I just downloaded the new WordPress …

… and after holding my breath and backing up my database, my blog is now running Version 2.5. I guess they skipped 2.4.  I decided to write about the upgrade as I know many fellow bloggers use WordPress too.

(Edited this post to be a little more objective.)

OK — confession time — the only reason why I upgraded was not because I thought 2.5 sounded like it had cooler or more useful features (I was quite happy with 2.3) … I hate that annoying “You need to upgrade” message that displays and wanted to get rid of it.

Now that said …

I’m happy that my site appears to work.

I’m happy that the post editor appears to not mess with my code so much.

Visually, I just don’t like the new dashboard.  It is ugly.  The color choices are a faded light blue (think faded robin’s egg blue), orange, and some very light gray.  Colors are subjective, of course, but I tend to prefer darker colors against a white background — I prefer a stronger contrast, like the old dark blues of the old Dashboard.  Plus, I think darker colors are easier on the eyes when laid out against a white background.  That said, I can pretty much learn to live with any color issues …

The big problem I have with version 2.5, though, is the WRITE POST.  As a blogger, I spend most of my time using this feature.  And it is a usability disaster.

Things I don’t like at all and make my life more difficult in regard to the posting area:

• You have to scroll down the page and open up a link to add a category to a post.  EVERY POST REQUIRES THIS STEP — so why make it so difficult?  It used to be just tick a box on the right hand side. (Now, I admit I don’t mind scrolling when visiting a blog or website — but when I’m trying to create something, not having everything I use frequently within easy reach is annoying and problematic.)
• The post box now doesn’t stretch as far across the page, meaning a smaller window to type in.  I flat out don’t like that at all.
• The new type size is also smaller — I preferred the larger size when I wrote posts.
• Tags, like categories, are something I add to every post.  And WordPress makes you scroll down and again click a link to open them and add new ones.
• Adding insult to injury as far as tags, I use a plugin called Advanced Tag Entry.  Rather than being right below my post like it used to be (very conveniently located), it is now at the very bottom of the page.
• There’s lots of wasted space on the right hand side.  The post box should stretch farther across the page, or that important real estate should include stuff I use all the time.  Further, the big “View this Post” button is something I never use, the published status is something I don’t use at all (preferring to instead modify the time stamp to put posts into the queue for later publication.  And the “Related” links are stuff I NEVER USE from the write post area — they are all important links, but should not be taking up that important real estate.

These are just one person’s opinions, of course.  It’s free software, but I get the impression WordPress wants to be the best darned blogging software out there.  And these are some major issues, I think, with the most used area of the software.  I’m guessing I’m not going to be the only one who has them.

test

Technorati Profile

my a.p. hill site

Just a few words on what I’m doing with my A.P. Hill site (www.aphillcsa.com).

I finally broke. The site has become such an unwieldy mess on my hard-drive and on my server that I decided I have to move it to some sort of content management system. It is just too hard to otherwise update the beast. I am using WordPress. I am not turning the site into a blog. I’m simply using WordPress to manage a lot of material. I think WordPress can be effectively used to maintain just about any type of site — not just a traditional blog. I’m going to find out.

As far as I can tell — and please, someone step in and correct me if I’m wrong — the only way to do this is to copy and paste the site’s individual pages into WordPress. I have the material as text files, but I don’t think there is any way to get them into WordPress other than copying and pasting each individual file. As I said, if someone knows, please tell me!

Needless to say, this is a time consuming and mind-numbing effort. Copying and pasting files is about as much fun as doing document review as an attorney. I hope, however, the result will be a site that is much easier to update and maintain. Right now the site is a little bit of a mess as I work on it. I’m trying to leave it in tact as I work on the conversion.

Suggestions always welcome.

Jenny fights with WordPress

Techno-related post ahead.

I decided between medical appointments that I would try upgrading to the new version of my blogging software, WordPress. WordPress is on version 2.3 and I was running version 2.x (x = something or another, I’m not even sure exactly which of the two branches I had running, which is one reason I decided to upgrade).

