To map out a rough design for the website’s home page, I used Canva.
I’m sure I’ll make changes as I continue developing the website. I only have a few posts up, so for now I’ve decided not to include an archive until I figure out how I would like it to be organized.
I placed a few drop-down categories in the header menu, where I will organize all of my posts. PUB 101 content will be in the Academics category, under the Process Posts or Mini Assignments subcategories. I ran into an issue where each category displayed the blog archive rather than the posts under each specific category. I tried disabling plug-ins but nothing there was causing the issue. After looking through a related question that had been solved on WordPress Support (https://wordpress.org/support/topic/category-links-dont-go-to-categorys-content/) I downloaded the Health Check plug-in, entered troubleshooting mode, and found that it was the theme that was causing the issue.
Following this I decided to deactivate Scandinavia, and instead went through Elementor to build the website. I’m a little fuzzy on the details but I’m using the Astra theme, and editing the site through Elementor. So far, it’s working much better and I’m glad I was able to figure out the issue.
I’m hoping to play around with the social media links in the future. I’m thinking about linking to a Spotify profile for playlists, as well as eventually an Instagram page. There is a huge number of knitting accounts on Instagram, and I think it could be a useful platform for engaging with other knitters.
So far, I’ve created a Pinterest profile that connects to my website. I decided to start with Pinterest because it does not revolve around followers or post engagement as much as Instagram, so I think it is a good social platform to get started with while I continue building the website. I’ve found as well that Pinterest is still primarily a photo sharing platform, which I prefer to videos. I embedded my Pinterest board as a widget on the sidebar so that people can see what I take inspiration from.
This week has been a lot of trial and error. I’m being patient with myself and trying to take this one step at a time, because technology causes a unique kind of frustration in me that is only solvable by a bit of swearing and plenty of breaks for my brain. I tried taking day-long, weekend-long, or week-long breaks from technology when I was younger, but I’m not sure if I would be able to do that anymore. I need to be online to access university coursework and connect with friends from high school, who are spread all over the world now. I delete social media from my phone every so often, but I find the more effective way to take a technology break is to find things to do in my spare time that are not online, to create balance between my screen time and time appreciating the physical world.
Hopefully with this website, I can be offline, knitting, and still be somewhat productive because ‘it’s for school’.
