Via Chikorita157:

WordPress Mobile Pack. No idea if it works though as I don't own a mobile device. Decided I couldn't ignore this any longer since even one of my relatives, who is in his mid 60s, uses an iPhone now.

WP-Page Navi. I had loads of trouble finding, commenting out and adding the CSS when I implemented Post Archive by Author but this was a breeze after I finally started using Firebug. The PageNavi plugin really does make navigation easier compared to the much slower pace of the  Previous/Older and Next/Newer tabs that I use the backend's Edit Posts view much less now.

Banner. While rummaging around in my old laptop, I managed to find the PSD file of the old banner featuring Lunamaria fanart by Kabitzin and the Byakuya loli by Tinkle. Had previously lost the JPG during a LightWord one-click upgrade. Also have been fiddling with the pink background (pink seems to be considered by at least two readers as the blog's default colour ahaha~♥) and went with DeepPink (FF1493) as it's the closest web safe colour to Lunamaria Hawke Zaku pinku though some might find it obnoxious. OTL Tried to save some money by using GIMP with this new laptop but it has been so frustrating (lack of macros, don't understand its layer management system); I'll cough up cash for Photoshop Elements in the near future.

Via Josh:

Tag cloud. I've removed the tag cloud in the sidebar and am using Simple Tags to generate one on its own page. Integrated this into the theme using a template page which included the php call. I like the cleaner look of the sidebar, the reduced loading time but without sacrificing an additional mode for navigation.

Via Kabitzin:

Font size. The old default of Tahoma 11px was just too tiny. Have switched to Verdana 13px.

Ozh Who Sees Ads. Disabled ads for regular readers and focusing on serving them to readers who arrive via search engine.

©2012 hontou ni. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Pun with Kabitzin: An Ethnographic Note on Anime Blog Tagline Construction
2. Problems on the blog front (Resolved)
3. New Blog Name (was "Hand of Gory")

re: WP hacks, I will gladly recognize Kabitzin as my personal blog saviour (sorry, J159)

I've gotten some feedback asking for the above. But, since I know nothing about PHP, I've hesitated; my paranoia of destroying the entire blog (or at least the theme which was partly why I had to abandon Vigilance)  sends me into fits of anxiety a la Ogiue. Finally managed to get it going and the blog is still here (though I had to restore the theme twice).

Jotting done some notes to myself since the customizations have to be re-done if I use the upgrade automatically option when the next time a new version of Lightword comes out:

Assumes that About author feature is set to Both (Main page and Single page) under Appearance > LightWord Settings

1. Make a copy of index.php and rename as author.php in the lightword themes sub-directory and replace:

<a href="<?php the_author_url(); ?> "><?php the_author(); ?></a>

with

<?php the_author_posts_link(); ?> [Codex]

This replaces the link in the author name leading to the home page which was quite pointless as it's doubtful that readers don't know that the author writes for the blog they are reading now or that they don't know how to find their way back to the home page.

2. Still in author.php, add the following before The Loop:

<?php
if(isset($_GET['author_name'])) :
$curauth = get_userdatabylogin($author_name);
else :
$curauth = get_userdata(intval($author));
endif;
?>

<div><h1>Posts by <?php echo $curauth->nickname; ?>:</h1>

The first block tells the server which author whose posts archive will be generated based on the user clicking the link generated by the next step.

3. Go back to index.php and single.php and repeat Step 1.

And that's it! Just as the Codex entry on Author Templates said.

Even though it's called a template, this is a mod to the theme's php files rather than implementation via page template and you don't need to do anything else for the /archive/author/author_name permalink to magically appear like it does. Frankly, like Evangelion Ep 25 and 26, I still don't really understand what just happened but it got the job done and I'm not too fussed by the styling or the lack of post truncation. *goes back to sitting with folded hands in front of face*

©2012 hontou ni. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Ending the vigil, letting in the light
2. Chikorita157, Josh and Kabitzin on blog redesigns
3. Embracing Google Search's tentacles

WP seems to be able to easily handle categories over 9,000 but it's a pain to constantly scroll down a looooooong list. There's a Most Used option but that doesn't solve the problem of Most Likely To Be Used for current series which have too few entries to make it (and even after one full cour cannot surpass long-ended but multi-cour series) onto that menu. The health of my right wrist is very important after all.  I'm not a big fan of tags mainly because I can't filter and mass edit posts by tag in the Edit Posts menu's list view even though I like the auto-suggest/complete feature when inserting tags. And anyway I prefer to use tags to cut across categories (e.g.  the Lunamaria Hawke tag covers anime appearances, merchandise, random fanboying posts).

One feature of this latest exercise is that the category is mostly restricted to posts about the anime series proper (i.e. an episodic or editorial) which may co-exist with a Series Review particularly for end of season/series posts. This is predicated on, how for a not considerable period of the history of both blogs, posts were mainly in the episodic, editorial or review format. This should make it easier for those who want to look up older series as they can now largely avoid having to wade through merchandise and fun lists. [Add: An important exception, that conforms to the logic of the preceding sentence, is if a post talks about anime episodes that were watched on anime DVD e.g. Escaflowne or Nadesico.]

Manga and various goods go into their own category but will not be identified, via categories, to their anime; I've also copied the SS!AB practice of having a general Manga category and separating them via manga title tags.

Have managed to cut down 250+ to 139. Category reduction was achieved in several ways:

• Those with only one post tended to be Series Reviews so they got moved there. I've left a few alone though as I consider them to be foundational series wrt to our anime experience and the general history of this blog.
• Separate seasons of the same [add: franchise] series had their categories merged; this is also practiced by Random Curiosity (cf. Gundam or Macross) but, again, there are exceptions for the same reasons above.
• Series which we gave up watching and blogging got stripped of their categories and were generically consigned to Dropped Series.
• Some categories were clearly redundant; they did remind me of how our aniblogging has changed with changing conventions, e.g. Now Watching was a prevalent category to track current season offerings, or WordPress/theme limitations, e.g. when were child categories introduced? / series names had to be truncated to prevent them from breaking the sidebar.

Still, the general tendency is for the number of categories to increase and hopefully current category austerity can hold out until the underlying issue becomes obsolete.

©2012 hontou ni. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Zaku see Zaku do (RSS full feed, tags, archive fix)
2. Putting up a Figures Page
3. The high art of loli fire & movement