Archives by Subject: WordPress
Notes from my Barcamp Session
Part of Barcamp is that everyone must give a session. I gave mine on using WordPress as a CMS for your non-blog website, discussing the development of MGross.com.
I'm not quite cool enough to know how to use a Wiki, so here are some notes and links.
Some Useful WordPress Plugins
· Get-a-Post: I use this plugin to let the front page blurb be edited without changing the rest of the front page template.
· Get Custom Field Values: This lets me create templates with multiple text areas, using WordPress' custom fields. An example is the two-column layout on this page. The right column is the body text, but the first column is a custom field.
· Redirectify: Allows a WordPress "page" to actually redirect to another site entirely. Useful for integrating "legacy" pages into your automatic navigation structure. On the MGross site, this is used for The More Things Change link in the books submenu.
A Note on .htaccess
One of the most important things to do when you recreate a site in WordPress is make sure the old links still work. Lots of people still link to your old URLs -- they don't want a 404 error! So, you can go to Manage > Files and add redirects to the beginning of your .htaccess. Here's a few from mgross.com's .htaccess:
# Redirects from Old Site
Redirect 301 /profiles.htm http://www.mgross.com/articles/profiles/?
Redirect 301 /articles.htm http://www.mgross.com/articles/article/?
Redirect 301 /author.htm http://www.mgross.com/about/?
Redirect 301 /740.htm http://www.mgross.com/books/740-park/?
Redirect 301 /times.htm http://www.mgross.com/books/740-park/?
Redirect 301 /model.htm http://www.mgross.com/books/model/?
The 301 means permanent redirect, so search engines like Google will update the link. The /? is required, or else WordPress will get confused and error.
Other Links
· Original Post on MGross.com Launch [ScottKidder.com]
· Creating and Using Pages [WordPress.org]
These are some links I've found on Google, though I haven't had time to read all of them:
· WordPress 1.5 as a Website CMS [AlexKing.org]
Find more? Comment here or email me, scott AT skidder.net.
Posted in on January 15, 2006, 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Skidder Networks Relaunches MGross.com, Powered by WordPress
Today Skidder Networks launches a redesign of the website of author Michael Gross. With the help of Josh and Taylor, this site has been built over the past several months. Today's launch coincides with the release of Michael's new book 740 Park.
One really cool feature is the Cast of Characters in 740 Park. It's a database full of information about all the "extraordinary group of tenants–achievers, heirs and even a couple of air-heads" that have lived in the building. You can sort the table to suit your liking and see photos and/or relevant web links about most residents.
But my favorite thing about this site is the tight integration with WordPress. With the introduction of Pages in WordPress 1.5, there's nothing to stop you from using Wordpress as a full-fledged CMS. That's exactly what we've done here.
Michael wanted an easy way to update the site himself. WordPress does just that.
Every single page on the site is created on-the-fly by WordPress.
Even cooler, the navigation is generated on-the-fly. So, if Michael adds a page to the 740 Park section, it will appear in the 740 Park navigation bar instantly.
The templating system was so much easier than uploading files using FTP that I found myself running everything through it! I even coded the Cast of Characters script inside of WordPress.
This was my first site developed exclusively in WordPress, but you can bet it won't be my last.
Posted in on October 16, 2005, 02:46 PM | Comments (3) | Permalink
WordPress.com Announced (And a Similar System)
Looks like I missed a great presentation. While I am in San Francisco, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the Blog Business Summit and Matt's unveiling (kind of) of WordPress.com.
While details are still sketchy, it seems that it will be a hosted service based off of the Wordpress Multi-User version -- and it will be free! It involves the new version of WordPress (1.6), which among other things, apparently includes a new WYSIWYG editor.
While WordPress.com is currently invite-only (and invites will probably be hard to come by), you can see a similar service at PRBlogs.org. It, too, is based on WordPress Multi-User version "1.6-ALPHA-2-still-dont-use". I played with it, and it looks pretty sweet. Check out PRBlogs.org to see how the service may work if you can't get into WordPress.com.
It could be fun to watch how (apparently free) WordPress.com pairs up against TypePad -- Matt's presentation even got some mainstream press coverage.
· Presentation Feedback [matt.wordpress.com]
· WordPress commercial arm to compete against TypePad [Blog Herald]
Posted in on August 21, 2005, 12:30 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
