I am lost… I need to talk to an expert.
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I was writing my blog and wanted to change the theme at the top. I managed that but have now lost everything I have been writing since September.
WP.com: Yes
Correct account: YesThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to moderators and staff)
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Your site http://frances674371868.wordpress.com/ is online but hasn’t been launched yet.
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I don’t even know how to answer a blog here. Staartmees-you were rude. I’m nearly 70 years old and in tears here because I lost everything.
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If things don’t show up it doens’t mean they are lost. But without knowing the URL or web address of your ‘lost’ blog we can’t help you.
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What do I do? Where do I begin? I know nothing about computers and usually just write essays on it but I have to do this blog for my degree. I am 70 in December… Help
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Hi Frances,
Your content isn’t lost, so you don’t need to worry about that. It’s just currently a bit hidden. Here’s what’s happened:
You originally created your site on the Hever theme, where you had some content published on a static front page (those aren’t blog posts, by the way, but I’ll come back to that. For now, let me just explain how to get your existing content visible again.)
Yesterday you switched to the Twenty Twenty-One theme, and in the process you selected the option to enable the default front page of that theme. That set your original home page back to draft.
It looks like since then, you’ve also set the Twenty Twenty-One front page to draft.
To get your site back the way it was, follow these steps:
1) Go to Pages ->All Pages, click on Drafts at the top, and click on the page titled Home. Change the status of that page to Published, and click Update.
2) Exit the editor, and next go to Appearance ->Customize ->Homepage Settings. Under Static Front Page, select the page titled Home. Save the changes.
That should put things back to the way they were.
Let us know here once you’ve done that – as I mentioned above, what you have on that page isn’t actually a blog (yet). If you like, I can explain what you need to do to turn what you have there into a blog that other people can subscribe to, but let’s first get your site back to a state where you can see what you’ve done so far :)
When you next reply, can you tell me whether you want your blog entries to show on the Home link for your site, or would you like to have them on your My Blog page, with maybe some more general info about yourself on the Home page?
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Kokkieh, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you. I have followed all your instructions and my work is re-instated so I can carry on working on it.
However, If you look on my home page now under Blog you will see that I actually started writing it again yesterday evening. So I now need to delete that and try to get my recovered work under the Blog tag. Then I’m hoping I can customise the Homepage as I was trying to do yesterday. This work is part of a module I’m doing for the final year of my History BA. Unfortunately, the last time I diarised anything I wrote in a little book and hid it from my parents! I’m going to carry on my entries on my redeemed work now so thank you again so much. Your instructions were just what I needed-step by step. Perhaps if you help me with the other bit and get the redeemed one under the Blog tag instead I would be forever thankful. No-one else is seeing this except my tutor and a couple of selected friends-I still have some my age! thanks xx -
I also see your site https://frances674371868.wordpress.com/ hasn’t been launched, so nobody can see it except you.
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However, If you look on my home page now under Blog you will see that I actually started writing it again yesterday evening. So I now need to delete that and try to get my recovered work under the Blog tag.
Okay, so neither of those pages you’ve written so far are actually blog posts. They’re static pages, meant to contain static content, like a About Me or a Contact Page, not regular updates/entries. So I would recommend before adding anything new, you republish that content as blog posts instead. You mention this site is only for you and your tutor, but setting it up this way will make it easier to navigate, and prevent your pages from becoming too long and unwieldy.
1) Open your Home page and copy the oldest entry you have there. Then go to Posts ->Add New, and paste your content into a new post. You can set the publication date on the post to match the date on your entry on the homepage, so your posts will still appear in the correct order. Then publish it.
Repeat this process for all the entries you’ve added to your Home and My Blog pages.
2) Once all your content has been moved to their own blog posts, go to Appearance ->Customize ->Homepage settings again, and this time under Posts Page, select your page titled My Blog. Once you do that and save the Customizer, the My Blog link in your menu will now automatically display all posts published on your site, with the most recent one at the top.
Going forward, for each new entry, you’ll then create a new blog post (this is exactly like starting on a new page in your diary each day, just digitally), rather than adding content to an already published page, and it will automatically get added to the My Blog page.
3) Lastly, edit your homepage again, and add something there about you, or describing what your site is about. If that’s what you’re doing already on the My Internship page, you could consider making that page your homepage instead as well – just assign it as the front page in the Customizer.
Let me know if anything is unclear, or if you run into any trouble with the steps I provided.
No-one else is seeing this except my tutor and a couple of selected friends-I still have some my age!
As @staartmees said above, currently your site isn’t launched, so it’s only visible to you (and me, but that’s because I work here :D )
To have anyone else be able to see it, you need to launch it. You do that at Settings ->General.
Once it’s launched you’ll then have three options:
You can set the site to public, meaning anyone can see it, and it will eventually get listed in search engines and the WordPress.com Reader where anyone can find it.
You can set it to hidden from search engines, meaning search engines and the Reader won’t list it automatically, but anyone with whom you share a link will be able to see it.
Or you can set it to private, then only people you specifically invite can see it. Note that if you set it to private, someone else would need to have their own WordPress.com account before you can invite them to have access.
