As I said yesterday, I focused on getting the ToCs made first and then started working on the display issue. Rather than fighting with the base code on the social bar, I decided to try using the breadcrumbs block instead. As you can already navigate back home with the site logo, the main menu and the footer, we really don’t need a fourth option, so that space is much better used on the ToCs. I was vacillating between using the hamburger or a more indicative icon. I haven’t decided yet, but one thing I’d like to do is edit the code so that the ToC will close by pressing the icon a second time. (Currently there’s a close button on the menu, but the site logo can hide it at times.) I don’t want to break the current code, but I think I can get it to work with a little experimentation.

Other than the ToC stuff, I did the same pagination thing I did in the reviews section for the mascot’s gallery pages. A small thing but something all the same.

One of the first things I did was to change the page links in the reviews section to HTML buttons, but the code conflicts with Olivero’s defaults, so it doesn’t quite display the way I would like, and because the implementation of Olivero’s CSS is so convoluted, it’s had to tweak. (I know they don’t want you messing with their code directly, but my sub-theme’s code doesn’t always supersede the base code like I think it’s supposed to.) Anyway, even with it not quite displaying as intended, I think it’s more aesthetically pleasing this way.

Next, I went to work on implementing a table of contents sidebar for my stories. My first experiment was on the page itself, but that would mean copying the code to every page in the story (and updating every page every time for stories in serialization). I thought I might be able to use the social bar for my purposes and when I first tested it, it worked pretty well, but afterward, on the PC it was rotated 90 degrees, reversed and squished into the original narrow width. On mobile, it displays fine, but rather than the icon displaying on the left side, it appears down at the bottom of the page, which is fine for someone who’s just read through a given chapter, but I should probably switch to a more indicative icon than the standard hamburger, especially since we already have a hamburger for the main menu. Something to figure out, as well as the display issue on PC. I’ll probably go ahead and finish making the ToC blocks first and then troubleshoot the other issues. Stay tuned.

There were a number of settings that I had to tweak on the site while working on the update. I also realized that I hadn’t rebuilt a bunch of the mascot’s pages back during the initial stages of the reconstruction project, so I had to take care of that. Once all that was done, I went over to the blog to input all the posts that I would’ve posted over the past month if I actually had admin access. It nice that you can backdate posts, so that preserves the original timeline.

From here, I need to think about adding the navigation into the stories. I’d like to have the source in one place and propagate it like I’d do with snippets back in WolfCMS. I believe I can do this with Drupal’s block layout, but I need to test it out. More things to do. Stay tuned.

Well, have I ever had a time of it. Over the weekend, I decided to migrate from HostGator to SetraHost because despite having been with the former for most of the site’s life, they’ve been dragging their feet to upgrade their servers to MySQL 8 and they didn’t even have an estimate on when the rollout would happen when I spoke with them. This meant I couldn’t upgrade to Drupal 11 and I thought it was causing compatibility issues with this blog. (I would later learn that there was a different error that the people at SH were able to catch.) Anyway, I was having issues with the Drupal installation and went through a convoluted process of starting over with a new installation and then having to work some database wizardry to recover the pages. This was enough to get the site in a workable state, but there are assorted settings that need to be fixed. Things to do, things to do. Stay tuned.

We’ve had a bit of downtime on the site as I was updating Drupal. I figured I’d just jump ahead to Drupal 11, but I first had to update to 10.3.6. I did that and then went through the long process of getting things ready for Drupal 11, only to discover that I need MySQL 8, which my provider currently doesn’t have, despite a post back in January saying they were in the process of making the update. (Must be a long process.) Anyway, I then had to revert back to 10.3.6 and run with that. Once that was done, I had to sort out some of my changes that were lost, and because they don’t like you editing the core themes directly, I finally got a functional subtheme up and running and then got a lot of my intended appearance changes applied. I’ll probably do some more refinement in the future, but I’ve already gotten pretty close to what I want.

I’m now developing a navigation sidebar for my stories. I was hoping to get it to work in the blocks, but it doesn’t look like the current structure supports a sidebar on the left, so I’m thinking about just adding the code to each chapter. That’ll be a lot of work, and it’ll be a pain if there are changes I need to made, so I may want to think on it a little more. I’ll sort it out. Anyway, I thought I’d share the goings-on behind the scenes. Now, if only I can make more story progress… Stay tuned.

As you saw on the main page, I managed to finish my work restoring the reviews. If my count is correct, with the ones I’ve been adding since the reconstruction work began, we have a total of 2285 reviews. Remember when I thought I’d be done by Easter? Good times. Anyway, this is one big step out of the way, and now I can turn my attention to the really difficult part: fighting with Drupal to get the site to look the way I want.

The biggest issue I have at the moment is that the way Drupal sets up its themes, it’s very difficult to make little edits and additions. There appears to be layers of redundancy you have to account for and a general opacity to how things work. Overall, I’m fairly happy with the theme I’ve been using, but there are a number of tweaks I want to make and if it’s going to fight me too much on it, I may have to take the long route of building things from the ground up. I’m not exactly eager to do this, but it may be the most efficient course if I want things to look exactly a certain way. Anyway, this is a concern for the days, weeks and months to come. Oh, what joy. In the meantime, maybe I should give the much neglected TWH some love. Stay tuned.

I finished Page 20 of the movie section and started on Page 21. I might’ve made it farther, but I discovered some errors I needed to correct, so that chewed up a decent chunk of my time. I also wanted to make more progress in the evening but didn’t get around to it, thanks to me recently discovering Metal Slug Attack Reloaded. The objective remains to get things done tomorrow. I’ll just have to work a little more at it. Stay tuned.

It would seem I forgot to post yesterday. Whoopsie. Anyway, over the past couple days, I’ve gotten through Pages 18 and 19 of the movie section and gotten about halfway into Page 20. In yesterday’s post that I forgot to post, I was speculating that I had two or three more days to go, and by now I’m leaning toward to the latter, so I expect to wrap things up Friday. Almost there. Stay tuned.

I finished Page 17 of the movie section. Moving right along, aren’t we? I don’t know if I can finish what I have left before the week’s out, but I can sure try. We’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned.

I made a bit of progress on Page 17 of the movie section. I would’ve gotten more done, but there was some work-work to attend to. I find myself being pulled in a good dozen different directions as always, but if I can chip away at each task bit by bit, it’ll be something. Stay tuned.