by a muddle
I seem to be putting up a lot of photos that I have used in my prints (such as above from Hornby Island), or think about using in future work. For awhile I’ve been thinking that I should have been putting them into their own special category, instead of having them scattered in various places. One reason is to make them more accessible for me in terms of reference, ie. have I put this one up before and what did I title it? I want them to be separate from garden, travel, visited exhibitions and other photos that I put up here. Sometimes there’s the tricky question of the fine line between what’s an “arty” photo and “just” something pretty – really about it’s future purpose, if any.
After over three years of blogging, I think of better ways I could have organized everything instead of being stingy with my list of categories. But how does one know in advance what category one will be needing? This blog has evolved and grown from a child into an ungraceful teenager. Or, like an overstuffed chaotic closet or granny’s attic that needs to be re-organized. However the digital version feels more overwhelming a task than than that closet or attic. Is there an easy, simple way to add a new category to past posts after the fact without going through each and every post and going mad with the confusion?
Ah, that’s the moaning and groaning of an insomniac. Two hours of sleep does colour one’s world a bit grey. I like things to be organized and when they are not, they come and bite me when I’m too tired. Time for a nap.
May 23, 2007 in Being an Artist, Printworks, Rocks by Marja-Leena
Ach, not that I know of! I’ve had to re-post some things when categories have become too all-encompassing for the diverse and bulky pages. It’s a bit tiresome to do, but then it is interesting to go through old posts when you have the time – like sorting through an overstuffed closet.
Leslee, I was afraid of that! The trouble with going through old stuff is that I start spending all my time reading and don’t get too far on the job at hand 🙂 One of these days I’ll have to make a start. I’m still wondering what to call this new category…
Homer Simpson!
I hope you slept well. I don’t know of any way of adding categories to old posts other than going through them individually. Perhaps there’s a way for you to isolate all posts containing an image… that might cut the work down a bit.
Hope you get some easier sleep soon…:)
Hey rr and TG! Thanks, I had a good night’s worth. I think this job is going to be put off once again, while I go out and garden today.
One of the nice things about WordPress is the ability to assign multiple images to any given post. But yeah, it’s still a quandry how many categories to create. My approach has always been like yours, I think: keep it relatively brief and browsable. But in fact categories (at least in WP) act like tags and help attract search engine traffic, so some bloggers have hundreds of categories and sub-categories – too many to display. That’s not a trade-off I’m willing to make. But I have created new categories from time to time and gone back to assign some archival posts to them; “Birds” was the most recent.
“multiple images” should be “multiple categories”
I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in I don’t know how long. But only two hours – that’s harsh.
Dave, I’ve also been using multiple categories in Movable Type. So it looks like it will be manual labour 🙂
Sorry to hear you are another insomniac! I go through spells of good sleep, almost no sleep, or waking up for an hour or two. I’ve never had a consistent pattern or found the reason for it.
Oh yes I can hear the weight of the blog as well! At least yours is in categories – mine is hand coded so no such luxury – when I want to find something I have to go to the archives and troll through them. But it was always meant to be a cumbersome reflection of what goes on in the real world, rather than the ordered one we imagine. I find your blog easy to navigate 🙂
Hi Linden – Great to hear from you! I’ve always been impressed with the beauty of your blog, and that you hand-code it too! I don’t find it hard to navigate. I don’t have the knoweldge or patience for more than the most minimum of coding so a program like Movable Type (and WordPress etc.) is made for people like me. A “cumbersome reflection of what goes on in the real world” sounds about right over here too.