Here's where you find the damn thing already.

For those of you WordPress users wondering how to find your Custom Post Types in the Appearance >> Menus page (for your Custom Menus), look no further than your handy Screen Options dropdown panel, up at the top right of the page. No, your other right. Up further. Look – right there! See where my finger is pointing? Where it says “Howdy, [yourname] | Log Out”? Yeah, just below that. No, you’re looking at “Help.” I said it was Screen Options and i MEAN it was Screen Options, goddammit.

Menu page options dropdown

I looked and looked and had a hard time finding these options (ok, actually i found it not long after i started looking, but i figured there’s got to be a whole slew of people out there having a hard time figuring this one out). So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

(Also note that until we get a decent UI, plugins such as Custom Post Type UI will have to do, unless you just want to code away your evening. Additionally, your theme must support Custom Menus in order to use them.)

Incidentally, if you have no idea what the hell i’m on about, and for some reason refuse to mind your own damn bidness, here’s the deal: In the recent WordPress 3.0 release, users now have the ability to create not only custom navigation menus (those things you click on to get to other areas of the site you’re on), but can also create something called a Custom Post Type. (Oh god i wish i could explain this really well.) Basically, instead of only being able to create blog posts (which are generally chronologically ordered) or generic Pages (which are the same thing, without the emphasis on time), WordPress administrators can also create types of content specifically geared toward a given theme… say, a real estate listing, a movie review, or a section of used musical instruments for sale. This also lets you enable or disable certain options. You know what? You don’t get it, do you? Mind your own beezwax if you’re gonna give me that look. Hey – hey! Why don’t ya try running a WordPress site yourself? Seriously. Give me a breeeeeaaaaaak!

Here you go! (via Ma.tt)

Uber-cool Glenda Watson Hyatt, aka the Left Thumb Blogger, shares her perspective on how WordPress has improved her ability to communicate effectively on the internets.

Whether you are 100% able-bodied or not, accessibility is important. Because no matter who you are, the future is coming. Some day many of us may have devices assisting us, whether we need them or not, and completely removing all barriers between humans and machines will be an important first step in enabling us to proliferate on the digital grid – on a truly level playing field.

I’ve committed to making my upcoming theme be as accessible as possible. You should too, especially if you want to meet the Future head-on. Keeping all variants of humanity and machinery in mind when designing user interfaces of any kind will be important there.

Unfortunately, one of the projects i did for the P.E. didn’t get finished on time, so i (more or less) owe them my time for free. It’s a Drupal theme. It’s terribly difficult to make a Drupal theme in one week, especially when that’s only one of two projects they assigned to me! So now i have to finish that – even though i will probably not be hired now because i wasn’t able to complete it on time.

The upshot of this is that i learned a lot about Drupal in a short time, and reacquainted myself with Flash (actually Swish) and actionscripting.

I have decided that, even though i am impressed by Drupal’s extreme versatility, extensibility, and scalability, and really like the Zen theme base, i do not like the theming system much (at least not in 5.x, which is what i had to use for this project – though maybe the problem is a Zen-theme thing). The problem is that the theme code does not appear to be separated by admin and frontend, at least not obviously. So when i change a page, i also change the admin section, too. Obviously, that’s not great, and has been my stumbling block, keeping me from delivering on time. Thankfully, you can easily separate the homepage from the inner pages, but it seems like you have to code for every single inner page if you want to separate it from the admin section. Maybe i’ll figure out a better way around this, as it just doesn’t seem right. Not by a longshot.

Oh, how i wish i could be working with WordPress instead! WordPress has such a better theming system, though perhaps not as robust as Drupal. (Holly actually found me a two-week-old job listing on Craigslist for a job working with WordPress and Joomla!, but i fear i am much too late for that omg perfect gig. I need to keep up with Craigslist more!) 

One thing’s for sure: i am pushing myself way beyond my physical limits. I’m apparently sick now, my throat feeling like phlegmy gravel and a nasty cough wracking my body every so often. In my over-the-counter coma induced earlier this evening i think i overheard Holly talking to someone about the bags under my eyes. I can almost feel my hair turning gray right now.

So, to sum up: i am putting myself through hell. I need less projects and more pay.

(It seems like right now in Dayton, nobody’s hiring, and everyone wants a massive discount on services, if not an outright free pass. What businesses remain here have that leverage, too, since damn near 8% of the city is now unemployed. An unemployed web designer has gotta do what an unemployed web designer’s gotta do.)

My goal with this theme was to have a much, much cleaner page, without too much extraneous information clogging up eyeballs. Here is how i’ve decided it will eventually be layed out:

"transitory" layout (click to enlarge)

Note that the colors are arbitrary in the above layout and will change. 

And now here is a screenshot of it in action. Note the final layout has not yet been 100% applied. Also note the cool city background, which is blacked out underneath content boxes. Trust me, it looks much cooler than this. The menu to the side is being rewritten with jQuery, and will fold out when needed, and collapse when not needed.

"transitory" screenshot (click to enlarge)

At a guess, i’d have to say that it should be completed in about another week or two. So… a month, maybe? I dunno. You’ll see it soon enough.

All comments (good or bad) welcome!

So i will FINALLY be upgrading my WP installation and fixing my ACTUAL theme once and for all! I hope to have this completed by the end of the summer.

I promise to make it a whole lot cleaner, too, in layout if not in language.

That is all.