10/29/09
- make font the same as original

• Done

- make space under header like original

• Done

****-email database widget and place in sidebar with words I may change such as “download your free fitness log book here!” I want to have people place their email address in and automatically they’ll be sent an  ‘fitness logbook’ that I have as an e-book in my computer and I can automatically collect their email address.

• Hey Val.  I assume you posted this.  I am well over the time I should have spent on a $250, so this needs to be part of a phase two.  You can Google “wordpress email widget” and there are several options.

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a-      I really liked the little bubbles and rounded look of the original theme for the sidebar titles..???? what happened, it looks very not fun anymore

• Ok, it’s fun again.  Migrating it to CSS is a bit of work, so I failed to do this one.  But it is now done.

b-      I don’t like the line that you drew down the middle and top right near the search area. Also, I like the left side taking up more room than the sidebar section, closer to a 3:1 or 3:2 ratio instead of 50/50 split.

• I took out the line.  I made the content area bigger compared to the sidebar.  It’s 620px and 350px.  That’s a small as the sidebar can get at this point I think.

c-       I notice that the text is now double spaced everywhere..I’m not fond of this

• I changed it back to what the current site is.  I personally think it is hard to read, that is why I gave it more space.   But you can definitely fit more copy onto the page this way.

d-      Can you move the search bar right next to the share this (don’t need the words ‘Search for:’

• Done.  It is hard coded so not part of the “widgets”.

e-      I LOVE the Share This button thing…great! Although, under the posts, can this be put into the section that currently holds comments…it is confusing where it is currently placed underneath and also not as visible.  It just make better sense to stick it as part of the comments area if possible.

• I don’t follow where you say you want it, but I had an idea and put it in the header bubble, which is a great spot I think.  See what you think.

f-       What is the difference between categories and tags??? Do you think both are useful? I’ve seen such a thing as tag clouds..rather than as a list.. that look really cool, when the text is large, jumbo, small, medium all mixed up randomly…

• Tags are great for is SEO.  So you should put them into your posts.  There is a section for tags in the admin section.  This will put them in the meta data for the creepy crawlers to find.  The widget I stuck in there IS a tag cloud, but you need to have a bunch of tags, including duplicates (which makes the word bigger depending on the number of dupes), to get the cloud effect.

g-      When I clicked on a photo, most of the time, I sat waiting for the photo to come up and it didn’t..the screen went immediately grayish-black but the photo didn’t come up…and a couple of times I tried, the photo did actually come up but it took a really long time and I had to use the back button on the browser to get back instead of being able to close the photo.

• These are very large photos.  So if you have a slow connection, when it loads it will take a bit.  I replaced them with smaller pics so it should be nice and fast now.  You don’t have to have the gallery on the sidebar, but have a page instead.

h-      I do want to encourage comments, however, you bring up a very good point…I do not want spam… how do you suggest we manage that issue? Thank you.

• It depends on what you want.  I suggest that you have people sign in, which will greatly reduce spam.  I also will install an anti-spam plugin from WordPress.

i-        What do we do about the display adverts (like the 125×125 image boxes show on the original theme?)

• I missed that one.  I added a plugin called Advertising Manager.  It is very nice and easy to use.  You’ll now see on the left in the admin section an item called “ads”.  I put in Your Google Adsense for now, but you can add more and it will rotate.

ORIGINAL SPECS

1. Place my PHOTO at top of page….on one side….I want to be able to easily change the photo in the future. I need you to explain where in the code I can change that if I want to change that in the future

• I now have the photo dynamically located from a  custom field for the page.  Just below the area where you put in the page text, you’ll see the custom fields, and the field is named “header_pic”.  If it doesn’t exist for the page, it will default to the one in a hidden page called “Home.”  This way you can have different pics on different pages.  You just put the name of the pic in the custom field. You upload the pic from the admin panel by uploading it into the media library.  The image needs to be a specific size (182px wide by 241px high). Click on the Activities page and see how the pic is different.

2.In a bubble: a section where I may be able to change the text easily in the future where I will provide text for a ‘mission statement’ of my business.. I need you to explain where in the code I can change that text if I want to change it in the future

• You can now change this text on a hidden page called “Mission”.

