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Maintenance: Style, Plans, and History

Posted: 7/11/23 (revised: 1/23/24)
Category: Maintenance Software
Topics: Wordpress Hugo Website

Disclaimer: Maintenance pages are for those who update this website. Nonetheless, everyone is free to look.

Since 2001

The flat5.net domain was acquired (registered) on October 23rd, 2001. At that time, it contained five hand-coded pages of web links. It’s purpose was to provide common access to that list for our personal computers.

In July of 2004, Ed began using Blogger.com to write about the target-pistol sport of Bullseye. Over time, he expanded into other topical areas (with more sub-domains) at Blogger.

In 2011, Ed’s blogging was consolidated at flat5.net through the addition of Wordpress. Posts, pages, software upgrades and hosting system configuration changes continued for the next decade.

It’s important to note that, during this time, backups were automatically created and stored by the hosting provider, but only rarely spot-checked. Unfortunately, through these changes, older images sometimes became inaccessible, but the loss went undetected.

In 2023 as planning for Ed’s new “author” website, EDSkinner.net, the extent of the loss at flat5 became apparent. It was decided to merge flat5’s recoverable content into the new site.

Website maintenance shifted to the Hugo static site generator, and file backup procedures were brought “in-house” to avoid future losses.

For those interested, the General Information page and other documents in the Maintenance section of this website have many of the technical details. Additional questions can be sent to me via the contact page.

Incremental Changes

In reverse chronological order

07/11/2023

The combined website EDSkinner.net and Flat5.net went live.

07/01/2023

Recovery of lost information continued from multiple resources including Archive.org.

05/01/2023 (approximate)

Decided to drop Wordpress and change hosting (and email) provider.

Began reconfiguring for a static webpage configuration with Hugo and Bootstrap.

NOTE

All entries hereafter relate to the earlier WordPress version of the site.

04/21/2023

Installed and activated the “Flexia Pro” Wordpress plugin. It offers a few additional options, but overall I’m not impressed with them versus the non-Pro capabilities.

Changed the Added CSS. Here’s the new version.

body, input, textarea {
        line-height: 1.3; /* Tighter line spacing. EDS 04/20/2023 */
}

p {
	margin-top: 0.25em;   /* For Flexia theme. EDS 04/21/2023 */
        margin-bottom: 0em;   /* Tighter vertical spacing. EDS 02/23/2023 */
        text-indent: 0;         /* Do not indent 1st paragraph (see p+p below). EDS 02/23/2023 */
}

p + p {                 /* Indent 2nd+ paragraphs but not the firs. EDS 02/23/2023 */
        text-indent: 2em;
}

h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
        padding-top: 1em;       /* Space above headings. EDS 02/23/2023 */
}

04/20/2023

Switched to the “Flexia” (not “Flexia Pro”) theme for better support on mobile (small screen) devices.

The header and footer backgrounds are #004f5b and text thereon is #e0e0e0.

04/18/2023

Switched the titles font to “Noto Sans” to stay in that family for future compatability.

Upgraded to WordPress 6.2. The old “random quote” plugin is NFG with this version but the newer one that does the writing prompts is fine.

02/23/2023

Added the Fonts Plugin | Google Fonts Typography and set the overall default font to “Noto Serif” and the title (h1, h2, h3, etc.) font to “Rosario”.

I then removed the font overrides in public_html/wordpress/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven-child/style.css.

But in that same file, I added first versus subsequent paragraph indents, reduced the margin-bottom between paragraphs to zero, and added 1em padding to the top of all headings.

Here’s the revised style.css file:

body, input, textarea {
        line-height: 1.2; /* Tighter line spacing. EDS 08/2011 */
}

p {
        margin-bottom: 0.0em;   /* Tighter vertical spacing. EDS 02/23/2023 */
        text-indent: 0;         /* Do not indent 1st paragraph (see p+p below). EDS 02/23/2023 */
}

p + p {                 /* Indent 2nd+ paragraphs but not the firs. EDS 02/23/2023 */
        text-indent: 2em;
}

h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
        padding-top: 1em;       /* Space above headings. EDS 02/23/2023 */
}

#site-generator {
        display: none; /* Suppress WordPress's link at page bottom I've included one (elsewhere). EDS 08/2011 */
}

blockquote {
        background: #FFF0D6;
}

07/30/2018

Via ssh: chmod 444 html/.htaccess
(Was 644 when I started. Tried 440 and 400 but couldn’t load the site. Settled for 444.)

