I made a 2-minutes video when my team had a team meetup in Langkawi a couple of weeks ago (“Leviosa” is the name of my team. Yes, that Leviosa.) This blog is the first one to see it 😎
Some of the pics and the videos didn’t sync as good as I want at the end of the video. Oh well. Better result next time ✨
I was doing my usual mindless scrolling on Twitter when I saw KLa Project’s tweet about their song “Yogyakarta”.
KLa Project is one of the seniors in Indonesia music industry. Their songs and albums holding legendary status among Indonesians.
One of their songs is “Yogyakarta”. Yogyakarta is a special district/area in Indonesia, and Indonesians usually associate Yogyakarta with “memories”; from fond memories to bittersweet ones. Apart from being a district, Yogyakarta is actually a city too, and the city is the topic of the song. Yogyakarta is special in many senses. It still upholds the traditions while the city keeps moving through urban development here and there. In its own ways, Yogyakarta holds mythical feelings of fleeting moments.
For Indonesiamatticians, this song is memorable. We sang this song one morning, one of those days during the company’s latest Grand Meetup in Florida, back in 2019. There were only a handful of us at that time in Automattic. There were only five Indonesians, me included, in Automattic. We are a tight-knit group, thick as thieves. We promised to sing this song again when we meet on the next Grand Meetup — then, you know, pandemic and all that. Now, whenever one of us mentioned this song, it always replied with groans and some frustrated text, “DANGIT WHEN THIS PANDEMIC GONNA END.”
We were jetlagged, it was 5.30 AM in the morning, none of us had our coffee or tea yet, some even haven’t slept since the night before, I woke up with barrage of messages on the Telegram group “OI! WAKE UP! WE ARE HAVING JAM SESSION!” and one of us, Eric, struck a chord followed by impromptu singing by Hafiz. Akeda and Ezra followed with guitar and bass.
For 4 minutes, “Yogyakarta” was heard in Florida, United States, sang by a bunch of sleep-deprived Indonesians. For 4 minutes, it became a memory.
Working outside the home terrifies me. As soon as I started in Automattic, I found myself attached and depended on my external monitor. I have been enjoying the wide and spacious view of everything that I’m working on — it feels like ”I have the powah”-moment. This is something that I can’t achieve when coworking, so I always feel really hesitant of doing coworking.
Enter Monday. I was working at home as usual, doing my own thing (a.k.a. getting confused with some formulas on Google Sheet) when I felt the floor rumbling followed with a loud noise as if someone is tearing down a brick wall.
And that’s what actually happened. My neighbor is doing home renovation — it just started — and one of the main tasks is Tear Down A Goddamn Wall.
I couldn’t work with the noise. Even noise-canceling headphones can’t handle it. I’m having weekly meetings and I don’t think my colleagues are signing up to join the Home Improvements Orchestra.
Thus, the coworking journey. I looked for options on KL area, and I found one: Regus
I’m interested on Regus because they are worldwide. Meaning that, you can use their service no matter where you are as long as you are the member. I found it really neat because Automattic requires the staffs to travel and having meetups. Regus makes it easier for the team to set coworking space and it would help the team checked the list faster. A bit of disclaimer, this is not a sponsored post. At all. I don’t even remember I ever got sponsored post here (Fenty Beauty, my doors are open here wink wink nudge nudge.) I checked coworking options in KL, and Regus happens to be the one that interests me.
I actually planned to start coworking on March, but the noise getting unbearable so I decided to use their service on the next day. I took the private office daily booking option for Tuesday to see how coworking is all about and how it feels.
My first impression was: Professional. It looks so office-like, and it gives me multiple feelings.
The pro: It feels like office. The whole area gives me this… ”Alright, let’s do this”-mood and I really enjoy the privacy and the quietness. Finally I work with office attire and not my usual /wp-admin shirt with some shorts.
