G’day gang. Forgive the sheer mundanity of the post, but I thought I’d best alert y’all to some imminent changes to the website lest they cause heart attacks / seizures to long-term readers.
The Columbophile blog has remained virtually unchanged in its appearance since its launch in 2015, largely due to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it mentality’ of your gracious host. However, the existing theme of the site is no longer supported, meaning any glitches that rear their ugly heads will have to be fixed manually rather than being taken care of in the background by nebulous and unseen (but not unappreciated) coding whizzes.
Given that my own coding skill ranking lurks somewhere between ‘bungling amateur’ and ‘non-existent’, this bodes ill for the site in its current form. Fear not though, loyal readers, for it is relative child’s play to simply choose another theme and sit back in wonder as the entire website adopts the new looks / features without zillions of hours of hard toil. And that’s what lies in store here.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve quietly been playing with dozens and dozens of potential new themes for the site (rock ‘n’ roll, I know) with the aim of gentle aesthetic evolution rather than ‘shock to the system’ revolution. The updated site will look a little fresher, with a more exciting homepage and a more pleasing presentation of individual blog posts, but there’ll be nothing to enrage or startle the regular audience.
I’m not sure when the switch will happen but it will occur in the coming days, so be prepared and don’t be alarmed if things look a little different when you next check in. There may be a few teething problems along the way, so I’ll ask for your patience and understanding in advance in case of unexpected matters arising.
It’s time like this I appreciate even more the generosity of those who have donated towards the upkeep of the site these past couple of years. You’re the cream of cream! And I do hope you’ll continue to enjoy the new-look site for many a moon to come…
Show the site some love – from just $3
I don’t think I ever got a reply to my question although other comments are receiving responses. Thank you for your time. I’ll put a copy of it here.
Are you talking about leaving WordPress and how we interact with the platform (comments and subscribing)? Or just the appearance of the pages?
Sorry, totally missed the first comment. I’m staying with WordPress, just changing the theme / appearance, but each theme can be so different and have so many different features that it’s hard to know whether functionality will change until after switching over. Subscribing and commenting ought not to change as far as I can see.
The type seems a little
larger, with a gray colour.
Overall, easier to read than before.
Now that you have raised the issue
of editing a comment within a 5 minute
window… Does anyone know at what
point we will see a post before the 5
minutes have elapsed?
The question is about replies to a post
that was edited, and are now out of date.
Reposted again at 20 seconds before
window closing.
To answer my own question.
I see that the post is shown
each time you update and repost it.
But anyone who wants to reply to it,
can easily check if it posted more
than 5 minutes ago.
I think your site is terrific and has been a good companion to my box DVD set. It’s obviously a labor of love and your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Just one thing that’s bothering me…It’d be nice to be able to edit a post. I tend to miss typos and such until they’re posted and then being permanent it can be embarrassing. But if that’s not an option I’ll just have to do better prooofreading.
Do you mean editing comments left in the comments section? If so, I’ll have to see what’s possible. There may be a plug-in available, but editing doesn’t seem to come as standard.
Generally, editing is not a good idea, because if one does a key edit to the gist or important details of one’s post, it can result in the replies that answer it not making any sense, to those who read that thread.
I’ve done a little research and there is a plug-in that allows the commenter to edit their post within a 5-minute window. That might do the trick.
That’s a great solution!
Saying that, I just ran a test on it and the comment has disappeared into the ether…
Is that a bug — or a feature 🙂
Maybe as a regular commenter, you could have a try and see if you can edit comment?
This comment is meant for the expressed purpose of testing the editing plug-in.
How do I go about editing this (or any comment I made here? I’m ready to try.
I have edited this comment now. Let’s see if it appears, as edited.
I just tried a test comment elsewhere. Once comment is posted, there’s a ‘Click to edit’ option that appears directly below the comment that times down from 5 mins. It worked OK for me.
My edited comment stayed on the page! 25 minutes later and it’s still here. I even refreshed the page and it seems to work. Nice!
HUZZAH and HURRAH! Thanks for being the proverbial guinea pig on this.
Glad to help!
Thanks for so quickly following up on that. A five minute window is fine. There are many sites that offer a similar chance to tidy up some writing errors. My primary problem was with having written something and then upon further thought, some change in wording was needed for better clarity. I find writing on a tablet convenient but also easier to screw up.
