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WordPress 6.01 Upgrade

Since I was just given the opportunity to upgrade my WORDPRESS SITE to the latest version via an update request on my Dashboard, I automatically did so. It happened so fast on my new laptop that I was immediately confronted with a plethora of newly added features that described what was in store for the creation of new blogs, as well as improved features for converting older blogs into the GUTENBERG BLOCKS FORMAT.

However, I did not feel like reading through all of the new upgrades, but simply glanced over most of them. Still, one that caught my eye was the new “Block Lock” feature in the OPTIONS section of the BLOCKS MENU BAR, an add-on that secures the content of a newly created block until you remove the lock. Nice, since I am sort of a sloppy typists.

Another feature I discovered was that when I returned to some of my old blogs created before the GUTENBERG BLOCKS FORMAT was rolled out, I was given the option “CONVERT TO BLOCKS” in an updated Blocks Menu Bar placed just above the “Old Style Menu Bar”. When I clicked on it, my entire blog was instantly converted to the BLOCKS format without any issues involved. Really nice!

My Verse Creation Conundrum

Since I had just created a new BOARD with multiple PINS on my reenergized PINTEREST ACCOUNT, my latest BOARD was designed to include some poems that I wrote over a year ago. When I opened the first one, “ODE TO THE CREATOR“, I went ahead and clicked on the CONVERT TO BLOCKS menu option. After doing so, I was immediately confronted with my first big conversion issue. Each individual line of verse was now set into its own individual PARAGRAPH BLOCK! Yikes!

This startling revelation made me realize that I must find a way to write verse lines inside one block without having the next line jump into a new block when I hit the return bar on my laptop or iPad. So, I went online and posed the question which asked “How I could perform this function in the GUTENBERG WORDPRESS BLOCK format.

That request opened up a series of responses that offered a solution. The one I chose to follow was the WORDPRESS.COM site. which steered me towards a BLOCK that I was totally unfamiliar with: The “VERSE BLOCK“.

Since I am inherently an impatient person and hate plowing through instructional dialogue, I just went ahead and hit the Black + tab in the upper left hand corner of my laptop (Blue one in lower left hand corner of my iPad) called the TOGGLE BLOCK INSERTER and found the VERSE BLOCK option at the bottom of the TEXT section of the list.

The Verse Block Phenomenon

Having discovered this BLOCK option, I said to myself: Wow! Really? I then wasted no time and jumped right into the fire by creating verse style dialogue. While doing so, I was amazed how well the functionality of the VERSE BLOCK handled the procedure. I just typed in a line, hit return, and the next line was created within the same block without being forced into a new default PARAGRAPH BLOCK. Voila!

However, this meant that I had to pull each line of verse out of its individual block and reposition it into the newly created VERSE BLOCK. As I plodded along, my initial efforts were met with an agonizingly cumbersome series of transfer processes. I continued to experiment with a number of alternative possibilities until I came up with one that worked the best. Since my poem consisted of numerous 4 line stanzas, the steps I took can be described as follows.

Conversion Steps I Created

• First, I placed the curser in front of the second line of verse and hit the DELETE BUTTON. This took the verse out of its PARAGRAPH BLOCK cocoon and melded it with the rear end of the first verse.
• Since the first word of each verse is capitalized, the fact that said first word now touched the rear end of the last word in the verse before it didn’t really matter. I knew I could could easily locate the break point when I went back and edited all 4 verses in the block.
• Next, I followed the same procedure and moved line 3 behind line 2. After that, I finished up by moving line 4 behind line 3.
• When done, I REMOVED any “now empty” BLOCKS that were vacated and left behind below the newly created VERSE BLOCK that now contained a continuous string of verses all joined together waiting to be separated.
• Next, I placed the curser at the first sentence break point location identified by the ominous cozy capital letter.
• After hitting the return button, the line of “still conjoined” remaining verse dialogue moved to the second line of the stanza.
• I followed the same procedure for lines 3 and 4 and wound up with a nicely formatted 4 verse stanza all contained inside one singular VERSE BLOCK.
• Since I had successfully completed filling that first VERSE BLOCK, I went ahead and followed this same procedure for the rest of the verses and stanzas in my poem.
• The completion of this particular part of the process seemed to create a complete series of nicely spaced stanzas for each group of verses. Or at least, that is what I thought!

Preview Of The Updated Blog Reveals More Issues

When I did a PREVIEW of my updated blog to see what it would look like when I PUBLISHED it, the first thing I noticed was that all of the edited dialogue had been transformed back into the default font size. So, I exited the PREVIEW page and returned to the administrative editing page.

I placed my curser in the first VERSE BLOCK and then went over to the TYPOGRAPHY section on the right hand side of my editing screen and clicked on the double arrows. That cleared the options box below the arrows of pre- formatted font choices so that I could insert my own custom size which happened to be 24.

This procedure then transformed the entire dialogue in that one VERSE BLOCK to the custom size. Following that step, I did the same for all of the remaining VERSE BLOCKS and that solved the first issue. This then allowed me to focus on the second one.

The Stanza Spacing Problem

Even though everything looked okay on the editing page, the PREVIEW page told a different story. When I did a look see, I found that the presumably organized stanzas had virtually no distinct separations between them and the finished product looked like a jumbled mess. This glitch in the programming is something I don’t fully understand, but so be it.

To solve the problem, I first put my curser behind the last word of the first stanza, and hit return to force an empty paragraph block to create a definitive space between stanzas 1 and 2. Unfortunately, that procedure didn’t solve the problem and had me scratching my head for another solution. This meant I had to experiment some more.

So, not wanting to repeat the first procedure verbatim, I placed the curser behind the last word of the first stanza once again, but this time I tried something else. Instead of simply hitting the return button, I clicked on the TOGGLE BLOCK INSERTER button and chose the PARAGRAPH BLOCK option. After clicking it, I did another PREVIEW.

When I checked it this time, Voila! I saw that I now had a nice separation space between those first two stanzas. Still, I’m not sure why this procedure works and that the simple return bar function doesn’t. Both steps automatically create a new PARAGRAPH BLOCK, but only the actual TOGGLE BLOCK INSERTER choice gives the desired results. I’ll have to pose this question to the WORDPRESS BLOCK IT staff personnel and see if I can drum up an answer.

Anyways, now satisfied that all fixes had ben completed satisfactorily and everything was in order, I hit the UPDATE button and found my reformatted blog was successfully reinstated back online. Having said that, I will finish up by offering a bit of encouragement to all the poets out there who are now using the latest version of the WORDPRESS BLOCK EDITOR to continue their creative writing efforts with some help from this ever evolving program.

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