Changing the look of a WordPress blog…

  • Unknown's avatar
    mfilesblog · Member ·

    HI Folks,

    I am confused about using WordPress. I have used Typepad before and was using anther third-party blog service, but I had to transition our company blog to a new service.

    I chose WordPress. So I signed up and started moving the blog over, which I have done with the help of a contractor. I am finding however that the blog template/appearance is very restrictive. The banner must only be 940×180 or some other fixed and large size. The fonts seem fixed by the template and various other appearance settings are limited as well.

    The contractor and people at WordPress are just telling me sorry you can’t change the banner. The contractor is also saying I need the paid CSS option, whcih will allow changing the fonts, but even then you can’t add plug-ins and so on. For instance, he was going to add this plug-in: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cumulus/screenshots/.

    What basic thing am I missing? I thought this was supposed to be one of the top blogging platforms, yet you can’t change the banner or freely control basic cosmetic settings? To do this, are you supposed to host the software yourself or sign up for the service in some other way? Or is it just some complex multi-step process of purchasing this option or that and doing lots of work just to do such a basic and obvious thing ascontrol the look of our blog?

    I have included a response form one of WordPress’ “Happiness Engineers,” but found the response very short and unhelpful. So I guess I am not as “happy” as the Happiness Engineers would have me. In fact I am beginning to think WordPress was a bad choice.

    Any actual help would be appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Greg

    —–Original Message—–
    From: Andrew – WordPress.com [mailto:support@wordpress.com]
    Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 1:17 PM
    To: Greg Milliken
    Subject: [WordPress #568067]: Appearance – Banner too large

    > We seem to be fixed to one size banner for our blog and it is too
    > large. Is there some want to adjust this?

    Hi Greg,

    The size of your blog’s custom header is set by the template files and cannot be adjusted. Let me know if you have any other questions.

    Cheers,
    —
    Andrew
    Happiness Engineer
    WordPress.com | Automattic

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    1tess · Moderator Emeritus ·

    Hi Greg,

    Did you know that there are two kinds of WordPress?
    WordPress.com offers free blog hosing on a shared platform.
    WordPress.org offers free blogging software for self-hosted blogs.
    Here is the support document with details about the differences:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

    If you want to stay with wp.com and you know how to write CSS code (there is no official support here, but a few very generous volunteers drop in now and then), then here is information about the paid upgrade:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-css/

    Because we wp.com users share the platform we are restricted in the sorts of code we can use:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/code/
    And it is true that we can not use plugins on wp.com, though you could request one and staff will look into it:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/plugins/
    Sometimes volunteers (and staff) here in the forum are able to figure out a workaround for a plugin function as well.

    But currently wp.com offer 100 different themes to choose from so you are not restricted to using TwentyTen which is now the default format for wp.com.
    Dashboard —> Appearance —> Themes
    You can filter for themes with custom headers, and perhaps you will find one more to your liking.

    I am a volunteer, so can only speak for myself, but I hope my answer clarifies some issues for you.

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