New on the blog: Bilingual in a more elegant way and emoji reactions

Mai Quynh on 18. February 2024

In my monthly recap December 2023 I wrote about how I fiddled around with the blog. I was at the very beginning. Plugins were selected but no end was in sight in terms of implementation. After about a month, things did happen.

Reminder:

  • Fiddling I was to get a more elegant solution for having my blog bilingual.
  • Fiddling II was to get a Like-button, so to speak.

How far have I got and which experience have I done?

Fiddling I - More elegant implementation of bilingualism

Up to now

The german text was at the top and the english text at the bottom in a blog post. Only the german text was shown on the blog's homepage. You had to use the read more-tag, which I elegantly labelled "Go to english version", to get to the whole post and would landed directly at the english text.

Target

The entire page should be written and displayed in one language. A button should be used to switch from one to the other language.

Tool

I have decided in favour of the plugin TranslatePress .

Before that, I came across Polylang and have tried it out as well. However, I didn't quite like this tool because it effectively creates a new page per post. As a result, previous comments were available on the german page (which is the source page) but not on the english one. I didn't like that. This is different with TranslatePress and somehow the english page/version is converted differently. The german text is replaced with the english text but the overall structure of the german page is retained (What the technical difference is? - idk).

I watched these two videos and they really helped me to make my decision. Without the YouTuber, I wouldn't have come across TranslatePress so quickly or at all.

Status

I've started the adaptions post by post. And now it's WIP. I was thinking about doing it all at once because I didn't want to have a few posts in the old format (both languages in one post), and some new posts already in the new format with one language only where you can switch between the languages with a button. Somehow I was afraid that this would look too wild. But it doesn't. If it's in the old format, you'll find the read more-tag. Otherwise, it's now gone because I deleted the english part from the post.

And so I'm slowly working my way through and back, down the blog history so to speak. Whenever I feel like it and have time, I revise a few posts and it's an ongoing process.

The plugin is live and you can switch between german and english by clicking on EN/DE in the menu ribbon at the top right.

Conclusion

I'm happy with this fiddling. Of course it drags on, and sometimes a post takes longer than I thought. Overall, this in-between state doesn't bother me as much as I initially thought. I'm glad that I watched the second video - the one about TranslatePress - and realized that it was the better option for me.

 

Fiddling II - A fast reaction possibility

Up to now

The only way to react to a blog post was to leave a comment.

Target

I liked the idea of a Like-button and thought of it being very charming, in case there is nothing to say and you still want to leave a reaction. So I had to find something suitable.

Tool

I found what I was looking for with the help of Jenni from jenni.works. I first saw the emoji reactions on her site and was thrilled. She told me about the plugin DaReactions and that's what I ended up with.

Status

Done and ready to use.

To see and use the emoji reactions, you have to click on the post and read it in single view. You find the emojis at the end of a post.

Conclusion

It was easy to implement and I am happy.

 

I use both plugins in the free version and so far they fulfil what I wanted. Ergo: Successful fiddling.

December 2023

Mai Quynh on 10. January 2024

The last month of the year.

I had discussed with a friend: In the course of a conversation about a reflection tool for 2023/2024, we thought we wanted to reflect more in general so that we could see and appreciate what the passed time had given us. I realised that the monthly review on the blog which I am doing for almost a year had led me to this direction. To help me remembering many moments and days that would have disappeared too quickly into the recesses of my memory otherwise.

I only show a fraction of my life on the blog. For me, the final text here is only an excerpt and I think that’s a bit sad for myself. So after the discussion I recapitulated December 2023 for myself quite detailed. It was a lot and it was worth it! I was pretty happy afterwards. As a result, however, I’m now tired of creating a slimmed-down version for the blog.

So I don’t know what else remains for the blog right now?

Photo is not from December

Nevertheless, a few words

December was full of life: There were various parties I went to. Birthday parties, wedding parties, Christmas parties at work and at home. I met people, spent time together and enjoyed the time. It’s not necessary the case that the time spent together is also enjoyed.

I have learnt that after a workday, it feels different – better! – when I’m not fiddling around on my mobile phone first, like „from the work screen to the mobile phone screen“. Instead, I do something „practical“/“manual“/“haptic“ such as cooking, tidying up, looking after plants. The feeling afterwards was rewarding, saying „I’ve done something!“. It’s not that big of a secret. Apparently I needed to experience that nonetheless.

What else happened:

Keyword „sorting“:I have organised my negative films and prints into a system. Through further conversations with people close to me, I finally realised that „sorting“ is one of my hobbies.

