Yesterday Garry slipped into the block editor and wrote a whole piece. He didn’t make any special effort. He just wrote it. How humiliating for me!
Of course, he doesn’t deal with the finer points — like design, editing, proofreading, or adding graphics. He gives me the raw copy. Which works well because my editing skills are far superior on his writing than on my own.
So I edited it. I used the block editor because you can’t switch from one to the other without encountering major glitches — which, to be fair, they warn you will happen. The two formats are not compatible. I think that’s a mistake. It is especially irksome we who have thousands (in my case, more than 11,000) older posts which won’t easily translate to the new format.
But, having been handed a piece done using the block format, I figured if Garry could do it, clearly so could I. It made me feel stupid.
So, having gotten the piece, I worked on the typography and then, it was time to add a few photographs.
I found the “image” block and added a picture. I could enlarge it, give it round edges. What I could not do was center it . Today, I think I figured out how to center it, though it would be nice if you could do it in the media file or at least in an image-centric section that relates specifically to graphics rather than text. Oh well. WordPress has never handled graphics well. We work around it, but we have yet to make it do quite what it ought to do.
I just figured if Garry could — without thinking about it — make the block format work, maybe I was trying too hard. Or not nearly hard enough.
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Categories: #Blogging, #Photography, #Writing, Anecdote, Editing, Humor, WordPress
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
I do spend a lot more time getting my galleries to look nice than I used to, deciding which gallery format will work best and whether to allow cropping or not. I don’t really like my photos being cropped by WordPress.
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Ha! Just yesterday I read the Help section on how to load photos to the new wordpress format. It looked easy. Took a while and a lot of frustration, but it had to be done. I loaded 2 photos, somehow, maybe 3, ended the post and published. I haven’t even checked to see how it looks. I don’t want to be upset.
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I prefer the block now I’m used to it. I use gallery mostly, but it’s annoying that it crops photos and then you have to delete and start over again. Also comments in the photos don’t always come out
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OK, just checked. There are block attributes on the right, but if you click on the photo (in edit), besides getting the attributes on the right, there are pop up attributes you can change. One is alignment, which includes center. Anyway, in case you haven’t found it yet.
Most of the block editor stuff is fine, but there are one or two that are frustrating, where I do six clicks instead of two.
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I did find the alignment thing, but I can’t create a mosaic. It rolls and rolls and never finishes loading. I have to go back to the old editor. I can load ONE picture at a time, but not collection. Also, organizationally, it’s really a mess. There’s no logic to it at all. When I was in the business, I used to fight with the developers to NOT just put stuff wherever they found a space, but to create spaces where logically users would look for the function.
The problem of their mosaics not completing loading is going to make the whole thing useless. Short of giving up photography or posting it online. I can make huge mosaics without any problem in the classic editor, so it’s not me, it’s them. Have I bothered to complain? No. All they are going to tell me is that it’s my computer, but it isn’t and I don’t feel like having another fight with them. I don’t know what I will do when they eliminate the classic editor. Then again, I don’t know what I’ll do until I actually get vaccinated.
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Hmm, I’ve had no problem doing a “gallery”, which I think is the same as the mosaic. You don’t start by choosing “image”, but start the new block with “tiled gallery” or just plain “gallery”. But I agree – I hate that all of my thousands of pictures are in one big heap organized only by when I put them in! the ones I use all of the time I put in all over and over again so I find them! Why can’t there be sub-folders or other type of organization? Just awful.
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The bird in mid hop is a wonderful capture — and a great metaphor for this post!
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Yes. I think our lives are in mid hop. Hopping is easy. Landing is more of a problem.
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It took me a little time to get used to it but I like the block editor better. I’m not a photographer but the single image or gallery style works well for me. I can centre, a single and change the order in gallery format.
I use a lot of videos and all I need is the URL, paste it and click embed. DONE! I can then arrow it up or down to change the order of my videos.
Ya I love the fact that you can resize the image on the page.
With Classic edited posts I haven’t had a major problem switching to block. YET! lol
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I have had a lot of trouble with it, but so many of my posts are more pictures than text and none of the mosaics translate at all. They come out in bits and pieces all over the post and there is no way to reassemble them.
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Maybe a photo theme? Heck I dunno lol
I can see how this would upset you.
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It has been one of the major weaknesses of WordPress’s format. They seem to have dealt pretty well with the text issues — as far as I can tell — but picture presentation is worse. They need to deal with photographs separately. Considering the number of photographers they have, they really need to figure out how to make posting photographs easier and possibly better.
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Are you sure there isn’t a special theme that works better for photos +?
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