Enchanted by God; searching for a re-enchanted Christianity
So I've made the decision to move new blog posts to Write.as. I'm aiming to move away from Wordpress which has been my bloggy home for a long time but now feels excessively complicated and unwieldy, offering far more options than I need, and making it harder to find the ones I do want.
You can still view my old blog here.
I may find a way to repost some of my old blog posts here. Or then again, no. Follow me to the new home if you will.
This is another post chiefly to experiment with including images in my posts. In January 2018 we had one of those 'holiday of a lifetime' experiences when we travelled to New Zealand for three weeks.
On the way we stopped over in Singapore for 24 hours. It was Alison's brthday, and the hotel brought her up a little birthday cake, and the waiter sang Happy Birthday for her.
This picture was taken in portrait mode, so when it was uploaded to snap.as, it was turned on its side.
Using the code <img class=rotateimg270 src="https://i.snap.as/hibkC6s.jpg" /> I can turn it the right way round...
But it overlaps the content above and below unless I insert a line of around it.
On the other hand, a picture like this one, in landscape orientation, renders perfectly:
snap.as obviously has a preference for landscape oriented images!
Still trying to find some ways of posting photos on these blog posts. The native Write.as way is to use Snap.as, their own photo hosting app.
I also tried embedding pictures from Google Photos, but I can't make this work. If you enter the link to a picture in Google Photos, it is clickable, but won't embed the picture.
Snap.as has an annoying bug of rotating photos in portrait mode and rendering them as if they were in landscape mode. The workaround I discovered was to use CSS and a rotate command.
<img class="rotateimg270" src="https://i.snap.as/0YOEjU5.jpg" alt="jerm and ship" />
Though as we saw, it rotates the image.
In fact, even if I take a selfie in landscape, it turns it upside down
But you can rotate it with the rotateimg CSS class
<img class="rotateimg180" src="https://i.snap.as/E8DdV06.jpg" alt="selfie" />
I even have to remember to hold my phone the right way up for a landscape selfie! and it's not the way I intuitively do always. viz. the controls must be on the left.
It's a glitchy kind of thing that is being discussed in the Write.as forum. Maybe they'll find a way of correcting it, sometime.
So I'm taking the plunge and taking a trial subscription with Write.as. It's billed as a minimalist platform for blogging and just about any kind of writing you want to post on the Web. It's cheaper than Wordpress, and without all the extra features which make Wordpress more of a tool for businesses (or individuals!) to produce any kind of ambitious website. Write.as is simply for blogging and plain writing.
Let's give it a try and see what happens.
First issue: you can include photos in your posts, but if the picture is taken in portrait orientation it rotates it. Why? And how can you stop it?
It's not a problem with photos in landscape mode.
When I am gone I would like it to be remembered that I took pleasure in the common things of life delighted in the joys of Everyday waking in the morning to life and breath and sound and sight and smell, and the taste of bread and the human voice and touch of those I love. That everything is Gift — and more than this — that there’s a Giver to whom one may give thanks.
That Everyday brings news of discoveries fresh adventures of learning and knowing words to hear and read and chew on, and minds to meet, music to charm the ear and people I love with whom to share the things that I have found who’ll share with me what they have found also
I’d like it to be remembered — that I was kind to others and myself that I would smile at people (not at cameras) laugh when I caught myself being over serious that truth and beauty made my spirit soar that I was wise with the wisdom of my years yet innocent as the child who still, somewhere, plays in my soul that I loved questions more than answers stories to tell, yet better, to inhabit — that I dreamed that there could be a better world yet never hated this one that isn’t so nor gave up hope of how it all might be. At day’s end never closed my eyes in sleep without I blessed the Author of my life.
If this is what I’d like remembered when I’m gone let it become my habit while I’m still here.
I started my first blog a long time ago. So long ago that I've forgotten exactly when, probably very early in the 21st century.
Its very earliest format was simply an HTML file on my website, which I updated and re-uploaded every time there was a new post: it was more of an online daily journal than anything.
Then I started using Blogger, — which apparently still exists. But I wanted more: my own domain name and more bells and whistles. So I changed to Wordpress: a paid option.
But it's become increasingly complex and feels 'bloated', and some of the features that used to be included in the Basic package, you can now only access from the more expensive Business package. I don't need all that stuff, but I'd like some of it.
Scott Nesbit quotes John O’Nolan, founder of the blogging platform Ghost, as saying that WordPress had:
too much stuff everywhere, too much clutter, too many (so many) options getting in the way of what I really want to do: publish content.
So, I'm exploring Write.as. Let's see how it goes.