Why is WordPress still the most frustrating software to use?

Hi Esmi

Thanks very much for the feedback,

I haven’t set up hidden menus. Just creating a page like I’ve done before recently. Obviously something is now “configured” differently and now no link appears in the menu when this page is created. I also have a category that doesn’t appear in the menu (M.C.S. – multiple-chemical-sensitivites) – it also has no tick box when you look at in in the dashboard so I cant even delete it and start again and add it to the other normally functioning categories that do work/do appear in the menu and do have tick boxes.

The question is – all things being equal – i.e. I haven’t changed anything that I can think of – what would cause no link to appear on such a “simple” instruction as – create a new page. (which I have done before without any hiccups)?

I also have “embed code” across all the pages of this site and can’t find anything on this?

I also downloaded a Page order and Category order plugin because WordPress didn’t think that people might not actually want alphabetical lists of pages and categories…

This just highlights exactly what is a very valid point I have made. The time I should be spending on writing I am having to look up resources, read plug in reviews and write to web plug in developers to find out things like: why the category order pluging has deemed the page I created called blog is in fact a category and the term blog has appeared along with all the other categories in the dashboard/posts menu section.

These are such basic things I am just surprised that WP doesn’t just fit it as standard. What possible benefit could there be in not adding the basics like page and category? Why not just fit it? Why create all the extra work?

I don’t have a problem reading tech manuals. I just have a problem reading a tech manuaL when the task I want to do is so fundamental and basic I can’t believe I am havin to waste time on working it out! I think a search on google about why wordpress is difficult to set up and the results would suggest otherwise.

I’m using WordPress because my web marketing guru – swears by WP – cos it’s so google friendly. (S.E.O). If there was another root esmi I would take it!

Any help will be gratefully appreciated!

Hi everyone – thanks for the all the feedback.

For a new user who has some limited experience (building sites using Adobe CS5) I expected this WP process to be fairly quick, months later I am still slogging it out, scratch that I mean years later (as I tried before and gave up).

Using or rather learning WP is not straight forward and whilst I appreciate that people do this for free and aren’t instruction manual professional writers, there are some things that are just presented in such a complicated manner from a start point that assumes too much knowledge that it makes you end up googling and seeking help elsewhere.

A case in point today was reading all the WP stuff about backing up a site… after an hour of reading I stoppped no clearer. However on a brighter note, I had an idea and called my web host and it took just a one minute call and the clicking of one button and the site was backed up and emailed to me.

Now I am reading about child themes and I did point out to a mod that the if the creation of a child theme was so critical to avoiding issues of loosing work with updates and security issues, why it wasn’t explained in the dashboard – let’s get started – section.

After spending literally three hours trying to make a child theme from all the resources (on WP and google) that I have seen I have got as far as this dogs dinner taht can be found here:
http://www.fatigue-symptoms.com/wp-admin/themes.php#wp_customize=on&theme=twentyeleven-child

I was interested in working on the child theme from now on to avoid losing changes in updates etc to the parent and added this css file below with a few basic changes into the child folder in the content/themes directory just to make sure I could see the difference between parent and child. Judging from the result I don’t think there was any danger of that.

It should look like the unfinished parent site here:
http://www.fatigue-symptoms.com/

Here’s the css file
/*
Theme Name: Twenty Eleven Child
Theme URI: http://www.fatigue-symptoms.com/
Description: Child Theme for Twenty Eleven
Author: Ian
Author URI: http://www.fatigue-symptoms.com/contact
Template: twentyeleven
Version: 0.1
*/
 
@import url(“../twentyeleven/style.css”);

body {
color: #3f3f3f;
}

#site-title a {
color: #009900;
}

I have no idea why the child theme site has ended up looking the way it does not least considering I have read lots of the WP instruction guides…

What went wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Thanks yes I did that already and haven’t had any feedback, as it quite common. Whilst I do appreciate that people give their time here free for and I am grateful this means that the progression of the site develops at a snails pace. Maybe it’ll get finished in the next year. But actually I’ve just realised I can pay for someone to explain why my child theme looks worse than my first efforts to build sites in Dreamweaver!