Trying to set up blog – Getting Blank (or mostly blank) pages instead of menus &

  • Unknown's avatar
    incredibleintroverts · Member ·

    OK, so i created my account & have a “theme” & blah blah blah.
    I’m now trying to both find out why the front-page introductory blog entry i created when i created the account disappeared (i’m assuming there’s no useful answer — i.e., that even if i find out why, there’s no way to retrieve it) & currently, in trying to design the home page & set things up the HUGE problem is that each time i try to go to pages that are supposed to be for that, they don’t appear (yes, even though i’m logged in & the owner of the blog).

    1) Specifically, i just tried to navigate to the page for “settings”. From the home page of my blog, i clicked the WP logo in the upper left & hit “settings” on the pull-down menu. Fine — it took me to a page whose URL is “wordpress.com/settings” but all i get is a light blue page, with a darker blue top bar with links to wordpress, “my sites”, “stats”, all on the left, & on the right icons for what looks like a pencil but mouse-over gives nothing to identify its purpose, then a box for “see your newest likes…” & finally a place-holder for my avatar (if i ever get the tools to create it). But most of the page is totally blank (light blue), so i can find no way to access “the general menu” which your “Getting Started” page says to go to, in order to do what i’m trying to do.

    2) Likewise, when i tried navigating the site without reading through the “Getting Started” i tried to use the “Design Tools” to modify my home page. What happened was that i got my blog’s home page with a black bar on the right saying “Design Tools Loading…”. But nothing loaded! (And yes, i waited a LOOOONG time — like hours. And i tried it again today, when i came back to my blog to re-try getting it set up properly, after having closed my browser & re-loaded it.)

    So i’m totally stymied, as to how to set things up, since each time i try to load the pages that are supposed to give me the tools to do so, the tools never load (at least the “Settings” & the “Design Tools”; i haven’t tried anything else, since your “Getting Started” says to go to the “Settings” & use the “General” menu — the one that never appeared).

    How do i get these tools to load, so i can get my blog set up?!
    Thanks

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

  • Unknown's avatar
    raincoaster · Member ·

    have you gone through http://learn.wordpress.com? Start there.

    The menu you are looking for in 1) is on your blog dashboard, not your account dashboard.

  • Unknown's avatar
    incredibleintroverts · Member ·

    Thanks for your prompt reply. I got the link to do what i’m trying to do from WordPress’s “Quick-Start Guide” — the link in the original set of e-mails when i set up the account & blog. I’ll see if there’s anything different in the “learn” URL you give.

    As for which dashboard to look in, i saw reference in WordPress to only 1 page called a “dashboard”, which sounds like what you say is the blog dashboard. That was actually where i started, & how i got that “tools loading….” message that produced no tools, just a constant black side-bar telling me they’re loading (superimposed on my blog home page).

    Let’s see, as i try to learn more & try more possibilities. Thanks again for the suggestion & nomenclature clarification.

  • Unknown's avatar
    incredibleintroverts · Member ·

    Taking your advice, i was clear to go to the blog dashboard. (I now get that the dashboard isn’t the main part of the page, but just the left column links. That had been unclear to me before.) I scrolled down to “Appearance”, & from that menu clicked “Customize”.
    AGAIN, i got the dreaded “Loading tools….” black sidebar (on the right), which produced nothing in the way of tools. (Again, just that sidebar, superimposed on my blog home page.)
    Clearly, there seems to be a glitch somewhere….

    I’ll try to plow through the “learning” URL, to see if it gives anything different that works better than the customization tools.
    I did, at least, with your clarification on the different “dashboards”, find the link given in the WP introductory “Get Started” page, which does provide me with some of what i need. So thanks for that.

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