Blog

And so it all ends with a flurry of snow on a sunny yet cold spring day. I ponder as I look outside the breakfast table window, whether my break this year has gone to waste. The more I think the more I am satisfied, for my break has been most productive recreation-ally. Academically, not so much, it’s somewhat disappointing, as I’d brought home all my books to look over. Foolish me, to think I’d study ahead this spring break if any at all.

It all began Friday morning when I visited UIUC once more, for an interview to see if art is what I really want to pursue rather than computer science. I decided with certainty and turned in my applications. I’ll be crushed if I’m not accepted. Graphic design is ranked 7 in the nation, not as great as computer science, but still pretty good. I’ve decided to minor in computer science instead.

Friday afternoon, my family and I boarded the van and drove to Chicago for my brother’s state chess tournament. The ride there took about four hours, and I “slept” most of the way there. I rarely ever actually fall asleep on car rides or plane rides. His chess tournament was to take place Saturday morning at 9 a.m. and end Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. with the awards ceremony right afterwards. The area around the park district where the chess tournament was hosted was pretty nice. It seemed like a rich district. The middle school was huge. Read the rest of this entry »

Finally I have my own server and domain. A special thanks goes out to Ken for generously giving me his server for free. Endless Sonata is now up and running with a shiny new layout. Won’t you please tell me what you think of it? Simply click on the link above to comment. Also, vote by using the poll below.

If you have multiple sidebars, or multiple themes with multiple sidebars, it’s a good idea to use dynamic sidebars. WordPress Widgets (WPW) is like a plugin, but designed to provide a simple way to arrange the various elements of your sidebar content (known as “widgets”) without having to change any code. What’s nice about using widgets is they’re easy to use and you have the contents of all your sidebars on one page so they’re easier to edit. When using different layouts with the same sidebar contents, all you need to do is call the sidebar functions to get the contents. If you want to insert php in your sidebar, there’s a plugin called PHP Exec. Click on that link and scroll down to where it says execphp.zip, and download it.

In order to use widgets, you need to place this bit of code in your sidebar.php or whatever your sidebar page is:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('graphics') ) : ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Where it says “graphics”, replace it with whatever your sidebar name is mentioned in functions.php below.

You’ll need to make sure you have a functions.php in your theme folder. Inside functions.php, put this:

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array('name'=>'journal',
'before_widget' => '<div id="sidebar">', // Removes <li>
'after_widget' => '</div>', // Removes </li>
'before_title' => '<p class="navi>', // Replaces <h2>
'after_title' => '</p>', // Replaces </h2>
));
register_sidebar(array('name'=>'about',
'before_widget' => '<div id="sidebar">', // Removes <li>
'after_widget' => '</div>', // Removes </li>
'before_title' => '<p class="navi>', // Replaces <h2>
'after_title' => '</p>', // Replaces </h2>
));
register_sidebar(array('name'=>'archive',
'before_widget' => '<div id="sidebar">', // Removes <li>
'after_widget' => '</div>', // Removes </li>
'before_title' => '<p class="navi>', // Replaces <h2>
'after_title' => '</p>', // Replaces </h2>
));
register_sidebar(array('name'=>'gallery',
'before_widget' => '<div id="sidebar">', // Removes <li>
'after_widget' => '</div>', // Removes </li>
'before_title' => '<p class="navi>', // Replaces <h2>
'after_title' => '</p>', // Replaces </h2>
));
register_sidebar(array('name'=>'graphics',
'before_widget' => '<div id="sidebar">', // Removes <li>
'after_widget' => '</div>', // Removes </li>
'before_title' => '<p class="navi>', // Replaces <h2>
'after_title' => '</p>', // Replaces </h2>
));
?>

Make modifications where it says “journal”, “about”, etc. Also you can chose different tags before where it shows comments such as //Replaces…The number of calls to register_sidebar depends on the number of sidebars you have.

Now when you go to wp-admin, under “Presentation”, there should be a link to “Widgets”. From there you can drag boxes under “Available Widgets” onto a sidebar box. Some widgets allow you to edit the contents or settings. Click on the icon on the right of the widget box in a sidebar to see what you can edit. Click on the “X” when you’re done editing. Don’t forget to “Save Changes”. To view changes, refresh your browser, or delete your cache and refresh again if you don’t see the changes.