Today I updated WordPress for an “urgent security release,” and as usual there are unexpected side effects. For some reason now, my sliding sidebar panels no longer work. No JavaScript errors; they just don’t do anything. I blame a Scriptaculous update that is probably embedded within. I hope within the next 24 hours to diagnose and fix the problem, but for anyone (emphasis on “one”) who’s wondering why the panels aren’t working, here’s a semi-explanation.

Update (1/1/2008): File under SEU. I think the problem was simply that I needed to clear my cache. The first suspicion was aroused when I fired up MAMP, ran the site locally, and found that the sliders were working just fine. At any rate, I re-uploaded all of my theme files plus the Scriptaculous and prototype.js files, cleared my cache, and now it’s working.

I’ve just finished a modification to the site design. I was starting to feel a bit too confined by the narrowness of the old layout, so I’ve basically kept things intact design-wise, but I’ve expanded the layout to be more suitable to today’s 1024×768-or-greater standard screen resolution. I’ve also bumped up the size of the type slightly.

The only design element that’s noticeably different is the little greenish weirdness at the right end of the photos in the header bar. This was something I spent a great deal of time developing for an old, shortlived design that was part of my quickly-abandoned experiment with running the site on Drupal. I may end up getting rid of it again; I just thought it deserved a second chance.

Now then, if you’ve actually visited this site sometime before, you may find the pages are looking somewhat garbled; sadly that’s the side effect of keeping a lot of the filenames the same; your browser likely has old versions of these files cached. Hit the Refresh button a few times or perhaps clear your cache. I did the Refresh thing, but I had to hit it about 4 times before all of the files actually updated. Sheesh, you’d think I was using a Microsoft product or something, not Firefox!

Perhaps this has been pointed out elsewhere; I haven’t really searched for it, so I don’t know. But it’s rare that I stumble, completely on my own, onto what I believe is truly a “hot tip” for dealing with computer problems, and when I do, I’m excited to share it.

Now then, the problem we’re dealing with here is corrupted zip archives, which seems to be common for me these days given the fact that I’ve foolishly been using some cheap off-brand CD-R’s that have been sitting around my house on a spindle for a couple of years.

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