Logo not scaling down to fit screen width — Exford theme on WordPress.com

May 23, 2023May 23, 2023James Riddett Leave a comment

This was a strange intermittent problem I was having on spellcastcottage.com (a website for a Harry Potter themed airbnb here in Ireland).

For months at a time there was no issue, then without any changes from me, the site logo began not scaling down to fit the screen width, creating an awful looking left/right scroll situation.

WordPress support didn’t offer any explanation but I’ve solved it with some simple CSS…

.custom-logo,
.site-header .logo {
max-width: 100% !important;
}

If you’re having the same problem, you can add this code by going to WP Admin > Appearance > Additional CSS. I imagine it could be an issue on other themes too, not just Exford.

Best wishes,
James

How to hide the blog post date on the Motif theme

May 17, 2016James Riddett Leave a comment

Ryan asks…

“I’m using the Motif theme and want to hide the date on my blog posts. Any way to do this? I’ve tried various CSS codes (I paid to be able to edit CSS), but to no avail. Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you.”

This should do the trick :-)

.date { visibility: hidden; }

All the best,
James

How to stop WordPress.com inserting “href.li/?” at the beginning of links

December 20, 2014December 20, 2014James Riddett 9 Comments

Michael asks…

“WordPress is inserting ‘href.li…’ at the beginning of links, on my private blog. Why?”

If you have a private blog, WordPress.com sometimes inserts this into links automatically. It sends the visitor to the link but hides the referrer (your website). This means you can link out from your private blog but other website owners won’t know where the visitors are coming from. This helps to keep even the existence of your private blog unknown.

If you prefer, you can switch off this feature by going to Settings > Reading and checking the box next to “I would like my links to be public, without being passed through a referrer hider.” Don’t forget to Save Changes :-)

All the best,
James

How to stop new pages being automatically added to the menu, on a WordPress.com website

December 10, 2014December 10, 2014James Riddett 4 Comments

Katharine asks…

“I am sure there must be a way to link to a page on site that does not appear in any other way except through the link. I would like to have a hidden contact page for a certain use that is separate from the regular contact page and not visible except by linking. Please tell me this is do-able! (?) Always indebted to you.”

It’s totally do-able! :-) I’m presuming you’re using a custom menu and the new page is getting added to your menu automatically? If so, go to Appearance > Menus, click the little down arrow on the unwanted menu item and then click the red “Remove” link.

To prevent this happening again, uncheck the box next to “Automatically add new top-level pages to this menu”.

Finally, don’t forget to click “Save Menu” :-)

Let me know!
James

Can I use a WordPress.com theme on a WordPress.org (self-hosted) website?

November 12, 2014November 13, 2014James Riddett Leave a comment

Marie asks…

I love the theme Motif and would love to use it for my business website. I have a package where I have wordpress as the hosting page. There is an option to upload a theme that has been downloaded as Motif is not part of the themes that is present on wordpress.org. Do you have a way that I can download the theme and add it onto the website?

The official place to download themes for your self-hosted blog is WordPress.org but as you mentioned, Motif isn’t included.

WordPress.org provides a rather ugly and cumbersome way of downloading a WordPress.com theme. You have to install something called SVN to download your theme from their SVN directory.

But I’ve discovered a site called Design311.com that hosts all the WordPress.com themes, making them available to download in a good old-fashioned zip file! :-)

Here’s the Motif page

Just click download, extract the Motif folder and then upload it to the ‘wp-content/themes’ directory on your self-hosted website. It should now be ready to activate through Appearance > Themes in your Dashboard.

Before you jump in though, please be aware of this message — that themes located on that website will not automatically update and therefore may break at any WordPress upgrade.

The chances are, it’ll continue to work for the foreseeable future, but… well… no guarantees :-)

Best wishes,
James

James Riddett

Helping you with website stuff

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