, but more become open to you! I also have the problem you had before with the spoiler thing. Anything older with spoiler tags will be plain to see, because it would be highlighted in white. So…I think it would still blog it, but it would look weird :p
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Black background blogs really are the best! I love the new look 😀
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I might flip my iPhone to the same aesthetic :p
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Nice! I’m digging the new look. 🙂
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I really like it. The only problem I have it the grey against black background. I might see if I can do a temp fix until I can upgrade.
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I like the new look. The decision to change the text to white, in the newer posts, is wise because it contrasts better with the background than grey does.
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That is actually being done manually hehe. When I finished the post, I highlight all of the text and change the font color to white. This will be my go around until I can upgrade. It’s not really a difficult extra step, and it makes it a lot easier to read. I don’t know why the hell WordPress has grey set up for a black background…
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Your new layout looks great! I’ve been thinking about updating mine too, since it’s been the same for almost 2 years now…
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It’s still a WIP, but I’m slowly working on it. The HTML tutorial they recommend you read is pretty good.
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That’s good! I’ve taken some courses on HTML and CSS on a website called Treehouse, and those are really helpful too! I used Treehouse a lot when I was trying to teach myself coding, but I haven’t had much time to practice lately, so I had to put that on hold.
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WordPress actually has a link to a site when you go to look at your CSS code lol. It’s pretty good, though there are a few things they could be a bit more specific on. I’m glad I took the time to read through the HTML part, because initially just jumping into CSS didn’t make a whole lot of sense. They have you build the HTML coding first, which makes it much easier to tie things together, since it’s supposed to modify it anyway.
I’ll keep Treehouse in mind if I ever some more pointers 🙂
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Oh I didn’t know that! That’s pretty cool. Yeah CSS is a little bit weird…. back in the day when I was getting my degree in Computer Graphics and Design, CSS wasn’t really around… we used HTML for both design and structure elements of the webpage. It was a bit simpler back then! 😉
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I’m more used to HTML, but I am liking how you can link a CSS file to your HTML one. The instructions are excellent for the most part, and I feel comfortable enough to update my default font, though I’m going to wait until I finish the entire tutorial.
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