Oh, and just one more thing. I just noticed that I had spelled the word proofreading with three Os.
No doubt a deliberate error to underline your point?
I hope that you can
work a method in there
where we can make suggestions for
new threads. Such as:
“The Top 10 Times Columbo Saved Someone By
Catching the Killer”
“The 10 Times Columbo Got Chewed Out By Minor
Characters”… etc.
First, I am hoping all is well with your family and you too . As Columbo is tops with me, any changes or updates that you seem fit to do are fine with me. I leave it in your capable hands. I go back repeatedly to read your episode reviews, and value your and the followers opinions. There are times I look a low ranked episode and think, I rather like that one. The episode where Columbo goes to England I find to be such a delight. Due to the acting or overacting. I found the two leads, that I never heard of before such fun to watch, and when he pushed the old butler in his cottage was outrageous. Be safe out there.
I also thoroughly enjoyed how Coumbo’s lunch was destroyed when the Inspector showed him the autopsy photos.
Yes, he arrives at London’s Heathrow airport and bungles through the customs check, telling others nearby “11 hours from LA, on a 707” ..or similar – silly but very amusing.
If you’re referring to the actor that played Nicholas Frame, that’s Richard Basehart, who had a long career in film, starting in the late 1940s with top notch films noir, He Walked By Night, Tension, House on Telegraph Hill. After he married Italian actress Valentina Cortese in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made films with Fellini, La Strada and Il Bidone, considered some of the best films ever made, and had the role of Ishmael in John Huston’s Moby Dick. In the 60s moved back to the States where he found work in TV, most notably on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
You can always say something like, “Oh, I have another website, but that’s nothing special.” Whatever it looks like, it will be a great resource. Looking forward to the new look. Thanks for everything you do here.
Congrats CP. Even your ‘Service Update’ messages are a delight to read!
I like your sense of humour!
Thanks Alister, I try my best!
You certainly can write a good post!! Thanks for the head’s up!
Thank-you Columbophile, good luck with it. Appreciative of your work and writing.
Don’t know if it’s on your menu of ideas, CP, but I’d be appreciative of an easier way to access archived articles. So if I wanted to review your piece about. let’s say, Columbo’s First Name, I’d see perhaps a drop down and the article title listed. It would also provide new Columbophile blog readers an easy way to see the wealth of material on the site and cherry-pick the classic blog entries they want to check out. It may be too late in the game to implement this, but thought I’d throw it out there.
That’s a good idea. I could perhaps add an archive / site map page to the top navigation to link to every article. The existing archive function is pretty useless.
Hi Glenn, I’ve created an archive / site map page of sorts today. Here it is: https://columbophile.com/archive/ Does this achieve what you’d want it to achieve?
CP – Yes! The organization into categories helps funnel the choices for the reader and makes it easier to browse. My only other suggestion would be to give your archive a prominent position (or at least an extra push) in your site re-launch, so new and recent Columbophile Blog supporters have a fuller idea of the wide range of content available to read. I suspect that because the archive function has been, as you say, “pretty useless”, there’s a significant number of people who have checked out the site and liked it, but had no idea how much more content they would have been interested in. And, if there’s a time lapse between brand new articles, there’s plenty of older material to hold reader interest (might take a bit more pressure for fresh writing content off you).
Very sensible suggestions, thanks Glenn. Yes, I’ll see what I can do to make this prominent once the update occurs.
Your site is as pleasing to the palate as the freshly prepared and elegantly served sole lunch by Henry the butler at Brimmer Associates.
Who are we, Santini? He’s the cream of cream – per Mike Lally
Nicely picked up!
Your site is as pleasing to the palate as the freshly prepared and elegantly served sole lunch by Henry the butler at Brimmer Associates in Death Lends a Hand.
Your comment is as light and delicious as one of Dexter Paris’s strawberry cream cupcakes! Thanks also for the donation. You’re a HERO!
how DARE you implement changes!! my poor, fragile constitution can’t handle it!!
in all seriousness though, thanks for the update! i’m sure the changes will be nice (and hopefully smooth sailing). thanks also for all the hard work you do for the site! it’s always a blast tuning in!
We’re grateful and entertained by everything you offer us, the fans. So thank you for all the hard work you put into the site!
Are you talking about leaving WordPress and how we interact with the platform (comments and subscribing)? Or just the appearance of the pages?