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Boy, is this ever humbling! I actually posted my first post the other day, and left it there, despite the fact that 1) if I tyopr in the url I see no comment box, although I think I enabled it. and 2) I wrote an about page and one other that I want in the header. They are in my pages area, but do you think I can get them to show up in the post? So I have this big long post with no buttons! I feel totally defeated.
The blog I need help with is themonstachronicles.com.
OK, the buttons showed up, so I guess it was just a time thing. But when I go to the page I still cannot see the comments box.
I am not entirely sure what you mean by "no buttons." Do you want to post links in your blog post content?
You don't really need to replicate the "about" and "911mim" links in your post, since they are already there in your header. If you'd like to do that because it's your first post & you would like to have those in that one as part of your introduction to yourself, you can do that.
As far as your comment box, I see it at the bottom of the post's page here:
http://cookingwithmim.com/2011/06/24/foods-i-cant-live-without/
I was only able to find the post's page (as opposed to the main blog page with your most recent posts) because I clicked on the title of it in your "recent posts" widget.
You have no title visible on your post -- did you post this in an "aside" format rather than as a "standard" post? Comment boxes are never visible on the main blog page, but only on individual post pages. If you hop over to my blog, you will see that I have five posts visible on the blog's home page, and at the bottom of those five posts, a person can click a link to see more (older) posts.
If I have an "aside" post, there is no header/title generated by the theme I use -- which is a different theme from the one on your blog -- and so a visitor can't click on it to see an entire post & then also see the comments box. If I want people to easily be able to comment on an aside post w/o them having to figure out how to get to the comments box, I put in a link. If you go to this page http://mmadfan.com/page/2/, you'll see that the post about Google Books & Kindle does not have a wp.com-generated subject line, so at the bottom of the post, I've added text with a link that will bring them to the individual post & the comments area.
I looked at the source code for your blog, and I see that you have made this post an aside. You need to go into your post editor and choose "standard," then you will have the subject/header appear at the top of the post, and it will be easy for your visitors to click through to the actual post & then be able to comment on it.
Your post is also very, very long. Right now, you only have one post, so it doesn't seem like much of an issue, but it's a good idea with very long posts to use the "more" tag in order to just show the first part of the post & then have visitors click through to see the rest of the post if it interestes them. http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/
BTW, "aside" posts are meant for very short posts, not for longer posts. Asides are for incidental content, rather than a regular post. So your first post doesn't really suit an "aside."
Here's a good tutorial for learning wordpress.com: http://learn.wordpress.com/
Here's an informative wp.com doc on categories & tags (which are good to know how to use on your posts): http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/
Here's the article on comments: http://en.support.wordpress.com/topic/comments/
Here is a link describing the different post formats and their uses:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-formats/
The theme you are using, Twenty-Ten, supports Standard, Aside, and Gallery.
And one more link for you: http://en.support.wordpress.com/comments/
On this page, it says:
Comments are a way for visitors to add feedback to your posts and pages. If you choose to enable comments for your posts, then a comment form will appear at the bottom of the posts and people can respond to what you have written. Approved comments are displayed on the individual posts, not on the blog home page, so you need to click on a post title to see comments. You can show the latest comments on the home page by adding the recent comments widget to the sidebar if you wish.
This should keep me busy till I'm 90, lol. Many thanks. I have a couple more questions, but I want to work my way through your great pile of links before I ask them so I'm not redundant. Thank you again for your terrific help.
You're welcome! I just wrote a response to one of your other questions.
Most important thing to change first: make the post a standard post rather than an aside. :-)
I just came back to let you know that I had done that. I don't know the reason, but I shall follow blindly! The title did show up after I did that, and I had been wondering what the hell I had done wrong, since it had been there previously.
The other thing I wanted to ask is if you can tell me why I don't seem able to switch the positions of my about and 911Mim things (I have been calling them buttons, but since I confused you with the term, clearly I was using the wrong one --- fortunately you have looked at the page and know what I'm talking about. If you have already answered that question, do't bother to answer. I'm going to look for it now. Thanks again, you're the best!
I just came back to let you know that I had done that. I don't know the reason, but I shall follow blindly! The title did show up after I did that, and I had been wondering what the hell I had done wrong, since it had been there previously.
The other thing I wanted to ask is if you can tell me why I don't seem able to switch the positions of my about and 911Mim things (I have been calling them buttons, but since I confused you with the term, clearly I was using the wrong one --- fortunately you have looked at the page and know what I'm talking about. If you have already answered that question, don't bother to answer. I'm going to look for it now. Thanks again, you're the best!
Hi! You can switch them by making them a "custom menu" rather than using the default header tabs. Then you'll be able to drag them around (you'll see how it works when you do it) into the order you prefer:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
I'll be offline for a while, but if you have other questions about how to do this, I'm sure other volunteers will hop in, or I will be on later on today.
(Once you've read the bits about post formats, you'll see why changing the post to "standard" worked for you. :))
Also asked here:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/move-menu-items?replies=2
I am hoping that my mentors here are still following this thread, as I have questions again. When I create a custom menu, should I just get rid of the pages I had previously created? I don't want both pages and a the same items on the custom menu, do I? And on the menus page, it tells me that my theme supports only one menu. What goes there? And where will that particular piece of info end up on my blog?
