Well, something got “broke”! I’m deactivating one plugin at a time to see if things improve. Most of the trouble seems to involve customizing the blog. Currently, the plugin I’ve deactivated handles columns and blocks in a user-friendly fashion. However it seems I can still do most everything I want without it. Actually, the blocks seem to run closer together which makes for a smoother looking page.
So, here’s a column of text to the left of the picture to the right (I know, I know!). You may have guessed it, there will be a full width block of text underneath this when I get to it. First, it is time to fill this area with useless writing before moving on down.
Anyway, the picture to the left is from my place. Yes, it is swampland! NO, it is not for sale….! It’s just a random picture taken some time ago before the leaves came out.
Previewing the post shows that more writing is needed to fill the area beside the picture. So, here it is.
Anyway, enjoy the random pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with this post!
One detail has shown up that really doesn’t make or break anything (obvious). The height of the text to the left of the picture in the block above varies with browser width. That happens with all sites unless page width is forced. One more detail has shown up. Formatting done with the deactivated plugin will not exist. A couple of other posts with a picture to the right of text will have the picture in the middle of the page now.
I have deleted one plugin and deactivated the one mentioned above. The deleted plugin handles cache and instead of speeding things up as promised, it actually slowed things down. I’m already running server level caching, and it must have clashed with it. The software still tossed ‘Critical Errors’ after deleting that particular plugin, but the extra speed is nice. Who knows, it may have thrown out a WordPress function thinking it was doing something good.
That optimizing plugin slowed the start of page loading, but the page loaded quickly once things got rolling. I first thought it was my imagination, but after deactivating, then deleting it, things sped up enough to not miss. Even the admin dashboard sped up, and I can look at previews of posts several times faster without that plugin.
Time will tell, meanwhile we’ll see what gets broken next!
-Added as an afterthought, I think creating this post went a lot smoother without the “user friendly” features of the plugin I disabled. Most, if not all of the Gutenberg features are available via the one plugin still in use. There are fewer menus to wander through.