And removed several suspicious files as per an alert from Cheap-Domain Registration.

06/30/2018

Removed the contact page; it drew spam but nothing else.

12/17/2016

Switched to SSL service, from http: to https:.

12/01/2016 (approx.): Purchased SSL certificate and switched the basic website
12/15/2016: Removed old (no longer used) files at ./ web-based directory
12/17/2016
- Added line to wordpress/wp-config.php
  define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
- Moved old images from ./ to ./images and changed links accordingly
- Moved other files from ./ to ./miscellaneous and changed links accordingly
- Moved unused files from ./ to ../defunct/ (inaccessible from web page)
- Began changing links in pages and posts
  from flat5.net/whatever to whatever

07/06/2015

This website’s upload file size limit is now set (see html/php5.ini) as follows:

upload_max_filesize = 64M
post_max_size = 66M

Note: The PHP server at the web hosting service for this website can take as long as 60-90 minutes to notice (implement) changes to these file(s). There is nothing I can do to force that any sooner.

09/01/2014

Attempted to move style.css (in the child theme) into the Dashboard, Appearance -> Edit CSS and while it initially appeared to work, after a couple of refreshes all CSS was lost. Not sure what happened in WP but when I backed out the changes, everything was displayed correctly again (including my style.css additions that I also restored into the child theme).

Here is my (child theme’s) style.css:

body, input, textarea {
 font: 15px Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; /* Serif'd fonts in body. EDS 08/2011 */
 line-height: 1.2; /* Tighter line spacing. EDS 08/2011 */
}

h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
 font: 15px "Poor Richard", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; /* Better title font. EDS 08/2011 */
}

p {
 margin-bottom: 0.6em; /* Tighter vertical spacing. EDS 08/2011 */
}

#site-generator {
 display: none; /* Suppress WordPress's link at page bottom I've included one (elsewhere). EDS 08/2011 */
}

blockquote {
 background: #FFF0D6;
}

02/08/2013

When using “ssh”, turned off color highlighting

$HOME/.bash_profile: unalias ls
$HOME/.vimrc: syntax off

09/17/2012

Changed the background color in the child’s style.css for blockquotes to look somewhat like faded newsprint (color #fff0d6).

Wrote a Style Guide page (in the About menu).

Changed all “Fast Eddie’s Wisdom” entries to conform to the new Style Guide.

Tried but then abandoned “paper.png” background for the central text column as follows in the child’s style.css:

#branding, #main, #primary, #supplementary.one {
        background : url(images/paper.png);
}

I abandoned this background because some of the WordPress icons look poor because they have white instead of clear backgrounds – they are JPGs, not PNGs – and also because it made the blog look dingy.

08/30/2012

Added RSS Feeds icons at top of sidebar.

08/12/2012 (approx.)

All articles at the old blogs (*.blogspot.com) deleted. Only the headers remain and those do nothing except forward readers to this blog.

07/01/2012

Use Dashboard -> Media -> Library to edit or completely remove images from the random header library.

05/15/2012

To have a graphic appear with a blog entry on the Flat5 “home page” but not in the blog entry itself, edit the blog entry and use the graphic icon to upload the graphic. Save the changes and close the uploader but do not click the insert into page nor the use as featured image controls.

The graphic will appear on the Flat5.net home page along with the first few words from that blog. But when the reader clicks through to read that blog, the cover graphic will not appear.

When a blog contains more than one graphic, the first one will appear on the Flat5 home page. Any graphic can be set to be “number one” as follows:

Edit the blog entry of interest;
Click the “Add Media” icon to open the Add Media popup;
Select the “Gallery” tab;
In the list of graphics, “grab” the one of interest and move it to the top of the list or, alternatively, sequence the graphics by typing in a sequence number (1, 2, 3, …) in the box to the right of each graphic;
If available, click the “Save all changes” button;
Of it that button is not available, click “Show” by the graphic of interest and, therein, click the “Save all changes” button; and
Finally, close (via the “X”) the Add Media popup.

Note: You may need to flush your browser’s cache before you will see the changes take effect.

