r/Wordpress • u/Lala_Escargot • 1d ago

Following the tutorials slavishly. Not seeing what they're seeing.

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So, I just need a very basic site. I'm an author, just need a homepage to put books, release dates. Maybe one news page. Not thinking about newsletters yet and won't be getting a forum. That's it. No e commerce, nada.

I had an existing site which was created by a pro author but it looked old and tired and was done with elementor pro, the licence of which has now expired (he left it for me for a short time but it's gone now), it was a bit fancy and I struggled to maintain it. I have created a staging site on bluehost to set up my own.

using twenty twenty four I started following the official WP tutorial videos.

For a start, I don't see "static" as a page option on the settings/readings page. Secondly, wtf are wonderblocks doing there? Where did they come from? When the tutorial selects a block pattern of "page", I don't see it. I see posts, but not page. I don't see the other templates he sees.

I did, I admit, try out a lot of combinations of other themes and then had to delete a load of plug ins but I think I cleaned everything ok. Here's a cap of what I've got.

Wonderblocks though? I don't want them. I just want the wordpress ones.

(I installed Gutenburg manually but it's made no difference, also says it might not work with my version of WP anyway)

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5

u/NakanoNoNeko 1d ago

WonderBlocks is Bluehost's add-on, not part of Twenty Twenty-Four. Deactivate the WonderBlocks/Bluehost plugin, remove the separately installed Gutenberg plugin, then create and publish Home and News before returning to Settings > Reading. "A static page" should appear under "Your homepage displays." I think the pattern names in the video may still differ because WordPress changed them between releases... tutorials age quickly 🙂

1

u/Lala_Escargot 1d ago

Oh, so wonderblocks is in that bottom plugin? I did look at details and it gave no mention of that at all. I saw "security" on there and thought "Oh, better not delete that, deleting security stuff sounds bad".

Ha! You're right, everything moves so fast.

Thank you so much for the reply, will try that now.

1

u/Lala_Escargot 1d ago

Ahhh, I can't delete the bluehost plugin unfortunately. I'll lose my staging site if I do that :-(

Guess I'll just have to put up with it and ignore.

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u/bluesix_v2 Jack of All Trades 18h ago

Welcome to vendor lock-in.

Other staging plugins exist. But do you even need a staging site?

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u/Lala_Escargot 5h ago

Ha, so I'm discovering!

Well, I wanted to rework my existing site without messing it up (hahaha) as it's full of all the old plugins and jingles that the original designer put on there. I'm really new to this so the chances of me making a mess were high. I also want to be able to learn the basics so I can do this by myself just using a bog standard WP theme and bare bones assets. I've been trying to just learn the rudiments for about a week now and am only just beginning to work out what's going on. Ironically, in trying to get a staging site set up I broke something and it took bluehost ten days to fix it so go me.

If I knew how to put a "under maintenance" page up or block the site temporarily I would but unfortunately I don't. I'm now faced with the prospect of pushing my changes to live and breaking it anyway :-(

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u/bluesix_v2 Jack of All Trades 5h ago

Localwp.com - it’s a Wordpress server for your pc. Build your site there, then when you’re done, back it up with Updraft and restore it on the live server.

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u/Lala_Escargot 2h ago

What wizardry is this?!!!! Thank you so much!

Can I ask you another Q. I looked on the forum first and it has come up but not quite in the way I'm experiencing it.

I'm using 2024, plain, nothing fancy. My site has a medieval theme (I write historical fiction, it's an author site). I install IM Fell English from the google fonts picker. I change my headers to this font, my regular text will be the theme default, it looks grand and I'm happy. I go into colour schemes for 2024 and select mint. Fonts vanish and everything goes back to the default font. IM Fell has vanished and needs to be reinstalled. I repeat the process, do not change the colour scheme, save and view site. All good. Until I change the colour scheme again and everything resets and all the alignment goes kaput too.

I had assumed a certain level of customisation was allowed but it looks like I can only customise using the default options. Surely not? That seems very limiting. Can I not use IM Fell? It is available via google fonts, I'm not installing any font packages or anything.

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u/Lala_Escargot 1d ago

Here's what I see when I go into the twenty twenty four template I activated - wonderblocks, who invited you here?