Sunday blog maintenance

Today, with the real autumn wind outside and general laziness normal for this season, I did not feel like doing anything. But with a long Sunday ahead of me, and the growing list of things I wanted to fix on the blog, it was the time to deal with it. I wanted for some time (since Google+ showed up, really) to get rid of three icons on the top of the post- separate for Plus one, Tweet and Like, and put just one, universal instead. The whole top of the post go cleaned up in the process. I also wanted to add Google+ icon and link to the profile to the other links on the bar on the top. Not a major redesign, but something to simplify yet making all necessities available.

It is arguable, of course, if it was time better spent then posting another photo on this blog, which is, after all, a photo blog. But I did it nevertheless. And for those with their own WordPress blog, maybe some ides for new plugins. So tag along. And if you persist, there is actually an image at the end :).

I tackled the social media plug-ins first. I had an eye on SexyBookmarks for some time, but after installing and configuring, I noticed the problem in how it interacted with my theme. No easy fix, so it got unistalled quickly. I found Social Share Elite, and this simple plugin offered all I wanted and nothing more (especially nothing more impossible to turn off). It is very discrete and yet is there, at the end of the post, for everybody who wants to share my photos.

The Google + icon was not an easy task. After considering changing all icons into new set, and not being lucky in finding an updated set with Google +, we home-fabricated one matching the others, and are quite happy with it. Kudos to my husband, whose Photoshop skills match mine. And he claims he is not even a photographer ;).

While at it, Tomasz fixed also the Search box, maybe some of you noticed it was not working properly for several months.

And the last change, a big and exciting one is adding Related Post Thumbnails under the post. It will be more visual then my previous favorite- Yet Another Related Post plugin standard text. I saw the plugin at work on another blogger web site, Daniel Sroka (just take a look at his amazing macro work with leaves! I had a treat browsing his website using the related posts thumbnails!). Another plugin was needed for this one to work, though- Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.

Let me know how you like the changes.