…I took an in-depth look at major and minor wordpress technicals, widget redesign and selection, and other new and improved ™ items.  As well, did I flirt briefly with a couple of “paid” features, the use of which I will not allow myself without setting some goal or other.

The first is Ad removal, the second is (naturally) CSS access.  I have little need for either of these.  My aesthetic sense, I suppose, urges me to consider the removal of all advertisements; but these mostly appear to logged-out users and do not therefore present much distraction.  As far as CSS access, the one and only element I would consider changing in the site involves the comment section.  I would rather comments not be alternatively grey then black.  I see no reason for this, and would choose to make them all black; I am not sure doing so is worth $30/year however : )  Neither of these elements seems pay-worthy.

In any case, my exploration into the addition and change in function of various widgets resulted in a few changes on the sidebar.  I have long vacillated upon whether to list the archives as a drop-down list or in normal text.  Even though I have felt for a while that the list was too long and does not automatically sub-sort into years (decades, &c) I have resisted the temptation to change it to a drop-down list because I felt it would be like mounting a glaring white spotlight on a site that is normally so dark and austere.  But since I have now, in a manner of speaking, “spoiled” the site with a pair of “Follow” buttons (one for logged-in users, one for non-members or those logged-out) it seemed as though I might as well do so.

I have also limited the “tag cloud” to 30 items, as, when wordpress updated the function of this widget to allow an adjustment in the default number of tags they arbitrarily chose 75!  Which was why the thing seemed to be getting unwieldy.   I have never liked the look of the tag-cloud.  As such, one wish-list item for me has been a drop-down list of tags also.  Using wordpress.org, one may provide a tag list/cloud on a separate page using a “short-code”–but such a thing does not (or did not, a few months ago : ) work on wordpress.com.  In any case, 30 items gives the tag cloud a nice, generally “square” shape, and therefore looks much less as though someone “tossed his Alpha-Bits ™” all over the sidebar.

I have also changed the order of some things; or, to be accurate, I changed them, changed them again, changed them once more, &c, until I was satisfied that the new “buttons/drop-downs” presented the least distraction.

Goody gumdrops….

I will be a monkey’s uncle if any of the following are, in actual point of fact, related articles:
I may also consider eating my hat (no guarantees)

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