Service Update Update – Blogs and Beyond…

[AgentPete]

Since everyone can see (I hope!) the new home page feature “Latest Articles from the Author Platform” I thought I should update you about… well, what’s going on!

I don’t want to explain the why’s and wherefore’s of the Author Platform quite yet, we’ll do that when were closer to launching. Suffice to say, it will be a gargantuan leap forwards.

As you can see, there’s now a feature on the Colony’s home page featuring the most recent article to appear on the platform. Feel free to click through and read – and preferably, leave a comment or two as well. We’re still at beta stage, but it’s working pretty well.

More soon

 

[Bloo]

Hi, Peter...

Not sure if related, but all the blog comment avatars are set to the Gravatar logo. WordPress sucks at custom avatar generation, so your options to change it are quite Gravatar-centric. I think the same guy runs WP and Gravatar, so yeah.

Anyhoo...you can choose autogenerated options in WP (such as retro avatars). I think those can be set to load externally only the first time so you're not bottlenecked by someone-else's server.

Of course there are plugins that allow custom avatar outside of Gravatar - or you can code it. But you prolly know all this. I've only been using WordPress since April.

 

[AgentPete]

Thx Bloo, nice to hear from you, hope all’s OK w you.

Tbh, I have no idea about avatar choice, these are the options, never heard of most of them… what do you suggest?

 

[Bloo]

Thx Bloo, nice to hear from you, hope all’s OK w you.

Tbh, I have no idea about avatar choice, these are the options, never heard of most of them… what do you suggest?
View attachment 20803

Hi, Peter...

Well I use the "Retro" one. But your site is a completely different animal than mine. I'm still very new to this, so take my advice with a martini-ring of salt.

BTW...WP defaulting to the Gravatar logo is not cool. A fine example of enshittification there. Also not cool...forcing site admins to use Gravatar for their own custom avatar. Ugh. There are actually a fix for that...
Change Profile Picture in Wordpress without Gravatar in 2025

And something more in-depth that allows filters and rules...
How to Set a Media Image for User Avatar in WordPress

I'm gonna use the top one to give me some measure of control. I think it's silly to query another server for something that really should be stored locally. You can prolly make the bottom work with colony avatars, although linking each one individually would be madness. I think you've got enough code to automate that with a script. If there are common user IDs between blog and colony, that would be considerably easier. You for sure know more about this stuff than I do.

About me...well I'm okay-ish. Work is stressful (our entire Italian team got the axe). We apps engineers got all the orphaned European customers. Tomorrow our US group reports to the new Swiss boss. Each of us needs to tell him what projects we are working on. It's going to be a weekly meeting. I got a feeling that anyone who isn't busy enough will also get the axe. I'm worried coz a couple of my big projects were sold off with the factory in Italy. My biggest customer has been hit hard by open hostility toward anything "green". So I'm under the gun.

Thank you for asking

 

[AgentPete]

Hi, Peter...

Well I use the "Retro" one. But your site is a completely different animal than mine. I'm still very new to this, so take my advice with a martini-ring of salt.

Retro it is! Let's see how that works out. But isn’t that a margarita?

I'm gonna use the top one to give me some measure of control. I think it's silly to query another server for something that really should be stored locally. You can prolly make the bottom work with colony avatars, although linking each one individually would be madness. I think you've got enough code to automate that with a script. If there are common user IDs between blog and colony, that would be considerably easier. You for sure know more about this stuff than I do.

Actually, we’ve recently separated the two sites somewhat, dot com will still handle full memberships and payment processing, but free members are now able to sign up directly into the Colony.

There are long and complex reasons for doing this, but the interface between the two was kind of insane, requiring Google sheets and Zapier for them just to talk to each other. Plus lots of custom code, too. I’m resisting the urge to start ranting…

About me...well I'm okay-ish. Work is stressful (our entire Italian team got the axe). We apps engineers got all the orphaned European customers. Tomorrow our US group reports to the new Swiss boss. Each of us needs to tell him what projects we are working on.

Sounds Muskian. Uh-oh.

It's going to be a weekly meeting. I got a feeling that anyone who isn't busy enough will also get the axe. I'm worried coz a couple of my big projects were sold off with the factory in Italy. My biggest customer has been hit hard by open hostility toward anything "green". So I'm under the gun.

Hopefully they’re not holding AI over your head, too. Quality of software is going to plummet. I’m still somewhat suspicious that this may have been a factor in the Air India crash, altho they say it was the seat moving. Two-engine shutdown has happened before on a 787 when a subsystem thought the engines were racing (they were actually landing!). Scary stuff.
Consider getting a job with client?

 

[Sarit]

Hi Pete! I think it's great to give the articles more of a stage. Apologies I haven't contributed lately, was really busy with my novel website and newsletter. Perhaps I should blog about that...the good, the bad, and the great

 

[Sarit]

Also if I may, I think previewing 3 articles instead of 4 is better. Especially on mobile you have to scroll past all these to get to the forum. Also align the preview text so it's all the same length cause now one 'article box' is longer than the other. It's just my pet peeve that everything should be symmetrical.