12/01/2011

The original plan was:

Export “flat5.net” as an XML file and download it. Write a script to extract the image links back to blogspot.com. Use the result to “wget” those images and then upload them to “flat5.net”. Hand-edit (!) all pages and substitute the local images for those back at blogspot.com so that “flat5.net” is no longer dependent upon those images that are, currently, found only on the blogspot.com entries.

In practice, however, there was a whole lot more to it and I understand, at least to some degree, why WordPress did not automate that process. The complexity has to do with how blogger stores images and how, over time, they changed how they did it. (My guess is I ran into three different methods of directory naming, file redirecting and html-nesting.)

I ended up using “wget -x” (love that “-x” option!) several times after some hefty “grep” operations on the XML, running “find” down various paths and renaming directories, dealing with directories whose name started with a hyphen which is always annoying in Linux, and mucking about directly in the mysql database – a potentially disastrous approach only attempted after making multiple, complete backups of all the family jewels.

And – Hooray! – to the best of my testing, it’s now done. I’m 100% (cross my fingers) disconnected from blogger. All the blog contents, text and graphics, are now here.

11/24/2011

The old flat5.net’s static content, except for a couple of pages that are being dropped, has been converted to the new format and placed under menus on the new home page. The old locations will remain for a few months but will eventually be replaced for forwarding links to the new location.

I have the list of images still linked from the new website, and have copies thereof now safely tucked away here. But changing the links means dabbling in the WordPress database – for that, I’m awaiting two books from Amazon.com that should give me enough information to make the updates in that regard. Once completed, flat5.net will be completely disconnected from its old blogger.com roots.

08/28/2011

I set up the “child” theme as per WordPress instructions. Therein, I set text and heading fonts and also the tighter line and paragraph spacing, all as noted below (08/15/2011). And because I have the WordPress link in a footer, I suppressed the standard one in the style.

Finally, to get all the header images in place, I manually uploaded all 58 for the new child theme. This appears to have duplicated the images in the file system, one set for the original “twentyeleven” theme and the second for the new “twentyeleven-child” theme. I posted a note (and some suggestions) in the WordPress.org Theme forum in these regards.

Visually, everything looks as it did but the “twentyeleven” theme is now in its original condition. As needed for bug fixes, etc, “twentyeleven” themem can be updated without corrupting any of my changes. (All of my changes are in the child theme, as per WordPress’s recommendation.)

08/15/2011

Tried a number of experiments.

First, I set up a “child” theme page as per the instructions from WordPress. This was pretty straightforward and allowed me to set fonts, paragraph spacings and so forth as I wished without modifying the style.css of the original theme.

But when I “applied” it to flat5.net, all of the images I uploaded for the header were ignored. (Apparently the database for the “child” style doesn’t list those images. I verified they were still on the system but the new “child” style didn’t inherit them as I had expected.) So I switched back to the original style and the images re-appeared.

I posted a question in the WordPress Forum for Themes in this regard. (Click HERE.)

So I ended up making the style changes back in the original style.css file:

For “body, input, textarea”, I ended up withfont: 15px Georgia, “Times New Roman”, Times, serif; /* Added EDS 08/15/2011 */
For “h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6”, I now havefont: 15px “Poor Richard”, “Helvetica Neue”, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; /* Added EDS 08/15/2011 */
In the “p” text element, margin-bottom is now reduced to 0.6em; and
Line spacing is reduced to 1.2 (instead of 1.6).

I experimented with some “p+p” settings but found that a graphics insert messes up the indent in the paragraph in which it resides. This may be a Firefox issue but, regardless, it looks bad enough that I won’t use it. So there’s no “p+p” setting. Incidentally, the margin-bottom was down to 0.2em with paragraph indenting but, without it, it needs to be 0.6em as noted above.

08/14/2011

Posted a question in the WordPress Forum (Themes area) about setting up a static home page but then linking in the “blog” pages. I later found the answer on my own. (See HERE.)

Previously

I suppressed this theme’s link to the administrative login that appeared on every page by removing the “Meta” widget from any/all sidebars and footers. To login, go to flat5.net/wordpress/wp-login.php.

I suppressed this theme’s “Powered by WordPress” footer. See style.css in the Child Theme and look for display: none;.