Now, I’m not a vain man. Okay. Maybe a little. But it was time. Old, slow, & bloated are not terms anyone endears. Though it’s not like a whole lot of people visit or visited. But that’s what happens when you get slow & old—people tend to discard, discredit, and denounce you. Though that might all be in my head.
What I’m alluding to, is my WordPress blog: go2jo.com. I started my blog back in 2005. I used it to help me voice what was going on as I was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis. But this is not about that! I have used a few themes over the years both on this site and my recently closed eMac Consulting WordPress blog.
Please excuse me I while I geek out a bit—it’s in my nature.
I had been using the same “Paperio” WordPress theme for MANY years, which I purchased from ThemeForest.net. Mind you it was updated by the developer frequently over the years. But it was time to bring the mechanics of my website to more modern standards, and the way WordPress is headed: The WordPress Block Editor with Full Site Editing (FSE).
Mind you, the WordPress block editor previously known as “Gutenberg”, is not there just yet. In some ways it leaves something to be desired, but like any early WordPress adopter—we know that improvements will be made. So with a little coders faith, we do what we do with the tools we have. And making the decision to cast away 100% HTML & CSS were the first steps.
I searched the inter webs far and wide for a modern FSE block theme. I tried many of the free block themes out there. I always test free themes first, especially when exploring. Then if I like—I buy.
I tested each WordPress theme using MAMP Pro (MAMP is a free local server environment with Apache, Nginx, PHP and MySQL for your macOS or Windows computer.) I set up my local Apache environment, then set up the MySQL database, and finally set up a fresh WordPress install. I’d then import a few of my current blog posts to see what they would look like. I’d tweak the theme. If I “wasn’t feeling it”—buh-bye! Neeeeext!
And so it went for several weeks. I was in no hurry. Then I stumbled onto a theme named Neve. It was a free theme with block editing capabilities but to get ALL its full capabilities I’d have to buy the “Pro” version. NOT! Instead, I found they had a free version of the same theme that was all FSE. I did my research to see what exactly FSE was & why I might want to use it. What I found was: this was how WordPress saw the future movement of WordPress. I will comply! : p
With an FSE theme you can edit anything and everything. This was perfect for me. My old theme was tweaked heavily with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS ) and was also very WordPress plugin heavy. This was all part of what was making my site so slow. So an FSE block theme is what the WordPress doctor ordered. Awesome!
With all that said, I had to go through over 200 posts and convert each to the new block theme method of editing. Going from “Classic Editor” to new & improved(?) “Block Editor” I was skeptical at first. But in the long run it was sooooooo worth the effort. I eliminated all WordPress plugins that I no longer needed and tried to use the bare minimum.
The block editor and its use of savable, customizable, and reusable blocks called “Patterns” cut out so much custom HTML and CSS coding. This whole FSE & blocks thang was really growing on me. Yeah … my inner geek was very excited.
On the design end I went from red & black to pink, black & grays. I am very pleased with the results. The headshot image I use as my avatar comes from a full photo of me wearing my FU45 t-shirt. I Photoshop “cartoonized” the photo, and used it as my current avatar—everywhere—even on social media. I mean … if i’m going to “rebrand” … let’s do it right! I really like my semi half crooked smile & bright open eyes.
My WordPress upgrade is not short of earthshaking—to me. It’s a whole new clean & FAST site. Over twice as fast—which is really amazing! Previously my mobile speeds might have been in the 40s, and my desktop in the 70s. So these new specs are just astounding! Okay. So maybe I did feel the need for speed. And I might even be gushing—just a tad.
I did my research. I did my homework. I did the backend (hours/days/weeks) of conversion grunt-work. But what I got out of it was so worth the effort. On so many levels!
Plus it was wild to go back and reread some of those moldy old posts. “Know your history. Know your destiny.”
I want to give a shout out to Jackson @ jackson.co. I stumbled on one of his YouTube videos in my research. The man is a WordPress wizard—with an abundance of knowledge, comfortable teaching style, enthusiasm, plus a great voice & accent! I think we started out the same way: building sites with HTML & CSS, then found WordPress and zoned in on its capabilities & never looked back. I also used WordPress for all my clients, when I made the switch on my websites.
Got a few tips on some great WordPress plugins from Jackson that I am now using. I even joined his YouTube channel and his eMailing list—I RARELY do that—for anyone! So thanks, mate, for some inspiration during my WordPress retooling, hair pulling (what little is left of it), and blog facelift.
Now all I have to do is keep on: posting, posting, posting. Keep those fingers posting—Wordpress !
Yeah. I’m a nerd. Thank you very much!
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