So there a lot of things are coming along with Cooking Up Stories. And I have to say, I have run into a lot of problems this semester with the site itself and it literally makes me want to throw my computer away and never touch one again.
Just kidding, I would never be able to do that. But a lot of things are definitely coming together nicely, even after the struggle to get them there in the first place, First of all there is a major ascetic change. I really liked the old theme, but I think the theme now, Sketch, makes it look more like a social media site. I wanted the site to look simple but still use a lot of character. I like this theme because of that, the simplicity of the black and white, then the contrast of the orange adds the character. Here are some shots of the site itself.
So there are a few things different about these images. One, the first image is the homepage, which is where users can add their own recipes using that CRED from I talked about in my last post. I don’t necessarily like that this is the front page, especially since I have it set up to where the user must be logged in to submit the form. I want to make an “about” page and make that the homepage instead. Another difference between the two images is the widget area. When the user is not logged in I have it set so they can only search for items within the site. Then once the user is logged in, I have set a widget to show their profile on the side bar. I like this layout much better than just using the menus to hold the profile pages, etc. I’m still working on a few ways to add more “social-media”- like features, like messaging and friending. But for the most part I’m happy with the layout at the moment.
Another new feature on the website! I added new plugins where the user is redirected after logging in and out of the website. Originally the user would be redirected to their version of the dashboard (all users are set to be authors). They can only see/edit their own content. I thought that the redirect would be too confusing for the users, and they wouldn’t know how to get back to the main part of the site, where they could add their own content. So after looking into some plugins, I stumbled upon WPMW-DEV’s login and logout redirects. These two plugins (one for logging in and one for logging out) were perfect. They allow you to add a link that will redirect the user once they have logged in/out. This way they completely skip the dashboard and everything stays on the front end of the site.
I am still looking for users. I have only 10 users at the moment. I have 8 posts too. But not all of my users have posted recipes, only a few have, but they have posted more than one (many thanks to my mother). I am posting on social media to get users on my site, and I plan on continually sharing throughout the rest of the semester. I want to have as many recipes/users as I can before the semester is over.
Now I have somethings I want to work on before the next progress report:
- Add more social-media features, like messaging and friends.
- Create a feed that will show all of the posts a user has posted on their profile page.
- Create more widgets for the sidebar that go with each social media feature.
- Create an About Page for the site itself to make as the homepage.