If you're a regular visitor to Cine Outsider (how often have I opened a blog with those words?), you'll be aware that the site is undergoing a transformation from its current, old-school Adobe Dreamweaver form to a more modern WordPress powered one that will allow me to automate many of the things that I currently have to do manually. For the full story on this, you can check out my last blog here. I promised in that blog to post the occasional progress updates, hence this first episode in what I hope will not be a lengthy and problem-strewn series.

As I previously suggested, I've reached an age where I've gone beyond that amusing Homer Simpson claim that learning anything new pushes some old stuff out, as it now feels almost like that old stuff has set up home and barricaded the doors in an attempt to refuse entry to new information of any complexity. Tasks that I used to get a huge kick out of learning through a process of discovery and experimentation I now find hugely intimidating, and despite being convinced over a period of something like two years of research that WordPress was the way to go with the new site, when it came to actually do it, my confidence collapsed faster than a snowman in the midday Saharan sun.

So what to do? Well, one of the symptoms of a social media led world is that seemingly everyone is posting a blog or a video about something, which should theoretically mean that there are videos galore out in YouTube land that would answer any questions about anything I cared to ask. Yeah, about that. Actually finding a YouTube video to explain how to do things that I was completely flummoxed by involved trying to convince an uncooperative search engine to actually deliver an answer to the question that I had posed instead of something only tangentially related. Intermittently, it would deliver the exact opposite of what I had asked. In the end, however, the process of wading through so many useless or inappropriate videos did ultimately unearth a small number of creators who not only answered almost all of my questions but proved genuinely excellent teachers who took me through the processes in question in a clear and instructive manner. I'll give a special shout out on this score to Ferdy Korpershoek and (especially) Imran Siddiq, whose videos genuinely tore the veil of confusion from my eyes and boosted my confidence to the point where I now almost feel like I know what I'm doing.

What these two fine gentlemen also did was convince me not only to install the free layout plugin Elementor (something my early research had also recommended) but to pay the annual subscription fee for the Pro version, and that's coming from someone who detests the whole notion of renting software that you used to be able to buy and own. Seriously, if you're struggling with WordPress and its restrictive and sometimes unfriendly design tools and wish that designing web pages was a little more like desktop publishing, give it a look, and no, I'm not being sponsored by its makers. This really did change everything for me, and as a result I've been able to start shaping the review pages in the new, more minimalist and hopefully more modern style. When I have enough of them, I'll start working on the front page, which should list the most recent posts in the manner of the current site, but automatically instead of the current manual process. And, at last, the pages will automatically reformat for viewing on mobile phones, and the new site has an SSL certificate, so you should no longer experience a warning that the site is unsecure, which I know currently happens on certain browsers. I can't give an exact timeline for further progress, though have just reluctantly opted out of covering this year's London Film Festival (you can still expect some reports from Jerry, who has had his press pass approved) in order to focus on the design and some overdue disc reviews.

What I am keen to do is involve our readers in the process where I can, and as I've completed the first draft of the review template, I'm going to post a link below and would welcome any constructive feedback. Ignore the emptiness of the page header, whose menu currently only includes a link to the temporary front page. Links to pages listing reviews, articles, interviews and blogs will be added when those pages are created, which will occur after I've added enough posts to make them properly functional. I'll also probably make a few more tweaks to the template before I settle on a final style (which I'll then tweak even more every couple of months, you watch). I'll also be formatting every new review for both the current and the new version of the site, which should soon give me enough posts to start building the listings pages.

Here's the link to the new version of my recent Blu-ray review of The Hireling:

https://cineoutsider.co.uk/hireling-bluray-review/