Playing with WP Rig

Playing with WP Rig

Byrichard

Today I started following the “Building Progressive Themes with WP Rig.” course on Linkedin Learning.


Before you start playing with WP Rig make sure that you have installed Composer. Composer is required to use WP Rig during the build process. Composer itself requires that you have PHP on your machine. After that it should be easier to use. I also ran npm-install-peers because I kept getting error messages.


During the daily walk today I saw that the grass along the side of the road is dry and dead. It crunshes as you walk on it. As you look at other fields they are dry and probably crunchy too. We had some rain a few days ago, but within minutes of the rain stopping the landscape was dry again. We never get rain. I am impatient for a day of rain. I am impatient to look forward to good weather, rather than bad. It seems to be absurd to want rain in Switzerland. In winter skiers and snowboarders want snow.


I managed a 179 day reading streak with the kindle before I broke it. It wasn’t that I didn’t read, but that I didn’t read using the kindle. It’s frustrating to lose such a streak because it will take 179 days to get back to the same point. It makes no sense to reach for such a goal in the first place. These apps that get you to do things for an unlimited days in a row detract from the pleasure of doing certain things habitually. I have read a book every day for many months, probably years, but I use Audible, Kobo, physical books and the Kindle. I need to find an app to track reading streaks without it being locked in to one book store.

WordPress Child Themes

WordPress Child Themes

Byrichard

For a while, I have been thinking about creating my own WordPress themes, but I didn’t know where to start or how many hours it would take. I always assumed that it would take many hours and that I would have to create templates, style sheets and more for a number of pages. In reality, you need an index.php page and a stylesheet. Anything else is a bonus.


A shortcut is to find a theme that you like and to see which fields you want to modify and just modify that behaviour. Choosing to use another font requires one or two lines of code. With minimal effort, you can personalise a theme.


The course I watched is “WordPress: Building Child Themes” and within two hours you will see how to use CSS, functions and templates to change one or more aspects, using the themes that you select. Personalising your own theme, can take seconds rather than hours.


It also gives you an opportunity to learn with a small challenge, and as you grow more confident you can try more and more ambitious projects.


You have the Theme Developer Handbook to help you along.


What I would like to do is find a way to create themes by subject for pages so that I can make my website fully dynamic, and bring the static pages into the 21st century. This will require some trial and error, hence the value in playing and experimenting, until it works.

A Walk Between Moments of Rainfall
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A Walk Between Moments of Rainfall

Byrichard

Today I woke early, shopped, studied German, read the news and then studied WordPress Child themes. It rained on and off, and I took a break from studying to go for a walk and I stayed dry almost the entire time. I carried a Sea to Summit three litre bag with me, in case I needed to keep the phone etc dry. For a moment I thought it would start raining but it didn’t so I stayed dry.


The walk was short, just one hour, as the conditions are not ideal for walking. The views weren’t good and the probability of being caught in the rain was high. I also wanted to walk a route where I did not soak myself and my shoes. On the route I walked, cars were unable to bully me like they do on other routes.


The course I am studying now is WordPress Building Child Themes and so far I find the course interesting. I have only gone so far as to create a child theme and ensure that it works. That’s when I took a break for the daily walk. I enjoy studying JavaScript, Angular and other ideas but there is a lot to learn, so I thought that by returning to WordPress. I could focus on learning how to use functions, and understand concepts individually, and then return to Angular, JavaScript and more. I want to step my learning. I don’t want to simply finish a course. I want to understand a concept first, and then finish the course.


I still have a lot to learn about CSS but at least this is a technology where I understand the ideas, even if I have not played with all of the tools, or learned of plenty of solutions yet. That is the point of step learning. You learn, get comfortable, and move on. I can also learn what I learn now, to move my entire website into a CMS with different sections having a different look. I have aspirations, and they will force me to learn how to implement them in WordPress.


I will spend more time studying, now.

Day 49 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Two And A Half Hour Walk At Dusk.

Day 49 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Two And A Half Hour Walk At Dusk.

Byrichard

I just got back from a two and a half-hour walk at dusk. I had no plan to go for such a long walk. It was elongated because I ended up taking a detour to see calves just as they were being fed. They’re quite excited about getting some food. They were very happy to get their daily milk, as you can see from the image below.


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Dairy… I mean daily walk.

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