3. Maybe change the menu buttons…not sure how to make them better…not crazy about how they currently appear..I’d like to be able to add ‘pages’ in the future and need the room in the header to let that happen.  My idea is as follows: In similar fashion as the sidebar menu (blue with bubbles and with white text and orange circle) Make the Pages appear in this fashion along the top line-under the ‘mission’ section. OR take the same approach and just have the color of the bubble be white instead of blue and play with text….Let’s view how the text color looks…try with orange text. See how it looks, then try with white text and it can turn orange when clicked. (can you present the template for viewing in these manners for me to choose?)

• I’m not sure I can make buttons like that which will look nice.  I tried a little but they were too clunky and took away from the banner.  I took out the underline to make the text cleaner.

4.Change the sidebar around as follows: the ‘About’ section….add and ‘Events section’ (I may want to change that name…I need you to explain where in the code I can change that if I want to change that name in the future) Move the About me section up so it appears where the current ‘Categories’ section is…move the Categories section lower, perhaps under or before the Tags section…we’ll need to define these before we start the project. Your suggestions welcome. …

• The sidebar is now “widgetized” so you can add or subtract whatever you want from the Appearance->Widgets in the admin section.  There is a single column section at top, then two columns in the middle, followed by another single column section at the bottom.  You can drag and drop items in, including pieces of text.

5. Move all the sidebar items so that they appear aesthetic, functional, and effective.

• You now have control about what you want on your sidebars (see comment above)

6. Place social media icons that link to my sites..around the ‘about me’ section and also below posts..your suggestions welcome..would like people to be able to bookmark or share my posts and linkback to my site.

• I hard coded a section at the top of the sidebar for the RSS feed and social icons.  I put in sharethis although you really don’t need it since it is on all postings.  I could put the search bar in next to the RSS feed as a permanent fixture and it would save some room.

7. Place a spot in the sidebar or as a page where I may upload videos….such as from Youtube or my own podcasts in the future….you’ll need to alert me where in the code I can upload the video files.

• There are plenty of plugins to help with that, each has its strengths and weaknesses.  Let’s cross that bridge when you know exactly what you want.

8. Place a spot in the sidebar or as a page where I may upload photos in the future…like flickr or something

• You now have the NextGen plugin installed, where you can add photo galleries.  You manage it at the bottom left of the admin section.

9. Advertisements: I want to activate the ad boxes that are there and explanation of how. I have generated code and am stuck. I would also like to have the option to add other sizes of advertisements.

10. the Search section isn’t functioning properly… curser needs to be able to be placed in the white section to type. Search button may need to be moved somewhere else.

• It took me a while to track down this problem, but there was a CSS issue.  I resolved it and it should be working fine in all browsers.

11. I’d like a spot (in sidebar) where I can put updates that change…such as if I want to offer a newsletter or special deal, an event, a free book or something…I need a section in the sidebar to accommodate that….if I have nothing at that moment in time…Maybe it might make sense to fill it with an adsense perhaps…we’ll need to talk about the options.

• Now that you have widgets, just drag a “text” widget over.

12.  RSS button needs to placed somewhere else and I’d like to offer a sign up for newsletter spot where I can collect email addresses and also make use of similar where I can build email database by encouraging sign up by offering a free ‘something TBD’

• I put it at the top of the sidebar.

13. I WANT THE SITE TO BE SEO FRIENDLY.  So not to use images such as the header…for instance, the title should be searchable.  Your suggestions welcome.

• We will add All-in-one-SEO plugin, which is the best overall product.  Populating the titles, keywords, pages with the best phrases will be the key. This can be done over time
• I re-constructed the site using standard WordPress CSS, not tables.  WP is search engine friendly.
• I added a “hidden” H1 Tag in the header, which is moved off screen.  We’ll discuss how to update it.
• I changed the permalinks to the name format (instead of ?page_id=30)
• Should be submitted on Google/webmasters.
• Many search engines and sites to submit. I’ll give you a cheat sheet

Other notes:

• You currently have the site open for anybody to make comments even if they aren’t signed in.  That may give you a lot of spam.  How are you going to use comments?  Is it something you want to encourage?