molly.com
Thursday 29 April 2004
playing with wordpress
I’m a faithful user of Movable Type but have begun to try out other blogging tools. When photomatt told me about yesterday’s 1.2 beta release of WordPress, I figured hey, I’ll give it a try. So I installed it on a test site.
Installation is truly very easy, just a matter of creating a MySQL database, modifying one PHP file, and uploading everything to your server. The only glitch I ran into was that I uploaded all the WordPress files to a distinct WordPress folder – and by default it attempted to use that folder as the blog folder. Easy to fix, but Matt tells me this is the first release of WordPress where the option to have your blogs in other directories is available – so that’s really a nice added feature.
The interface is great, and one feature I think I’m really going to love is that you can set it up so posts can be sent in via email. This is a great solution for a lot of clients who don’t want to muck around with browser-based forms when typing to an email address is all that’s necessary. Sweet!
Another impressive bit about WordPress is that the developers are focusing on localization and internationalization features within the software, which I think is one aspect, along with easy install and a very usable interface, that will help WordPress find its own glory among today’s diverse weblogging solutions.
Filed under: blogging
Posted by: site admin | 02:23 | Comments (30)
Yes! WordPress truly rocks! I love it.
why is is better than MT?
My understanding is that MT runs under CGI exclusively and is written with Perl (correct me if I’m wrong). It takes so long for comments to be posted on MT blogs. Sometimes you wait minutes for them to post. Blogs that don’t have to depend on CGI (the ones that were written with PHP) are instantaneous. CGI-bin’s are notoriously slow for web applications. That’s where PHP-written blog software comes in, no need for the middle-man (CGI).
WordPress is a PHP/MySQL solution that is lightning-fast and is a solid standards compliant implementation – it generates valid XHTML/CSS straight out of the box. Also, with PHP being one of the most popular programming languages today, WordPress is easily configurable and tweaking the source is a piece of cake for a lot of us.
I didn’t get a chance to play with MT because I couldn’t get it to work. With WordPress, it took me 5 minutes to install and ready to rock. I agree with Terry, since PHP works fabulously with XHTML, it is a piece of cake for us to style our layouts. I just love the flexibility WordPress provide.
I had previously run my own blog using PHP/MySql that I developed myself. When that application was hosed, I looked around for a blogging tool and found Movable Type.
It works ok, but working with the “middleman” templates is weird for me. Also, CGI runs out of process and has certain security loopholes from which PHP doesn’t directly suffer.
After seeing Molly’s post and reading everyone’s comments, I am seriously thinking about migrating from MT to WordPress. Has anyone done this? How did you handle bringing over your MT posts?
I’ve been contemplating making the move myself – avoiding rebuild time sounds great!
Phil,
There is an mt-import function built into WordPress. I haven’t tried it out but apparently it’s supposed to work just fine.
The documentation isn’t on the site yet, though, it’s in the feature itself, which when you’ve got WordPress up and running can be accessed by using import-mt.php
It supports a number of other imports, too, including Blogger, Greymatter, Textpattern and b2.
–M
Wordpress readme explains to upload to the root directory and that it will default to index.php. I’m asking those who have installed and use Wordpress, what if you already have an inex page that you like? Can you tell Wordpress to only affect a portion of your already present index or what?
Does Wordpress 1.2 support multiple blogs?
Phil,
I have known many who imgrated from MT to WP and absolutely happy.
Laughable, absoulutely. You can pull in any piece of information from your database by a few modifying of the PHP codes.
KO: The devs are actively working towards multiple blog support, and have in-fact laid teh groundwork for the system as of the 1.2 branch.
Laughable: Sure you just add the function calls to where ever you would like WP to spit out content. That is one of the real advantages of WP for me, eerything is a function call that can be edited, combined with others, and moved around pretty easily.
OK, how much are they paying you?
I love WordPress.
I to installed WP out of curiosity, but it’s lack of a manual put me off. I’m a creature of habit, so while I’d love a PHP based system, having to stumble through a program with no real ‘help’ isn’t very appealing. The rebulding of MT is a little annoying, but until I find something that I can use to publish my entire site(s), MT works just fine.
i switched from mt to wordpress recently and i’m quite happy i must say. importing the mt-posts is quite painless (just a matter of exporting the entries in mt and then running the import script that comes with wordpress). wp is fast and small, and the forum provide excellent support if needed.
i don’t regret the move.
Pea: Sorry to hear that you had an unfavorable experience with WP. One of the major movements right now is the Documentation effort. There are some very talented, dedicated people heading that up and I forsee big changes in the months ahead.
And I am outlining a book on WP and blogging at this time so you could always pick that up!
Oh and one more thing, did you drop by the forums, in alot of ways that is our documentation and help system, and I for one prefer it. You get real help from people using the system and the Devs together.
Someone here had emailed me a few questions about WordPress, I accidentally deleted your message and I can’t find it. It gets lost between webmail and Apple’s mail. Please email me again if you could. I don’t mean to ignore you. Thanks
One of the reasons I greatly prefer WordPress over MovableType is that WordPress is Free Software, licensed under the GNU Public License. MovableType is free for personal use, but non-free for commercial use. It’s a non-issue for most individual bloggers, but the distinction is important to me.
Another reason I like WordPress is that the core developers are committed to web standards. Their hard work makes it easy for me to blog without worrying too much about accessiblity.
The current lack of documentation is an issue, and it’s being addressed. Contributions are welcome, as is participation on the documentation mailing list.
I tested out WordPress a few months ago, but was put off by the difficulty in having multiple blogs. I have multiple blogs on each of my sites, so that’s why I had to stick with MT, even though I really want to use PHP for everything.
wordpress roxorz. two thumbs up.
I’m an MT blogger and I’ve been toying with WP for a few weeks. I like it. It’s cleaner, simpler to use and importing MT content is a snap.
I like it and I’m probably going to switch for good pretty soon.
I’ve downloaded and installed Wordpress. MT could definately take a leaf out of it for installation but so far there’s nothing there that makes me want to leave MT for it.
After seeing Molly’s post and reading everyone’s comments, I am seriously thinking about migrating from MT to WordPress
Very informative and well designed website. I’m sure, you will be successful with it, have a nice day!
Bentley
What’s really nice about wordpress is the huge community and number of free addins that are available.
I was playing around with WordPress about 1 year ago on a litte microsite. I did not do very much on that site, but i´ve got a many visitors there. WordPress is very seo-friendly. I love the many possibilities to customize the look. It might take a while to get confirm with all the features, but it´s worth the time!
There is no question that we all can get along but not without our share of difficulties along the way. It would be better if graphic designers would learn the language but this isn’t often a job expectation and their salary certainly does not reflect the additional skillset. Programmers that I have had the experience to work with do not have the polished CSS skills necessary to take over what the designer intended from a PSD. CSS does require a great deal of time and experience and raw memorization to get a feel for all that you can do with it. So, who is the middle man in all of this? That’s the CSS consultant they hire in desperation nine months into the project to clean up the mess.
Thanks best desing
Hello my friend, your site is very good! http://fsezjmgqhwclb.com
Hi I have a web sit http://www.howtogetmyexback.net which started of as a word press blog but because I could’nt find any kind of manual to tell me how to operate it I moved the whole thing over to a static html site.Now I regret not keeping the site on a blog.I would be great full if anyone could direct me in the right direction and tell me where I could find an easy to follow manual for word press