A few months ago I bought a digital camera (full format)that is compatible with my existing lenses. During my week off at the end of December, I took it with me and tried it out. I’m a bit lost.

Fiddling with the blog I: I keep my blog bilingual and this is implemented quite „pragmatically“: there is a blog post, at the top is the German text, at the bottom the English text. Other blogs have implemented this in a more sophisticated way by clicking on a button and the whole website changes into the other language. I wanted to have that, too! In December, I finally took the time to look into this topic and tried out two plugins. One of them convinced me. Now I „just“ have to implement it. I estimated that this would take quite a bit of time, at least a weekend. That’s why I wanted to do it all at once, so that it would be finished, not drag on and the blog wouldn’t be in an intermediate state for a long time. But in the meantime, I think I’ll find it very difficult to find a block of time like that. So it’s possible that I’ll actually do this bit by bit and the blog will be in this kind of limbo for a while eventually.

Fiddling with the blog II: I’ve also been looking into the question of how I can create the option for a „quick reaction“ a.k.a. Like button. Here, too, I have found a potentially suitable plugin. But the implementation of this is pending until after the technical conversion of my blog to multilingualism is done.

During my week off at the end of the month, I also had a lot of time to work on a few texts for the blog and changed my system to create and keep an overview of what I actually want to post and how far I am in each case. I’m really happy about that.

2023 in a nutshell

I won’t do a separate annual review on the blog. But at least I can say a few lines about it here: It was a very nice year personally, with lots of lovely highs and I’m so so grateful for that. As far as the blog is concerned, I’m on a path that I really like at the moment and hope that it continues at least like this. Both in terms of my blog itself and how I move around in the blogosphere. Despite the many construction sites I do see. There have been a lot of great things!

With that in mind: wishing you a happy and prosperous new year – 2024!

3 years of maipenquynh

Mai Quynh on 14. October 2023

So my blog has reached kindergarten age – it’s turning 3!

3 years. Somehow not much, but somehow also something. By the way, I missed the 2nd birthday 😀

In the last two years I have published 38 posts, 16 of them in the second year and 22 in the third year. In comparison: In the first year alone there were 33 posts.

My topics

Not quite half of the posts in year 3 went for the monthly reviews. I have changed the structure of this category back and forth more than once. Sometimes including a review of my topics (photography, handcraft), sometimes excluding them.

On the one hand, these monthly reviews were a very good anchor for me to write, especially to write on a regular base. Besides, it’s a lot of fun to review the month at the end of the month. On the other hand, I miss writing stand-alone posts that revolve around a specific topic.

If it’s not a monthly review, then it’s usually about something related to photography or my photos that I want to present. Is the focus of the blog going towards photography slowly? I don’t know. I don’t plan to but if it’s the topic I want to write about the most, then that would be it. But honestly, I’m still hoping that other topics will also (re)emerge ^^

Time will tell.

My life as a blogger

I still don’t have a flow/routine in my daily life to create blogposts. Do I need one? No. But it would make things easier. There are steps I like and others I do not. And then I move the those I don’t like to a later timepoint but this also means that the go-live of the post has to wait until then. And then I huddle. Coordinating the different steps in a sensible way certainly makes it easier to create, that’s my opinion at least.

But I have a little bit of flow – I have a digital tool that helps me collecting notes and thoughts. In the meantime, I have changed my tool. It was Evernote before and currently I work mainly in OneNote. OneNote feels more intuitive and I really like working with it for the blog. In between, Notion was also a topic but I didn’t pursue that any further.

And every now and then the question arises again …

Why and for what purpose do I have a blog?

It still is a mix of self-expression, thinking out loud and being proud in public, and the desire for sharing is caring. A blog post helps me work things out. It helps me to take time to think about things in peace and quiet or to deal with the subject matter or to prepare things. Writing a blog also means creating at leisure.

Getting around in the blogosphere

This year I asked myself how I can network with others. How do I get to know other blogging people? How do I find them? The problem I have is actually time. The lack of time to browse and click through. And then to become active.

Vice versa, I also don’t know how many people read my blog. I do have a statistics plugin but it is very rudimentary (I can read the number of clicks and the pages clicked on, there is no info on the visitor). I’ve recently been thinking about lookng for a low-threshold „like“ tool because I know that writing comments is exhausting and sometimes you don’t have anything to say.

We’ll see what the new year has in store for me and for us!

At the end of this post, there is one small, fine and also very important thing I have to say: I am very happy that you are here and that you visit and read me. So a big and heartfelt thank you to you! 🙂

Here’s to another year of blogging!