Guest post by Richard
This is a initial review of the new iNove theme recently introduced at WordPress.com. This theme offers a lot of useful features, but it is not without some drawbacks that could trip up bloggers. I would have like to have seen this theme massaged a little more to limit some of the drawbacks. Perhaps staff will get around to that in a future update of the theme.
Guest post by Richard
I discovered another one of those stealthy features that show up from time to time at wordpress.com without announcement. There is now an “archives” shortcode which will allow you to build a post index on a page by just entering the shortcode. Click the thumbnail at left to see an example of the basic shortcode (no options) that creates a lists all posts in your blog [*archives*]. (Note: I’ve put an asterisk at each end so the example code does not put an archive here in the post.)
Posted by Richard
After this forum post by Ella in the WordPress.com forums, and Teck’s comment here on this blog, I was about ready to change the title of this post to “Google Chrome: NOT ON YOUR LIFE,” but with a little time going by (and taking the time to try it out), and a post by Matt Cutts (Googler) on his blog, one of the two – the Chrome end user license agreement (EULA) – thorns have been removed, or will be shortly according to Matt. (Note to Google: One size does not fit all!) The other one – the potential piece of malware installed with Chrome that Teck reported – is still a concern although it was not installed on my computer when I did the installation. During installation I told it not to send information on crashes and such back to Google, so perhaps Teck did not disable that at install. And there are other concerns as well including some apparent security issues. I’m not going to repeat the sloothing of others, but will include links to things I think you should be aware of.
This isn’t going to be an indepth review of features and such, but simply my observations from several hours of use over a couple days. I’ll start with general impressions and then move into how it functioned with WordPress.com and the stand-alone WordPress software from WordPress.org. At the end of this post, I will list some good sources of information if you wish to look further.
Do keep in mind: Chrome at the time I’m writing this is in Beta, which means it isn’t finished. Hopefully the issues will be taken care of by the time it reaches actual “ready for prime-time” release.
[Update 1: Warning! There have been a few more security holes uncovered and reported by Information Week, and the security issues are not something that will be caught by antivirus software or spy software, so don't expect them to keep you safe. Please read the article and be very careful until Google gets these issues resolved.]
Posted by Richard
WordPress has added a number of new settings for controlling how your images and other files are handled when inserted into posts and pages.
Now in addition to setting thumbnail size, you can set the default size for medium and large images, and you can also choose the default image size for insertion and default image alignment.
Another setting that you will want to check out is the ability to choose the default media links. Some people do not want their images in their posts or pages linked to the full-sized original (so that it opens when clicked on) and others do. Now you can choose the option that makes sense for you. And don’t despair, all of these settings can be overridden in the insert media window at the time you insert the image or file into your post.
It would have been nice if these settings were included when the big upgrade was made several months back, but we have them now, and I for one am pleased.
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
Posted by Richard
The WordPress post editor, both at WordPress.com and in the self-hosted software from WordPress.org has a “more tag” function in the editor. When the “more tag” is inserted into a post and the post is published, there will appear a “read more” or “continue reading” link where the more tag was inserted which splits the post. Clicking on the “read more” will take the reader to the permalink post page, and allow them to read the rest of the post. It is particularly useful on long posts.
Keeping several simple things in mind can go a long way toward avoiding the “more tag” woes.
Related posts found on this blog:
Using the read more tag in a WordPress blog
FAQ’s at WordPress.com
Formatting issues with the “More” tag
Splitting posts with the “More” tag
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