Needless to say, as you can figure out from the title of my post, my good luck of 2007 continued. I backed up the database and did all that good jazz in case of catastrophic failure, but I’ve previously had good luck upgrading versions of WordPress (I think I started with version 1.2 or something back when all I complained about here was how much I disliked law school). So I didn’t really expect a problem. This time, though, I got one of those dreaded php function errors when I tried to refresh my blog after uploading the new files. ¹

I know my way around xhtml and css well enough that if I was ambitious, I could probably make my own WordPress templates (but why reinvent the wheel when there are so many to choose from?). However, php flat out confuses me. I can do little more than copy and paste php code into my template. I’ve tried to learn it and for whatever reason it is not intuitive to me the way xhtml and css are.

In the end, I had to upgrade WordPress four times, the last two to get back the rich text editor I use to write my posts (I’m lazy and don’t like typing out xhtml tags and if you’ve ever looked at my A.P. Hill site, you know I can’t spell worth a darned, what can I say, I’ve got no good defense.). Then I went through trying to get my plugins to work. But after on and off hours of playing with different things now it all seems to be working. I’m still figuring out whether I’m going to make use of the new “tagging” (a different way of categorizing posts, basically).

1. I use Filezilla for uploading files. It is better than WS_FTP which is my old FTP client. The free version of WS_FTP is hopelessly out-dated.  Since Filezilla is free software that I use a lot, I thought I should give it a plug. [↩]

testing upgrade to WordPress 2.3

testing whether the upgrade to WordPress 2.3 took.

And I guess I should test whether the new tag feature works since that was one big reason to upgrade.

suggested blog titles (all still available!)

In the interest of promoting unique and interesting Civil War blog titles, a few suggestions, all free for the taking. You don’t even have to credit me!

1. The Porcupine Bristles (credit to A.P. Hill who self-described himself a porkypine)

2. Border Ruffian Rumblings (a good title for you out even beyond the Trans-Missisissippi)

3. Virginia Creepings

4. I Writs Mits Siegel

5. The Ewell Log (jump on it now — you know a title this good won’t last long)

researching the leap

Due to the bleomycin damage to my lungs, I haven’t been running quite as much. I haven’t given up on running, but the pain in my chest and my inability to take a deep breath has reduced my running significantly. Its hard to run when it hurts to breathe. So I have been trying to fill the void with other things.

I’ve been working on learning the ins-and-outs of WordPress — everything from the structure to how to code my own WordPress template. I am still in the learning process, but I am getting more and more comfortable.

The purpose of this is I am still researching taking the ultimate leap with my A.P. Hill site to convert it into a database driven site. The site is currently ten years old and it needs to be pruned. There are a lot of pages that should be cut back or cut out — and as difficult as it might be for me to make those hard choices, the site as a whole would probably be stronger and healthier, much like how a plant if stronger if you prune away some of the flowers.

Although I like web geek type stuff, I know I am never going to be able to write my own database. Learning some basic php code has been difficult enough for me. That’s why I’d really like to see what I can do with Wordpress.

I’m still not quite ready to make the leap but I’ve been doing a lot of planning and drawing and doodling — which is pretty much how I get things done. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

any advantage?

Any advantage to upgrading to WordPress 2.2?

(I see it is named after a tenor sax player.  I played tenor sax in the band in school.)

You’ll notice …

If you look at the site, you will start to notice that I am adding a few of my old posts. I am pre-dating them, so they will appear in the archives.  Just in case anyone is wondering what the heck is going on.

For the WordPress Experts

For any WordPress experts out there … I figured out that the database table I ran “The Learned Foot” blog from is still in tact and was not deleted like I previously thought (what I accidentally deleted was a subdomain name, a long story, but the actual database tables themselves were not stored there). Anyway, to make a long story short, is there a way to download the database table and import the old posts to my new blog?

Edited to add: I figured out how to download the database.  What I think I am going to do is selectively upload old posts that I think are worth having at the new blog. I think I found instructions for how to do that, so I am good to go.