I’ve been a loyal MovableType user for many years both on this site, and I use it at Cascade Winds as well. It’s a very nice, powerful system. But, just for kicks and giggles, I decided to try something else for a new site.
My father-in-law is an elder at his church, and they had been using a Blogger for their site where they (basically) just posted their weekly sermons in MP3 format. Last week, I casually mentioned that I could set them up with a better site that they could edit, upload files, etc… so that they wouldn’t have to rely on folks to do it (as the guy that was updating their old Blogspot page wasn’t always available to do it).
Well, I just thought it was a casual mention and I didn’t think anything of it until my wife came back from church on Sunday and said that everybody was excited about getting a new site. So I had to produce something, and fast.
Since my server has Fantastico installed, I knew I could one-click install a variety of packages. Since I had been meaning to play with WordPress, and after looking at some other sites that were done locally by Andy I knew it had good Podcasting support (as long term, I’d like to make this a weekly podcast for them), I figured I’d give it a whirl.
So, in the few hours of time I’ve found to work with it, here’s the first draft. I’ve tweaked the template a bit, and still have some work to do (like converting the MP3s into actual pod enclosures, doing some template tweaks, getting their logo, and figuring out why some of the links are in the order they are), but it’s there.
So how’s WordPress compared to MovableType? Well, I’m a PHP guy, not a Perl guy, so for the most part I at least understand what it’s doing. The interface has a lot of “pretty” things (colors fading, highlighting, etc…). Installing the tons of available themes is far easier than in MT (though maybe the Six Apart Style Contest will change that). Actually configuring them took a bit of work, as I initially couldn’t figure out what PHP file powered what. I also need to create some additional templates, and still haven’t quite figured out how to do that (I’ve been in the system a total of like three hours, mind you). Since I’m really familiar with MT tags, it took me a bit to figure out how to pull information from WordPress (or delete it), but the WordPress Support site was easy to find stuff in.
But I’m slowly figuring it out, and may possibly use it in the future since MovableType’s licensing sometimes doesn’t allow the stuff I’m planning on doing.
But any input is gladly appreciated — and expect things to tweak and change over the next few days (especially once I figure out the CSS for the theme I chose).
Comments
I like WP myself…. the thing that usually “bugs” me is the upgrade process. I have to go back and make all the tweaks to files that I forgot that I tweaked to get it back to where it was.
The other thing is the CSS layout when the menu is longer than page content, and photos…. and (long) urls…. that kind of stuff tends to run off the right side of the page. Other than that, I’ve been using it since you suggested it to me some time ago. 🙂
I have heavily modified the theme for my wifes blog (www.designbydani.com/blog) so I have quite a bit of experience in the files and such.
I find that Firefox’s DOM Inspector (Tools>DOM Inspector) is invaluable for findout out what CSS controls what aspects.
After its open, click Search>Select Element By Click (or the first toolbar button), and then click on the elemend on the page you want to see. It will give you a treeview of the whole DOM for the page, and allow you to drill down (as it has a nice blinking outline when you click on a new element). I don’t know if I would have had the patience to figure it out without the DOM Inspector…
Yeah, I actually use the Web Developer Extension for firefox as well as the DOM inspector for that type of thing, Rick. Stupidly invaluable, that’s for sure.
I’ve got 4 WordPress sites running – 3 on my own server and 1 on wordpress.com. The template system is the only thing I really don’t like about it. Like you said, it’s confusing trying to figure out which file to edit when. But once you figure it out it’s really not that bad. The filenames make some sense – index.php is the main file, single.php for single pages, etc.
I think you can get even more in depth than the basic templates and have a file specific to each category. But I haven’t gotten that far 🙂
Jake, the site looks GREAT. My only concern, is the pale green used for the Sermon Titles — I have a hard time reading it on my iBook (LCD screen). It needs to be darker/higher contrast. Otherwise, I am lovin’ it. Great job.
Also, thanks for the tip about the DOM inspector, guys. I have spent HOURS trying to fiddle/fix WordPress CSS in the past. I am so thankful for a new way to find the proper parts more quickly!!!!!
🙂
I actually thought of that, too Bailey, and will probably change it (it was the default color on the template I downloaded — just haven’t had a chance to tweak it).