Almost Left WA Today
So . . . I haven't been around in awhile. I've been feeling very frustrated, and I was convinced that I was going to cancel my membership. I even clicked on the button, and when I saw it's not even been four months, I decided maybe I'm being hasty. However, now I'm sitting here trying to figure out whether I can really justify staying. Financially, it's difficult - but more than that, I'm just not getting anywhere. I am beyond frustrated with WordPress - I love designing websites and I have a program that allows me to do whatever I want to do artistically. But WP drives me crazy!! Apparently, without buying a premium template, there's very little I can do to customize even something as simple as the size or colour of a font. I have tried dozens of templates: what one allows you to customize, another doesn't. And you can't tell what you're getting until you download the thing and start playing with it. I know, I know - the guys say don't worry about design, just get a site up. Sorry, I just can't operate like that. The design becomes my content inspiration, and vice-versa. I've struggled enough as it is to figure out what my "niche" is - then I finally figure that out and I try to pull together a site and beyond the "mechanics" of setting up the pages and the menu, etc., I can't move forward. At least some of this should be fun . . . I'm not having any fun :(
So, guys, please weigh in here . . . what am I to do?
Recent Comments
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Marcie, hi.
First of all let me say that I feel or have felt until recently totally confused and frustrated with WordPress, also. The reason why—similarly, I'm a programmer and have designed complex sites and back ends of sites for years (from scratch). Organizational habits, including control of the design and space die hard.
I'm looking at your join time, and we joined the same month. I will say that it has gotten better—much better—for me, as I've explored a lot of themes and a several plugins, and made a firm commitment to learn WordPress and create niche site income streams with it (following the WA way).
You can change the theme CSS via a couple of different methods; but you're right that it's best done with general themes that are working pretty well for you in the first place, when you primarily want to tweak them. Changing an entire site is unrealistic with WordPress.
i have a little test site on siterubix, where I change themes constantly. Sometimes it's to help someone else out, who has that theme and has a problem; other times I'm just checking out a new theme. A test site can be used to duplicate your primary site, at first; and subsequently to test different themes, plugins, combinations of plugins, editing of code, styles, and more.
Have you made use of the WA search bar to find various tutorials on changing your CSS code, and working with child themes (so that theme updates don't override your changes)? These were helpful to me, in the beginning, to get the lay of the land in WordPress, itself. Once you start playing in the file editor (best done in a Child Theme; and also best done in a test site); you will feel more in control.
I hope this helps. There is nothing like WA out there, Marcie. It is a very complete system, we're taught here, specifically honed in on income streams from niche sites.
--Fran
p.s. Feel free to post a question to the community, any time, under the Questions link on your WA profile page. Also feel free to PM me if you think I might be able to guide you into how to change something specific about your theme.
Hi Marcie,
I've created some training that may help you if you want to change the color of your page titles. Hopefully, it's easy enough to understand, but if you have any questions about it, send me a private message and I will do my best to help you through it. How to Change the Page Title Color As well, if you want to change the font size, there is a plugin called "TinyMCE Advanced". It's free and really all I use it for is to change the font type and font size, although it does a lot more but those are the two features that I use.
Hope this helps you Marcie!
Regards,
Shawn
I know it's frustrating, but try to hang on in there :)