Why I Changed My Look

I use Word Press for my blogging software. It, like all the other blogging sites and software offers themes. When I first went looking for a theme, I wanted something that looked like a notepad, or a writer’s journal. Another possibility was a desktop type theme. When I found Anarcho Notepad I thought, that’s it!

Full Screen Shot

I liked the cluttered look that gave the impression of creativity in action. But as I added content, the look started to lose its luster. There were so many customizations, but not in the areas that I wanted. Also, readability was becoming an issue as I incorporated more features.

I broke longer posts into pages, which made them more readable, but there was also an unpleasant side effect. I have it set so that my most recent post is the entry page. If that post is a multi-page post, you will not see the page navigation option at the bottom of the article. You the reader needs to know to click on the title of the article, this will then take you to the actual article, which then allows for page navigation.

Lame.

I tinkered with the fonts for a bit, something most themes do not allow. And as noted by my buddy Stark, the font is cute at first blush, but it was really not that readable. Fancy fonts should be for headlines and small blocks of text. Not for a thousand plus word article or story.

Pages-SubPages

The one thing that really drove me nuts was that I wanted my short stories to be a sub-page of Short Stories. Anarcho Notepad did not allow that. They just looked like standalone pages on that little thumb tacked scrap of paper. In the old days, most themes had page navigation as tabs across the top of the Website. With those themes if you clicked on the Short Story link, the pages dropped down and you could select a story. Anarcho Notepad and this current theme don’t work that way. With my current theme I needed to create a box that showed pages, but at least the stories are indented to show they are part of the Short Story page.

Because of this little issue, I may look to a new theme in the near future.

What I like about the current theme is that it is very visual. My posts are presented as tiles or icons based on the “Featured Image”. That way if you enter my page via the home page, you are presented with the latest works in a modern, icon style. You get a sample of the article, and will instinctively know to click on the article to read it in its entirety. Page navigation isn’t so complicated.

NotepadChaosTheme

What I did learn as I looked for a new theme is that Anarcho Notepad is a complete rip-off of an older them called Notepad Chaos. I wanted to use this theme, but it has not been updated since 2011, which probably makes it too old for today’s version of Word Press.

My question is, can you rip off another guys theme, give him no credit, and call it your own. The “author” of Anarcho Notepad is a Russian guy, they can do whatever they want I guess.

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