 

[AgentPete]

Also if I may, I think previewing 3 articles instead of 4 is better. Especially on mobile you have to scroll past all these to get to the forum.

Yeah, I realize I needed to do this. The real estate was indeed being a hog on mobile display.

What we’ve got now (I think, subject to testing) is:

• Large screen: shows 4 most recent articles, 1 rowx4 columns
• Tablets/laptops/smaller screens(*) shows 3 most recent articles, 1 rowx3 columns
• Mobile: shows single most recent article.

I’ve tested large screen and mobile (only Android, tho should be the same on IoS) but haven’t tested laptop/tablet.

If anyone could do this, please, just to verify we’re getting 3 articles across, and not 4?

Thx!

(NB it detects device initially and determines layout based on that. It will not cascade down if you start on a large screen and then try to mimic a mobile by reducing the browser window size).

Also align the preview text so it's all the same length cause now one 'article box' is longer than the other. It's just my pet peeve that everything should be symmetrical.

Yeah, been wondering about that. No good solution comes to mind just yet. I don’t want to truncate the text. Reducing font size to fit box size looks… odd. Even odder than the existing asymmetrical box sizes. Honestly, don’t know what to do about this at the moment!

 

[Aethalope]

Yeah, I realize I needed to do this. The real estate was indeed being a hog on mobile display.

What we’ve got now (I think, subject to testing) is:

• Large screen: shows 4 most recent articles, 1 rowx4 columns
• Tablets/laptops/smaller screens(*) shows 3 most recent articles, 1 rowx3 columns
• Mobile: shows single most recent article.

I’ve tested large screen and mobile (only Android, tho should be the same on IoS) but haven’t tested laptop/tablet.

If anyone could do this, please, just to verify we’re getting 3 articles across, and not 4?

Thx!

(NB it detects device initially and determines layout based on that. It will not cascade down if you start on a large screen and then try to mimic a mobile by reducing the browser window size).


Yeah, been wondering about that. No good solution comes to mind just yet. I don’t want to truncate the text. Reducing font size to fit box size looks… odd. Even odder than the existing asymmetrical box sizes. Honestly, don’t know what to do about this at the moment!

Phone shows 1, tablet shows 3 and laptop shows 4. Guess it counts as a large laptop, but all good.

 

[Sarit]

@AgentPete On mobile I see only 1 article now. On my laptop (Mac, safari) I still see 4. I think on WP there is a function to preview say 140 characters, 200 etc. No? I dunno on my articles page Tri-Simulation Quandry : Blog - The Correction I just fixed the boxes around it so even if text is not exactly even to the eye it's symmetrical.

 

[AgentPete]

@AgentPete On mobile I see only 1 article now.

Which is better, yes?

On my laptop (Mac, safari) I still see 4.

Probably cos you have a wide-ish screen?

I think on WP there is a function to preview say 140 characters, 200 etc. No?

Yes, we can easily truncate to any length, but… I don’t like it! Cutting an author’s sentence off mid-flow is just wrong. It doesn’t invite click-thrus (imho). It’s just a butchered, sometimes meaningless, sentence.

I don’t know what the answer is at the moment.

 

[Sarit]

On mobile to see one article I think it's good.

 

[AgentPete]

@AgentPete On mobile I see only 1 article now. On my laptop (Mac, safari) I still see 4.

Could you give m a screenshot of laptop, pls? Just need to see how squished 4 cards look, I may need to change the specs a bit...

 

[Sarit]

here you go that's what I see without scrolling down

 

[AgentPete]

here you go that's what I see without scrolling downView attachment 20831

Thx… that looks OK to me, you’ve got quite a wide laptop screen. I wanted to make sure we weren’t squeezing 4 boxes into a narrow width, which would have elongated them excessively. p.

 

[mickleinapickle]

I see one on my mobile and four on my laptop. All good.

I also see ghosts, but I don't talk about that normally.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

Pete, Mick, how do I edit something that went to the preview stage?

I've submitted it, but want to edit before it goes live.

I've followed the email link - but I can't see how to edit.

 

[Pamela Jo]

Pete, Mick, how do I edit something that went to the preview stage?

I've submitted it, but want to edit before it goes live.

I've followed the email link - but I can't see how to edit.

Important for all of us to know.

 

[mickleinapickle]

Pete, Mick, how do I edit something that went to the preview stage?

I've submitted it, but want to edit before it goes live.

I've followed the email link - but I can't see how to edit.

Sorry I'm late responding to this. I saw it earlier but only just got chance to reply.

If you go to your Platform Control Centre, then shimmy down to 'edit', you can edit any blog to your heart's content, regardless if it's published, pending or whatever. Whenever you do edit, it will migrate back to my 'pending approval' thingamybob for me to approve (or re-approve).

I've actually scheduled your latest blog for publication on 17/07/25 at 6 am, but you can still edit anytime. I'll then re-approve.

Coincidentally, it's my birthday on 17/07/25. Can't remember how old I am, but I'll consider reading your blog on that morning as a nice little birthday pressie.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

Thanks. It wasn't showing up there earlier - bit of a time lag thing, I guess.
And happy birthday on Thursday. Don't even try to remember how old you are - it's all lies.