Avoid WordPress Export

WordPress comes with a built-in Export feature that saves some or all posts and related metadata to an XML file, supposedly as a backup or for transfer to another WordPress installation. Unfortunately this feature has two glaring flaws. Export scrambles HTML markup! I’m using the raw HTML editor to write my posts, so I know … Continue reading “Avoid WordPress Export”

New Theme: Twenty Sixteen

My old theme Twenty Twelve was getting a bit long in the tooth. Moreover, I had customized it extensively by direct editing, and that led to tiresome diff/search/replace exercises whenever WordPress released an update. So during the last week I gradually moved first this blog and then my static website over to Twenty Sixteen. This … Continue reading “New Theme: Twenty Sixteen”

WordPress Sitemaps with Jetpack

Jetpack can automatically produce XML sitemaps for its WordPress installation. These aren’t generated as static files but rather dynamically assembled on request, just like WordPress posts. While this feature generally works well there are some annoying caveats you should be aware of. Submit your Sitemap Regarding sitemaps for search engines (the only kind I’m interested … Continue reading “WordPress Sitemaps with Jetpack”

Self-Hosted WordPress Galleries

Over the last couple of weeks I moved all my photo galleries from Google Photos to my own WordPress host. For my readers, this means that you no longer have to click an obscure link to reach the actual gallery. You can see all images as thumbnails directly in each post, and click on any … Continue reading “Self-Hosted WordPress Galleries”

Simple Twitter Cards for Jetpack

Jetpack’s “Publicize” feature automatically adds a set of OpenGraph and optionally Twitter card tags to WordPress posts. I previously described manually setting a default OpenGraph image. Today we’ll have a look at manually defining Twitter cards. (Note: this post is an enhanced version of material originally added to the previous post.) Enabling Twitter Cards If … Continue reading “Simple Twitter Cards for Jetpack”

Exif for WordPress Galleries

Update 2020-09-28: I just discovered that a recent update to FooBox removed the hook I was using in the code below, and I couldn’t find a replacement. So this part won’t work anymore. Adding Exif(ography) information to the WordPress image attachments themselves still works as described. Time to uninstall the Foo stuff and revert to … Continue reading “Exif for WordPress Galleries”

Syntax Highlighter (MT)

Lengthy code snippets wrapped in standard <pre> tags can be rather hard to read. WordPress.com has a built-in syntax highlighter but the standard WordPress.org installation does not, and neither has Jetpack. Fortunately the WordPress.com feature is based on a freely available JS/CSS library, Syntax Highlighter by Alex Gorbatchev. You can directly add this library to … Continue reading “Syntax Highlighter (MT)”

Default OpenGraph Image for Jetpack

Jetpack’s “Publicize” feature automatically adds a set of OpenGraph tags to WordPress posts. (You don’t need to connect any publicize channels to get these tags, but you do need to activate the module itself in the Jetpack control panel.) Generally this works quite well, except for one situation: when you publish posts without images. Unfortunately … Continue reading “Default OpenGraph Image for Jetpack”

WordPress Theme on Static Site

Just finished a major redesign of the original Kynosarges website. I might claim its extremely basic old layout was the pinnacle of suave hipster minimalism, except it was actually because I’m clueless about web design. Seeing the pretty weblog here I wanted to have the same look for the static pages on the old website. … Continue reading “WordPress Theme on Static Site”

Switching Site Search to Google

My site search had been powered by DuckDuckGo over the last year, and this weblog had been using the WordPress search widget since I started self-hosting in April. Today I’ve changed both to Google Search, so as to deliver better search results to my visitors. I still recommend DuckDuckGo for general use, and keep it … Continue reading “Switching Site Search to Google”