Wordpress

WordPress Editor Jump Fix

September 8, 2015 By Mark 102 Comments

For the past six months or so I’ve been bedeviled by an intermittent problem in WordPress that has made me insane. Until today I was unable to figure out what was causing it or how to stop it, but I believe I have the fix if you’re bedeviled too.

The problem only happened on longer posts, but not consistently so. I would be typing and editing as usual, then suddenly the cursor would jump one line higher than the editing window, meaning I could no longer see what I was typing. I could confirm that the cursor was in that location by scrolling up a line, but if I edited any text it would jump up again, making it impossible to see the line I was working on. (This happened using the text editor in both normal and distraction-free modes, and the visual editor.)

My memory is that the problem began when WP changed its default settings to accommodate mobile screens and tablets. One key feature of that change was dumbing down the interface and slaving the scroll bar and mouse wheel to the post as a whole, instead of assigning functions depending on the location of the cursor, as had been the case.

If you are having this problem, click on SCREEN OPTIONS at the top of the WP screen while editing a post. A settings menu will drop down, at the bottom of which you will find a checkbox, checked, and beside it the following ironic text: Enable full-height editor and distraction-free functionality.

For real distraction-free functionality, uncheck that checkbox.

Not only should that solve the jumping problem, but if you work on a desktop it will give you back scroll-wheel control of the editing window when the cursor is in that space, instead of defaulting to scroll the whole page. (The scroll wheel will still move the whole page when you move the cursor outside the editing window.)

— Mark Barrett

Construction Notice

January 31, 2014 By Mark Leave a Comment

Spring is right around the corner and that means it’s time to swap out legacy plugins and update the third-party theme I use to modern standards. This will necessarily involve a fair amount of breakage, so if you notice something’s missing or not working (or you hear plaintive wailing in the distance) that’s why.

Phase I will involve changing over to a generic WordPress theme to make sure all basic functions perform as expected.

Phase II will involve installing a new third-party theme and tweaking that theme to taste.

If past experience is any guide the entire process will take, approximately, foreeeeeeeeeever. Then, years from now, I’ll go through it all again.

Because technology.

— Mark Barrett

Network Solutions Fails Again

January 1, 2012 By Mark Leave a Comment

Last year I wrote a couple of posts about the tech support hell I ended up in with my internet service provider (ISP), Network Solutions. I also wrote a post explaining the tech-support process and how to navigate some of the obstacles you’ll encounter. I stated at the time that I would look for a new ISP, but NetSol performed well until the renewal of my service contract seven months later, so I opted to go with the devil I knew.

That devil has now failed to get one of my sites up and running for an entire week. During that week I’ve been told the problem was related to a denial-of-service attack, and that it was related to an error in the configuration of my WordPress settings, but neither of those knee-jerk diagnoses were true. When tech support came to the same conclusion — after multiple calls from me — they escalated the issue to engineering. My site is still unavailable after seven days.

I understand that Network Solutions can’t provide free tech support to every site owner who uses WordPress. And I have no doubt that they are constantly badgered by users seeking exactly that: free service for problems those users created. So when the NetSol techs told me there was a configuration problem with my WordPress settings I took ownership of the problem. (They stressed that they weren’t even supposed to do that much, and I’m grateful they tried to help within the confines of their internal directives.) In looking into the issue, however, I realized not only that I didn’t cause that problem, but there was clear evidence to suggest the configuration issue was not the cause of the problem I was having. [ Read more ]

WordPress as a “Known Issue”

October 18, 2010 By Mark 3 Comments

I put up a small WordPress site over the weekend. It’s on my shared-hosting package, meaning the new site resides on the same sever share that this site sits on.

After pointing people to the new site today I received a message that it couldn’t be accessed. I checked and it worked for me, but when I checked again a few minutes later I got a ‘permission denied’ page, as if the site was unavailable or under construction. Over the next ten minutes or so I was able to replicate the problem on the other site, and even on this site.

My first tech support call to Network Solutions — my site host — went well enough. They showed me how to reset the permissions on my site, and things seemed better after that. Until a couple of hours later, when the same thing happened again.

My second tech support call was less reassuring. Not only was I told that the intermittent errors were a result of total server load, but WordPress was specifically described as a ‘known issue’ in taxing server bandwidth.

Uh…no. If you’re one of the largest hosting providers in the world, and you’re having trouble feeding my WordPress pages to a small handful of visitors, that’s not a WordPress problem, that’s a YouSuck problem.

I’m now being pointed to some helpful tips on speeding up WordPress installs, and have been advised to try using WPSuperCache (a plugin I have considered before), but having one of the most widely-used blogging apps described as a known issue by my site host is a fail.

After allowing malicious code injections into my site, failing to notify me of such in a timely manner, degrading the response time of this site to +30 seconds, and now this, I can’t recommend Network Solutions to anyone else. I’ll probably play out the end of my contract, but between now and then I’ll be looking for reliable hosting without excuses.

The good news is that while I was on hold a robo-message informed me that J.D. Powers might call to ask about my tech-support experience. Please do.

— Mark Barrett

Walking the Ditchwalk

October 5, 2009 By Mark Leave a Comment

In my parasites post I advocated spending money only when you absolutely have to, and only when you know you’re getting something of equal or greater value in return. As an independent author I followed my own advice in putting up this site, and in this post I’d like to walk you though the process I followed in considering blog software options, blog theme options, and a number of graphics options.

For blog software I was fairly sure I would go with WordPress, because it’s free and because I had a positive experience with it several years ago. What I got for my effort then was pretty impressive. The functionality you get with WordPress now is almost absurd, and I couldn’t recommend the application more. (I use the self-hosted version, but WordPress.com is also available if you prefer something hosted and less technical.) [ Read more ]