Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Blogger vs. WordPress


Back when I went to start this site on [Blogger/Blogspot], I also started one on [WordPress].  For I could remember reading that WordPress is a lot more flexible, and one the earliest invitees to become a member/contributing author here got plumb insulting about how stupid it was to even consider having a site on Blogger.

Thankfully, she refused the invitation.  For in hindsight, a female version of [Lavender Darwin] would be just too much to take.

Anyway, since I was already fairly familiar with what one can do with the Blogger platform, I let the WordPress version languish.  For this is one old dog who really does have a hard time learning new tricks—especially when it comes to technological things.

Ah, but the powers that be at Google just had to force the issue.  Subsequently, what had become relatively easy for me to do became much more difficult.



Case in point: that video.  For the way it used to work before Google started making all sorts of a “improvements” to its Blogger platform was that one could just paste (or manually type in) the embed code to a video right in with the regular text on the Compose page, and the video would display as it should when the piece was published.

It no longer works like that.  For one has to now enter the embed code on the Edit HTML page, which really isn’t all that big of deal after you get used to it if the video shows up on the Compose page, but when it doesn’t, as with the video here, getting everything to look just right can be a royal pain.

Another “improvement” has forced me to switch from a Georgia font to Vendana.  For Verdana is almost a third again larger, and with normal text on published articles now becoming very tiny, one needs to employ the largest font available if they want their readers to be able to read what they have wrote.

Yes, I have experimented with making all of the text large, but this freaks me out when it becomes at least twice the size on the Compose page than it will be after publishing.  More importantly, the text also displays that big through the RSS feed, which looks awful (at least to me).

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am well aware of browsers having a zoom feature, but having to do this or that may discourage many from wanting to actually read what is contained in an article.  Besides, images are also enlarged when the zoom feature is engaged, and the thought of a super-sized picture of Lavender Darwin chills me to the bone.

Hence, some of the reasons why I started looking into switching to the WordPress platform, and I quickly discovered that what I had read before about how flexible WordPress is was written by an idiot.  For you can’t even change font colors without changing the HTML code!

Oh, and the troubles I have been having with including non-YouTube videos with Blogger, WordPress can’t even read the embed code to the video above!  Needless to say, neither does it show up on the Compose page.

Yes, if I was a cranked-up coder, I might feel differently about the WordPress platform.  For with it being open-sourced, I can see where one MIGHT be able to do some things that they couldn’t with Blogger.

Furthermore, WordPress does allow for links to open in a different window, which is something that I wish Blogger would enable.  Should I sic Lavender on them?

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4 comments:

Rational νεόφυτος said...

You know, the positive about Blogger is that its powered by Google, which means your blog posts are more likely to pop up in a Google search, right?

And what's wrong with a super-sized picture of Lavender Darwin? That sounds like a great idea for a future post!

Unknown said...

Thanks for stopping by again, my dear Lavender!!! Yes, Blogger being owned by Google has been another contributing factor to staying put, and that might be something to think about before pimping life-sized posters of yourself. After all, Google's motto is, "Be not evil."

Mike Golch said...

I have a couple of wordpress blogs that are just not visited by me.I have chosen to stay with blogger.

Unknown said...

Thanks for stopping by again, my dear Mike!!! Yeah, and now that I have finally found out how to make links open in a new window, I am even happier with staying put. I will try to publish an article on it as soon as I can. By the way, I have really missed your articles here.