kmherkes.com

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Website & posting "improvements"

Updating links & images on my website is a royal nitpicky PITA. That's why I didn't redo book covers ages ago.

I figured, why not add proper alt-text to my images as long as I was I fussing with pages & images, right? It would ease my conscience AND make the little sidebar full of Website Advice much happier.

First thought was, "It'll be a double win!" Followed by, "UGH. My media library for my blog is a mess."

It was seriously tempting to nuke it all & start over with a new blog rather than try to clean up duplicate images & old images etc.

But I have done that enough times now to know it's actually more time consuming. It only feels easier.

Guess what! Clever people create tools for cleaning up & organizing website image libraries!

Lucky, lucky me. (Once I thought to go looking for them, that is. My unfortunate default is muttering imprecations at the technology & attempting to reinvent the wheel from a chunk of internet stone. D'oh.)

2 plugins, a tutorial, many hours of puttering, & much swearing later, I've cleaned up most of my duplicate images, deleted tons more that were no longer in use, AND put all my images into folders so I can find ones to reuse over & over instead of creating a mess of duplicates. (ANOTHER mess of duplicates, that is.)

I've probably also created "image not found" boxes in older blog posts, but I can't work myself up to caring. Anyone who reads 5 to 10 yr old posts about writing, gardening & cats can probably handle a few missing images.

The folders are the part that make me happiest. Did I need to spend all that time organizing pics of Pips & my book covers so I could find them next time I want to make a new page or post for the website? Honestly, probably not.

But it was several hours of hyper-focused/meditative physical activity with an immediate visible reward, so it soothed my antsy ADHD brain. That was the real win.

I've tackled the worst/most obvious broken links & menu dead ends. The rest...I'll get to them eventually.


Mister Pips appproves of the following advertisements.

longhaired brown cat lounging imperiously on a teal sofa, cusioned on a gracy and faux-sheepskin fleece.