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Kokkieh
I’m not sure I have done it right now and I don’t want to delete all that stuff on the home page until I’m sure it’s all ok. I have published and would please ask you to look at it again and see where I have gone wrong this time. My homepage still has all the original entries which is ok for now but on my blog page I can only see one entry. That maybe because I had an incorrect date on it and spent forever trying to amend it. Once I put the right date I couldn’t see the others. Can you tell me how it should work. I am assuming there is a front (Home) page and the when you click Blog—-do you get the latest up first or does it start at the beginning? I also seem to have two homepages. The one where I start my journey and the other which actually looks like a magazine cover. I’m a bit lost again but I think not as bad as yesterday. I would appreciate if you look at it and tell me how to correct it. I would like the magazine type page as my homepage and then when you click the blog my first comes up because that is where I introduce myself, followed by the others–earliest first. Is that usual? Help (again). Thanks (again). -
If I look at your posts list in the dashboard, I now see 18 posts published, ranging from 8 September to 5 November. You did great with that, and are over the hardest bit now :)
but on my blog page I can only see one entry. That maybe because I had an incorrect date on it and spent forever trying to amend it. Once I put the right date I couldn’t see the others.
Currently you have the Blog Posts block on that page, but you have it set up to only show one post. Instead, you want to configure it to show x number of posts. See below:
I am assuming there is a front (Home) page and the when you click Blog—-do you get the latest up first or does it start at the beginning?
By default blogs show the most recent posts first, and that’s how the Blog Posts block work that you’re using on the My Blogs page. But you can have your oldest post show first if you prefer.
To do that, you need to use the Latest Posts block instead:
Go to Pages ->All Pages and edit your My Blogs page. Click on the blog post appearing there and remove that block completely. Then click the + icon and search for and insert the Latest Posts block instead. In that block’s settings you’ll find an option to have it show posts Oldest to Newest.
Also make sure you configure it to show your post content, and the full post if you want, and that you specify how many posts it should show.
https://wordpress.com/en/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/latest-posts-block/
I also seem to have two homepages. The one where I start my journey and the other which actually looks like a magazine cover.
I would like the magazine type page as my homepage and then when you click the blog my first comes up because that is where I introduce myself, followed by the others–earliest first. Is that usual?
Okay, that’s the page titled “My Internship”. Again go to Customize ->Homepage Settings, and then set that page as your front page:
Once you’ve done that you can delete the page titled “Home”, as at that point it won’t be your homepage any more, and you’ve already copied all the content on it into posts.
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Kokkieh… I think I’ve got it! I have the home page which is the magazine covers. Then I have the internship page which is the one where I now need to delete what is there and make an introduction of my self to this internship.. THIS IS INCORRECT-I HAVE THESE TWO THE WRONG WAY ROUND. How do I swap them so I open with the magazine covers and follow with the page that still has the old entries-where I will write my introduction-once I have checked all the blogs. .and finally the blogs. I’m checking those tomorrow page-by-page to ensure they are all ok and actually written in reasonable English. Apart from that I think I’m good to go. Wish I knew how to make a blog this at the start of my degree. I’m sure my friends and family would have loved my updates from isolation. The degree has been tough but I have learned so much and I have now learned another thing. You can-after all-teach an old dogs new tricks. OOOPS one more trick please. The pages above. Thanks again for all your help. I could never have done this without your step-by-step instructions for dummies! Honestly. Thanks.
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Hi there,
I have the home page which is the magazine covers. Then I have the internship page which is the one where I now need to delete what is there and make an introduction of my self to this internship.. THIS IS INCORRECT-I HAVE THESE TWO THE WRONG WAY ROUND. How do I swap them so I open with the magazine covers and follow with the page that still has the old entries-where I will write my introduction-once I have checked all the blogs. .and finally the blogs.
You can select a different page as your site’s home page. To do so go to Appearance > Customize > Homepage Settings and select the new page under the Homepage drop-down list.
Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.
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Hi Frances,
I just took a look at your site, and it looks great now!
I notice on your blog page you now only list the dates/titles of the posts. Consider showing at least an excerpt to give people a little taste to entice them to read the full post. You can modify the blog settings to do that. But of course, that’s entirely up to you.
Another suggestion – on your introduction at the bottom where you say “onward to the blog”, consider adding a link to your blog page. Copy the blog page link, https://frances674371868.wordpress.com/blog/, then edit the introduction page. Highlight the “onward to the blog” text, and just press Ctrl-V on the keyboard. That will add the link to the text, so someone can click on it to get taken directly to the blog page.
You can-after all-teach an old dogs new tricks.
Indeed. I’ve come across 90-year-olds in this forum creating their own websites for the very first time, so you’re in distinguished company.
Happy blogging, and if you have any other questions going forward, you know where to find us :)
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Thank you fstat. I managed to follow your instructions and sorted the Home page. It was very kind of you to help. You and Kokkie have been great. My sons had no clue how to help but are impressed that I knew where to ask. I am just grateful someone out there answered! Thanks again
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Hi Kokkieh-thanks for the suggestion of the link at the bottom of my introduction to my blog. I have it there but it is very large…can I change the text to make it a bit smaller…only the http address, not the rest? Thanks again for staff help. incredible that someone out there actually exists and assists….
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It looks like you figured out how to make the link smaller, but I’d recommend you add the link directly to the text, rather than having the bare URL appear underneath it, so people can actually click the text itself.
Here’s a short screen recording to show you what to do:
Glad we could help :)
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Kokkieh…IT WORKED….Thanks again. I am so impressed with you and me. I only hope my tutor is as impressed-this blog is 20% of the final mark. Thanks
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