Slowly but surely the Blogs are taking shape. I have been bouncing back and forth between dark and light themes. A light background is easier on the eyes. A dark background makes posts pop, especially photos.

I have not made a final choice on a Blog Theme. The free Themes available on WordPress.com give one an opportunity to learn what works.

My problems stem from the fact that I have tried to “improve” the color choice available. I have added HTML color statements to posts. For example I had changed some posts to use “black” text. Worked well, until I changed to a Dark Theme. Black text on a Black background is not very readable. I had forgotten about my hard-coded change. Lots of fun finding problems and figuring out solutions.

Post separation has also bugged me. Not every Theme has a Separator line.  One solution was to post an image of a colored separation line. This worked well with some Themes. On the present Theme, a “continue reading” line was automatically added under the bar. so I had to delete all the line posts.

Not being versed in HTML or CSS, my use of HTML statements sometimes leads to interesting problems. Make one change and other seemingly unrelated parts of the Theme screen also change.

One area which I had not planned for was “categories”. I created new ones as I posted. To change categories could pose a big problem as the number of posts grow. It would have been a good idea to create a list of Categories before starting a blog. Doing so would have saved me a ton of time. To change a category for a post you have to open and edit each individual post. Luckily I realized this before there were hundreds of posts to deal with. I wish that I had gone out and read a bunch of blogs to get an idea of what Categories could show up in a Blog.

A large part of the ongoing changes is a search for a more readable Blog. I wanted a wider “responsive” Blog. Found one, but found that some of my Widgets worked differently with that Theme. Other Themes were too narrow or were not responsive.

I assume that If I purchased a Premium Theme many things could be addressed or coded. Two problems with that. I’m learning what features, layout, widget areas I would like in my Blog. I can easily see myself buying Premium Blogs every week. I would much rather spend that money buying lenses and cameras instead. Having the capability to add CSS and HTML code does not do much for me at this time because I have no clue how to code it properly. I can see myself creating more problems than solutions.

I have also re-read the Terms Of Service documents of some Free Blog Hosting Services. Very interesting reading. The data being acquired will make interesting time capsules in the future. I can also see such media collections having a major impact on Photography as a viable business. Rarely, in life,  are goods and service provided for “free”. Your words, photos and videos may turn out to be most valuable and could justify the huge costs of running all those server farms which power all those “free” services. Your posts could become someone’s media collection, to use as they see fit.

The present Theme will remain at least till next weekend. I look forward to weekends doing something other than changing Blog Themes