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Autofocus - home page image editing, plus WordPress

Hello,

My blog, www.tuesdayschild.me is hosted on Wordpress.com and I have a few questions about changes I would like to make. I have tried my best to work out as much as possible on some very helpful forums, but I think I need some one-to-one guidance. I'm a total novice (although a bit proud of some of the minor changes I have already been able to make ;)

My Q's are:

1. Can I change the automatic image cropping of the home page 'feature image'. In invariably selects the dullest point of the pic and It's important for me to to control which part is selected.

2. Can I links/prompts to follow my Twitter and Facebook account?

3. What can I change about the post gallery format? I would like more flexibility with the amount and format of captions I post alongside of each image.

4. Is it possible to add a header image, below the header (www.tuesdayschild.me) not above it?

THANKS! Let's see what you got...

Heidi

2012-09-20 by Tuesdayschild.me

Answers (4)

2012-09-20

Dbranes answers:

You are rather restricted in your customization, since you are on wordpress.com but not
using the selfhosting version from wordpress.org.

Read more about the difference here:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

Here are some links that might help you with some of the questions:

1) You can crop your images by hand, see fx:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/image-editing/
I don't think you can change the auto cropping.

2)
You can check this out for Twitter and Facebook integration on wordpress.com
http://en.support.wordpress.com/twitter/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/facebook-integration/

Here are the sharing options:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/sharing/

3)
Here are some guidelines for the gallery feature:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/gallery/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-formats/

4)
You can buy the "Custom Design" module from the wordpress.com store to use your own CSS style
($30 per year) see fx:

http://tuesdayschild.me/wp-admin/paid-upgrades.php

Then you could use some css trix to change the position of the header image.

...

Hope this helps

2012-09-20

Daniel Yoen answers:

Generally, there is not much you can do if you are using wordpress.com. You can use your own hosting with wordpress.org, so you have full control of your blog. :)

2012-09-20

Arnav Joy answers:

I am agree with the Daniel that you can do little customization using wordpress.com , I have worked with autofocus and autofocus theme before , i have its knowledge but it is hard to make changes in wordpress.com

2012-09-20

Pali Madra answers:

1. Unfortunately you cannot change the default cropping if you are on WordPress.com. You can change the way it is cropped using the link which was provided by @Dbarnes

2. You can add social media icons to your blog but not for every post. What can be done is that you can have a widget which has the social media buttons. How to do that? Here is the link [[LINK href="http://seocopywriteruk.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/how-do-i-add-social-media-buttons-to-widget-area-in-wordpress-com/"]][[/LINK]]

3. You cannot change the way the captions appear. For that you need to either buy the additional packages for $30 or host your own WordPress blog.

4. The header image cannot be added to show below the blog heading using standard wordpress.com blog.

Hope these help.

Tuesdayschild.me comments:

Thanks all. A few things to look at tomorrow.

I do have the premium package and gave made some simple CSS changes myself, but I fear I may have gone as far ad I can on WP.com. I would be interested in hiring some help to transfer me to WP.org: manage the change, maje some customisations fir me and explain the changed hosting... Would anyone with autofocus on wp.orh be interested?

Thanks

Pali Madra comments:

Sure anytime just PM me.