The con: It feels like office. For someone that has been working from home for 3 years, this is quite a jump physically and mentally. My brain keeps going in work mode (because the surroundings looked like office area) and I got seriously tired at the end of the day, plus a headache. Price-wise, Regus falls into the more expensive side. I would definitely recommend Regus if you are looking for setting up virtual office or long-term coworking.
But yeah, the pros outweighs the cons. Definitely much better than listening to someone drilling and hammering walls for hours.
The private office size is 9 metres square and it has a couple of storage drawers, two desks, and two telephone units. For some, it might look so bare and spartan. For me, it’s just enough. The Internet speed is pretty stable too, so I honestly don’t have anything to complain. I did notice 1-2 connection drops when I had 1:1 with my teammate, but not super significant.
As for my issue with external monitor, I’m using my iPad as my second monitor. I’m glad Apple makes the connection is easier (you only need to plug USB-C cable and connect it from the menu bar and call it a day) so I can be a bit at ease. The screen size is still smaller than my usual external monitor, but it’s definitely better than nothing.
Pandemic-wise, that’s also the reason I’m using private office space. I tried minimize contact on public areas and I always eat takeaway lunch on my desk (I feel this is one of the reasons why my brain has trouble in taking a break) and not on the pantry area.
How about you all? Have you tried coworking, or perhaps you are a pro in doing coworking? I’m actually having problems in maintaining my energy (the tiredness and headache at the end of the day is no joke) and I want to know if there are any ways to alleviate it.
It’s your usual midnight blog post; when you got yourself stay awake in the middle of the night and social media is too weird (and too angry) for you to check.
I suddenly remember the times when I went to Florida, USA, for Automattic’s Grand Meetup back in 2019.
Specifically: Strawberries.
For me personally, it was one of the highlights.
We have strawberries here in Malaysia — we even have some locally grown.
The local ones are nice, but to have the good quality ones — I called it Driscoll’s quality — is really hard and expensive. 250 grams (one medium pack) of Driscoll strawberries cost you 50 MYR (11 USD-ish). I rarely buy them, and when I did, I always hide it from my kids. The strawberries look like the ones you see on TV and magazines. Plump, round, and really sweet.
During GM 2019, we stayed in Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista — and I found out they have a minimarket inside the hotel (shoutout to fellow Automatticians for showing me around when I arrived at the hotel.)
I passed some shelves, looking for cup noodles, when my eyes saw the fridge area. There they were, stacked neatly, boxes and boxes of strawberries. Plump, round, and sweet strawberries.
I checked the price.
2 USD.
In Malaysian Ringgit, it would be 8 MYR.
It took every fibre on my being to not put out my arm up front and push all the boxes into my shopping basket.
I got two boxes, and I think I skipped on my way to my room, feeling happy.
Also, much to my delight, I noticed strawberries are part of daily breakfast menu during the GM. I always made sure I took some strawberries on my plate before I got myself pancakes or toasts with jam.
TIL Strawberries are not berries
… eggplants, tomatoes and avocados are botanically classified as berries. And the popular strawberry is not a berry at all.
— The Strawberry: A Multiple Fruit
Also, I have been eyeing this… Japanese strawberries. Super expensive. Mega expensive. I’m so tempted to buy it, but goshdangit, does it worth it to fork out RM 100 (24 USD) for one pack? 🥲
I know what I said on the last post, okay. Then I just realized that I haven’t touched anything about how to create a template and how to edit/manage the templates 🙃
So yeah! Bonus Level! 😂
I need to remind you all again that FSE is still on progress — there are moving parts and screenshots I shared on a post several weeks ago might look different with the one you see on your end. When in doubt, ask! I’m here.
First, we need to activate FSE. FSE will be available on all WordPress.com websites (and WordPress websites), including the Free plan websites, so you don’t have to worry about having to upgrade.
If you haven’t able to see FSE on your website, not too worry, it means that the website is not included on the testing/beta phase.
Update (February 8, 2022): Didn’t see any sign of FSE on your site’s Settings? Make sure your site has FSE-supported theme activated. You can use Blockbase, Quadrat, Zoologist, or Twenty Twenty Two. Still not seeing FSE even after having FSE-supported theme on the site? Ping us on help@wordpress.com or on live chat and your friendly Happiness Engineer can do a check on the site and activate FSE if needed.
