It’s in progress. I found a company that — for a not inconsiderable fee that I can’t really spare but what am I gonna do? — will help with translating my highly customized database into something WordPress can use. Which is the thing I was most dreading. But I’m still doing all the setting up of the WordPress site myself, which is kinda like being flown blindfolded to a foreign country you’ve never even heard of and can’t identify when they throw you off the plane, and now you need to learn to speak a language you’ve never heard before in order to feed and shelter yourself. (Cuz your kidnappers didn’t even leave you any local currency. Not even pocket change.)
I just spent most of today trying to figure out how to make something that works like a table using only CSS, and no outmoded HTML code. Hope floats… but then do you need to clear it? *argh*
I’ve been dreaming about php for the last several nights. It’s not really conducive to a restful sleep.
If everything goes smoothly, there will come a day soon when you’ll stop by here and the site will look all new and cool and WordPress-y and 2013ish.
Anyway, that’s why I’ve been a bit absent over the past week or so, and why I’m so behind on reviews. Hope to get a couple things posted tomorrow…
I know nothing about any of this stuff, but if it’s such a pain, why are you doing it? Is the old way (movable type?) being phased out? Obsolete? A pain to work with? Or is it that by changing you’ll have a lot more options in what you can do with the site? I just ask, because I’m perfectly content with how things look and feel around here. But I guess the goal is not contentment of longtime fans. I assume it has to do with getting more fans, or at least more paying fans. You deserve it, so I hope it works.
There’s a lot more functionality I could have with WordPress, such as using the paywall-esque features of TinyPass, which is the first thing I’ll be implementing.
There have been some backend issues that are a result of the age of the software and the fact that it’s no longer being supported. It seems likely that at some point, something catastrophic will happen, and then it would be an emergency to switch over, and I’d rather not have to do it that way.
In general WordPress has, in recent years, far surpassed Movable Type as the best blogging platform. (It was the other way around when I moved to a blog format in 2006, which is why I went with MT.)
If this site was just me goofing around, I could probably just leave it as is. But I have to get it making more money, and that’s only going to be possible if I switch over.
It’s a real shame that so much heavy-duty blogging software seems to be written in PHP. It’s a language that makes easy stuff easier, but complex things much harder than they need to be. I’d be suggesting alternatives if I knew of any…
And I wouldn’t be able to use them, because I need the easy stuff.
Not everyone is a programmer or developer, or wants to be just to publish a blog.
Oh, I don’t mean the user interface of the program you end up with – I mean that writing, for example, safe code that doesn’t let people break into and deface a site is much harder with PHP than with many other languages. Which is why if you’re running something like this it’s good to have a host who can keep the software updated when bugs get found.
I stumbled across your wordpress test pages.
:-D
Lookin’ good…