I’ve been having a lot of trouble using WordPress lately. I’ve always had a lot of trouble, but increasingly over the years it’s become so frustrating, that I almost gave up completely. I had cancelled my auto re-new for the site, and wasn’t going to renew it again. However, blogging does seem to give me motivation to get out and do things with my life. So I thought I’d give it one more go. I’ve paid for another year to see if I can get a bit better at this computer ‘stuff’.
I’m going back to the original purpose of my blog, which is to record our caravan travels, only this time it’s caravan travels with a dog. Lifeofrileyow.com originally stood for life of riley on wheels. Then while we were in the UK for six months we weren’t ’on wheels’, and I missed blogging. So I thought about what the ow part of my website name could mean, and came up with, ‘on whatever’. When we returned to house living and were only travelling part time in the caravan it seemed appropriate to use the blog to record our daily lives. One occurrence in our lives was the addition to our household, Mr Tilly (aka Tilz), our little Labradoodle. Tilz is now nine years old.
He was a nightmare to take away in the caravan, so much so that we sold our caravan, and with no caravan to store, we ended up downsizing everything. We had resigned ourselves to overseas trips. However, we missed our camping/caravanning. Long story short – we’re now back in a caravan, albeit a much smaller one, and we’re now living in a home that will accommodate the smaller van. Tilz comes along with us now, and at the ripe old age of nine now seems to be enjoying the travel experience almost as much as we do.
I’ve returned the theme of my blog to, life of riley on wheels, only I’ve added ‘with a dog’, and I’ve decided to try to use WordPress better. I think I’ve made some progress today. This morning I discovered what I think is an AI generated assistant. The assistant walked me through clearing the cache so as to enable easier editing. Editing has been a nightmare. I think it has worked. Time will tell….. If it has worked, then I’ll be just about dancing in the street for joy. I’m such a dinosaur with technology, but the AI assistant, was far more understanding and helpful than any human could possibly be. I’m living with hope….
If it has worked, this AI assistant is about to become my new ‘Best Friend’. I suspect I’ll be talking to him/her more than I talk to almost anyone else. That doesn’t mean I don’t talk a lot to others, I do. It just means I years and years behind in trying to grasp technology. I have lots of things to discuss with my newly discovered ‘Best Friend!.
(Footnote: it didn’t work – I tried to insert my curser in the paragraph above to correct I to I’m in front of years and years behind. But the curser wouldn’t go in. It’a a pain in the arse. I’m going to have to give this assistant a name, perhaps ‘PA’ for personal assistant will do, and I’m going to have to pester PA again.
Life of Riley - on wheels (with a dog) 
You’re not the only one who struggles with all the changes to creating a new post. And I feel like every time I figure things out WP goes and changes something again. One thing I found which has been working for me…when you open a new post page, there is a plus sign on the top left which is the block inserter. If you click on that you get a range of different blocks and I click on Classic, then click in your post page. An edit button will appear at the top and if you click on that it then opens a new window within the post. I can then enlarge that window, add photos to my media library and compose all my text and insert photos within that window. You will need to save in that window and then save in the original post. It’s been working well for me. Good luck.
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That sounds like really good advice. I shall give that a go. Thank you (and apologies, but I’ve forgotten your name – I’ve been trying to remember it for months now, so please remind me)
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Carol 😊
I hope it works for you.
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Thank you Carol. I had a look, but couldn’t find an edit button. I’ll keep looking and trying to work it out. I’m quite surprised how many people seem to have problems with editing on WordPress. I wonder if they are aware of this.
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Did you go through all the steps? The edit at the top doesn’t appear until you’ve clicked on Classic and then again in the body of the post. It’s in the tool bar at the top of the post. I hope you can figure it out. It can be frustrating, I know.
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I haven’t as yet Carol. But I’ve taken a screen shot of your suggestions to refer back to. I think I have to change my starting point as well for beginning to write a blog.
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Good luck
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I’ve had another look for you. At the top of your dashboard you should see a + symbol with the word New next to it. If you hover your mouse over that a drop down box will appear and the first word is Post. If you click on that a new post page will open. At the top of the page on the left you will see a + sign in a green box. Click on that and a selection of different block options comes up and about halfway down you will see Classic. Click on that and a classic box will open on your post page and the words Edit Contents will be in the box. Click on that and it will enlarge the box and bring up a tool bar within the box, and you can add your text directly in the box. There is also the media button to click to add photos in the media library. If you’ve used the old Classic style posts in the past it is exactly like that. When you’ve finished or you want to stop, click save. Then click save draft a second time to save your work. To bring that box back again later just click anywhere in the text and the word edit will appear in the tool bar. Click edit and the Classic box will reopen with all your previous work in it. I hope this helps you.
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Oh deary me Carol. My head is whirling from all the things I’ve tried. This shouldn’t be that hard. I should just be able to place my curser where I want to edit something, and it should appear there. There’s a paragraph at the end of my most recent post, that may explain where I’m at currently. This is a well known fault apparently. The AI assistant is brilliant, but it’s escalated this issue as it’s so well known. Also from all the comments I’ve received – it’s a fault with WordPress. When my head stops whirling I may re-look at your advice, but I think I did try what you mentioned. I’ve tried soooo many things that I no longer know what I’ve tried, and what I haven’t tried. It just shouldn’t be this hard!
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I feel your frustration. When I started my blog, composing a post was so easy. And then things would change with no warning and I would have to figure it out all over again. I hope it’s able to be sorted for you soon and you can get back to what you like about blogging.
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I think we have spoken about browsers intetefering too, yeah?
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Is there a wordpress app that works better?
It does sound very frustrating. Perhaps the apple is an issue. There is an email post option. Could you use that?
Glad to see you haven’t given up on blogging. I stopped for a while but coming back makes me want to write more often. Yet, weirdly, I don’t miss it when I stop.
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I don’t think it’s an Apple issue. It seems a few people do their draft in either pages or word and then paste it into their blog, so I think it’s a WordPress issue. I’ll persevere for a little bit longer before I resort to that. I kinda feel WordPress should be user friendly for editing. Maybe it is, I’m not very good with technology, so the problem could very well be with me.
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You might find it easier to do what I do…Draft my blog entry In Microsoft Word, including inserting photos and captions. That allows easy editing. Then, delete photos, leave captions. Do Copy, then Paste into open blank New Post Word Press page. Hover in area where photo was (captions a guide) and use prompts from their + symbol to insert pics from your photo files, as usual. Do the usual headings, Categories, Tags etc, before posting.
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This might be something you can try… I write my blog entry in a Microsoft Word document, which enables easy editing. Also insert photos in the appropriate spots and caption them. When ready to put across to WordPress, I delete the photos, leaving captions. Then right click and Copy the entry. Open WordPress for a new post, write my heading. Go to the blank body part, right click and Paste – which puts the entry in there. If I hover just to the right of a photo caption, a plus sign appears and I can use that to insert the photo from photo files in usual way. Then make sure I have done any Categories and Tags, and post.
It is not as convoluted as it might sound.
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I may give that a try when I’m ready. Do you know if it’ll work from Pages. I don’t use Microsoft.
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I type my posts and captions in Pages and then cut and paste.
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It seems a few people seem to do that Peggy. It shouldn’t be too hard though to edit it in the draft format on the website. I’ll persevere for a little longer, but if I can’t sort it out then I think I’ll have to do the same thing that you’re doing.
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