OK, so from your posts -- wonderful and helpful as hell -- I now realize why I was not seeing my comments box on the "front page" of my blog, because in esence I don't have one. So I guess I need one generic welcoming sort of home page? And then just entries for the side categories. Right? And I totally get it about the length of the post. I was a professional writer for some 25 years, and I know the importance of brevity. The reason it's so damned long is that I just wanted to write something and get it up there to see and THEN go through all of this, otherwise I'd NEVER have gotten the damned thing up! lol So here's what I need help with from you. You have noticed that I am doing a food blog. I write somewhat philosophically about a lot of foo issues, and also undertake a lot of unique kitchen adventures (Banh mis, for example, or Jian bing), which require some space for words. But a lot of what I will be doing is presenting the end result of my working with a dish or recipe, and they need to end up in a category. But in the case of this first blog, there are two recipes in it, which fall under two categories. I don't want the bread recipe to show up under the soup category and vice versa. So how do I get around the fact that I cannot post in a category without it being attached to a post? So does that mean that if I do a post using two recipes it has to show up under both categories "in full"? Or is there some way for me to get them there as just recipes? Any and help greatly appreciated. Links were read and very helpful.
BTW, someone there should know that at least one problem I had yesterday, and spent hours trying to figure out, I never saw addressed on wp. I had to dig around with google for ages before I found out that I had to activate the "revisions" button in my edit space before the revsion daaes for the post would show up. Everything I read kept on saying just go to the bottom of the page, etc., but for me there was nothing there.
I am hoping that my mentors here are still following this thread, as I have questions again. When I create a custom menu, should I just get rid of the pages I had previously created? I don't want both pages and a the same items on the custom menu, do I? And on the menus page, it tells me that my theme supports only one menu. What goes there? And where will that particular piece of info end up on my blog?
OK, so from your posts -- wonderful and helpful as hell -- I now realize why I was not seeing my comments box on the "front page" of my blog, because in esence I don't have one. So I guess I need one generic welcoming sort of home page? And then just entries for the side categories. Right? And I totally get it about the length of the post. I was a professional writer for some 25 years, and I know the importance of brevity. The reason it's so damned long is that I just wanted to write something and get it up there to see and THEN go through all of this, otherwise I'd NEVER have gotten the damned thing up! lol So here's what I need help with from you. You have noticed that I am doing a food blog. I write somewhat philosophically about a lot of foo issues, and also undertake a lot of unique kitchen adventures (Banh mis, for example, or Jian bing), which require some space for words. But a lot of what I will be doing is presenting the end result of my working with a dish or recipe, and they need to end up in a category. But in the case of this first blog, there are two recipes in it, which fall under two categories. I don't want the bread recipe to show up under the soup category and vice versa. So how do I get around the fact that I cannot post in a category without it being attached to a post? So does that mean that if I do a post using two recipes it has to show up under both categories "in full"? Or is there some way for me to get them there as just recipes? Any and help greatly appreciated. Links were read and very helpful.
BTW, someone there should know that at least one problem I had yesterday, and spent hours trying to figure out, I never saw addressed on wp. I had to dig around with google for ages before I found out that I had to activate the "revisions" button in my edit space before the revision dates for the post would show up. Everything I read kept on saying just go to the bottom of the page, etc., but for me there was nothing there.
1) The black strip under your header image is your top nav menu. Each tab on it is a menu item. The menu items on the default menu of the theme are links to your published static pages, in alphabetical order. Loading a custom menu means you replace the default menu with one you create yourself (in Appearance>Menus): its menu items can be links to anything, in any order.
"Supports only one menu" means only one top nav menu at a time: you can create alternative ones and choose which one you'll load, or you can create additional ones for your sidebar, plus there are a couple of themes that support 2 top nav menus (two independent strips and sets of tabs).
2) You don't "post to a category", you create posts and file them under one or more categories. So yes of course, if a post is filed under two categories, it will show up in both categories. Nothing wrong with that. Think of a library or a movie archive, for example: a book or a film can very well belong to two genres, and be filed under both of them.
OK, great. BTW, I am now the proud owner of an actual top menue. But how do eople post JUST recipes under whatever you want to call it -- category, page? I mean there are a million of them out there, and they don't all look like blog entries. Many just have a sidebar with ricipe categories, i.e. Breads, and fie of recipes under the category. How do I do that? Thanks for your answer.
OK, great. BTW, I am now the proud owner of an actual top menue. But how do eople post JUST recipes under whatever you want to call it -- category, page? I mean there are a million of them out there, and they don't all look like blog entries. Many just have a sidebar with ricipe categories, i.e. Breads, and fie of recipes under the category. How do I do that? Thanks for your answer.
1) Congrats!
2) I'm not sure I follow. A blog entry can look like anything: can be a paragraph or an essay, can be a single image, can be a video or a slideshow, can be a recipe... If you want "just recipes" under your recipes categories, publish posts that are just recipes.
For example, the post you've published could be all that text minus the actual recipes, and the recipes could be two separate posts. Then you'd add links to the recipe posts in the big post, you'd file each recipe post under the right recipe category, and you'd file the big post under a different category.
Ah, soooooo! :} Then I could just let my long-winded (yeah, yeah, I knooooow!) stuff that precedes a recipe be a regular post, and create linked separate posts as the recipes and have people just link to them in the middle of my screed? :} Tell me it is so, oh wise one!!! And so I'd have the gabby part as one set of posts, and the categorized recipes as another ?Because the Favorite recipes thing doesn't work in the top navigation bar, as it's too long a list of categories to easily drop down (I hope I can do that in the sidebar without the drop-down!) Plz tell me I'm starting to get it here!
Yes that's what I mean. (But it doesn't have to be like that: it was just a suggestion if you want "just recipe" posts.)
No, no, that sounds exactly right! I think I'm in love! Thank you so much for your help. I think I may actually get a blog up after all. You are a pure doll!
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