First, ensure the FSE is active on the website. Go to Settings > Full Site Editing (beta) and make sure the checkbox “Enable Site Editor” is checked.
Once you done that, you should see “Editor (beta)” on “Appearance” section.
Then you should be all set. When the “Editor” is clicked, you should see the template editor.
Now, be really careful about editing templates. Please remember, the changes on template will affect all pages/posts using that template. When you edit the template single.php, it will affect, yep, ALL posts on the blog.
This cog icon/Settings icon is your friend. If you don’t see the right sidebar, click the Settings icon.
Now, compare these three editor sidebars:
So now you know which one is which 😄
Also, template usually has the template name on the top. Remember this, as this will be important later on.
See the screenshot above? Notice the “Page without title” text and how it has dropdown arrow? Yeah, click it.
You should see a dropdown modal. Click “Browse all templates”.
You should now see this next.
Template name section is the name of the template. Remember, you can create your own template, so when you add a name on it, be as specific as possible. “Template 1,” “Template 2,” or “Template 1 lolz” definitely not super helpful. The “Added by” field is informing who (or what) created the template. You can see my username there (cilantroinpho — yes, that’s me) and Quadrat theme. It means the template “Create New Template” (my apologies for a possibly confusing title. I created that for a test) was created by me, and the other templates are default templates/created by the theme Quadrat.
Click on the template you wish to edit. If you want to delete a template, click three dots next to the template you want to edit — only possible on templates that you create. You won’t be able to delete default templates — then click “Delete template”.
SO. ABOUT THAT.
Currently, there is a bug on switching and creating a new template from post/page editor. For posterity, I’m going to share it here. I will also share a temporary workaround you can try.
Again, please note, FSE is still in beta version and there is no such thing as a perfect software/app/feature/tool. Things evolve and potential bugs lurk everywhere. If you see anything behaving unexpectedly or maybe you noticed some errors, please inform Happiness Engineers immediately on email help@wordpress.com. We will be happy to assist you.
Yep, you read that right. You can create a template from a page/post. Hopefully, this will reduce the number of clicks folks have to do to access the editor.
Open a page/post, click the “Template” tab on the right sidebar, then click “New” link on the template dropdown.
Status: Currently, there is a mini bug popping on this flow. The team is aware of this and currently working on a fix. Again, I can’t provide you folks 100% exact time frame on when the issue will be resolved.
On template editor, click “Browse all templates”, then click “Add New” button. However, currently the “Add New” button only provides “Front Page” option (and no option to create a completely customized template.)
You will notice, once you clicked ‘Front Page’ option, the “Add New” button will disappear.
Status: You can bet the team is aware about this too and currently the awesome developers are working on a fix. Again, I can’t provide you folks 100% exact time frame on when the issue will be resolved.
This is the workaround I’m using and currently works. The downside, you will need to memorize the link/bookmark the link.
You can access the WP Admin section of Templates area here:
https://WEBSITEADDRESS/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=wp_template
Change the WEBSITEADDRESS with your website address.
For example, if your website address is myawesomewebsite.com, you can access the Templates on WP Admin section on https://myawesomewebsite.com/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=wp_template
You should see this on the screen.
Click “Add New” button and you should be all set. Please note: Use “Block Editor” to create the template. “Classic Editor” won’t work.
Status: This is the workaround I’m currently using and has been working ever since. Hopefully the two flows above will get improvement and we can create and manage templates easier than ever!
Okay! Things should be all set (I… think…) If I forgot anything (and I believe I am!) do let me know!
At this point, I feel you folks realized how hyped I am about FSE — and I really am! I really like FSE and I can’t wait to see the potentials and awesomeness you all going to create. I really hope you folks are enjoying FSE as much as I do.
Have an awesome and hopeful New Year, folks! Stay safe and stay healthy!
🪴 coriander in pho 