Although I have worked with Wordpress a number of times over the years, I have never used it for my own websites. It’s time, though, for my personal blog to make the switch from Drupal to Wordpress.
I am really a designer by nature, so my expertise lies more with HTML, CSS and Photoshop – not PHP, which is the primary code for both Drupal and Wordpress. I’ve found that while Drupal is a powerful platform, it’s really more strongly geared towards the programmer and less towards the designer. Since I don’t rely on anyone else to create or maintain my websites (aside from the husband helping me on more technical issues), it’s important for me to have something that is as easy and hassle-free as possible.
Here are a few reasons why I am making the switch.
Intuitive administrative interface. I’ll admit that the current Wordpress interface is not as good as it could be (although they’ve recently been surveying Wordpress users on ways to improve the admin navigation), but for the most part it is simple and straightforward. I really appreciate the welcome screen when you log in – you can find out immediately if any comments are awaiting moderation, as well as if there is any important news from the Wordpress team. I also love the WYSIWYG editor when you are creating or editing posts or pages. It’s nice that the editor comes bundled with Wordpress, because it doesn’t with Drupal which adds another layer of complexity to that system if you really want it.
More themes to choose from. Since I am the type of designer that prefers to take a theme and essentially re-skin it (hack away at the CSS, insert my own imagery, etc.), I like to have a good number of themes to choose from. I can literally spend hours looking for a theme that has the right visual balance and layout. Drupal has a decent number of community-developed themes, but no where near as many as Wordpress. Type in “free wordpress themes” in Google and you’re easily going to be sifting through thousands of options. There are also many great themes that you can purchase that are often, but not always, higher quality than the free ones.
Plugins galore. Being able to extend Wordpress and have it do exactly what I want with minimal effort (okay sometimes it takes a lot of effort) is a huge bonus to me. Plugins that are really high quality are also usually well maintained and less likely to be abandoned by their creators. Additionally, the creators behind Wordpress develop their own high-quality plugins (Akismet, a plugin to manage spam is one example).
As much as I have enjoyed working with Drupal, and as much as I know I might stick with it if I was a programmer, I really have to switch to something that’s ultimately more user-friendly and that has more flexibility for me as a designer. I still have to troubleshoot and dig into the code, but it’s vastly more easy to figure out than Drupal. If you’re a designer or someone who isn’t as familiar with the inner-workings of blogging platforms, I’d highly recommend going with Wordpress as it is extremely easy straight “out of the box”. Of course, even easier would be to go with Wordpress.com, but that’s a whole other topic for another time.
Popularity: 45% [?]
On my specs post, I mentioned one of the plugins I was using was Lighter Menus. I have gotten VERY accustomed to this plugin, and now cannot go without it when I create a new Wordpress Blog. The plugin can be found HERE.
I was thinking that it doesn’t really do me any good explaining what the plugin does, and gives it no value if you can’t see what it looks like. I decided to take a screenshot for you. This is what your admin area in Wordpress looks like after the install and activation of the plugin:
I moused over the settings areas to demonstrate the drop down menus. It’s very easy to navigate, and clumps everything together in the appropriate place, and it’s much easier to find something rather than having to go to each area and see if it’s listed there.
I love it, typical install. Try it out.
Popularity: 44% [?]
I found another neat plugin that I have integrated into this site. It’s called Smart 404 for Wordpress, and can be found HERE.
When visitors arrive at your site, instead of seeing an error 404 page, Wordpress will search for whatever search terms they were looking for, search posts for tags and meta deta and take them to a post that is whatever it deems closest to what they were looking for.
LOL, I’m not quite bright enough to figure out how to test it, using a dummy search to come to a 404 page, but if anyone tries it with my site (if you would please, and know how) leave us a comment outlining exactly what you did so that we can try it to and see.
EDIT: Michael, the author of the plugin stopped and gave me some helpful examples of what to try to see how it works. Taken from his comment below. Thank you so much, Michael!!
Try visiting http://areyouwordpressed.com/smart-404 or, say, http://areyouwordpressed.com/IntenseDebate. Or, to test the 404 page, http://areyouwordpressed.com/design perhaps.
Typical installation, only you FTP one single php file, rather than a folder and put it in the root of your plugins folder on your server. Go to plugins via your website Dashboard and activate. Under settings there will be a simple settings option for what exactly the plugin will search for the results. I left it at the default settings. Overall, pretty painless install.
It sounds like a neat idea. What do you think?
Popularity: 64% [?]
We have been seeing everywhere, well, at least I have, about a big IntenseDebate and Automattic Merge. I have just been blowing it off because I didn’t know what the heck was, and thought it meant nothing to me. Then I got to thinking, “Well, I have this Wordpress Site…And if OTHER Wordpress users are talking about it, then, well, maybe it holds SOME relevance.” Ok, well, it does. To some extent, I think.
Apparently, the two companies have merged - IntenseDebate has become a part of Automattic. Mmmm, ok…? Looking into what the heck is anyhow, it is an improved comment system for blogs. Automattic has many projects that they are “involved with”: Wordpress.com, Askimet, Wordpress.org, bbPress, WordCamp San Fricisco, and many, many plugins, that you can view HERE.
There are many features that IntenseDebate boasts:
- Comment Threading
- Reply By Email
- Importing Of Comments
- RSS
- Twitter Integration
- Moderation and Blacklisting
- Different Widgets
- Reputation Points And Comment Voting
They also say that there will be tighter integration with some of their projects, Gravatar and Askimet.
It sounds almost like another SezWho, if you ask me, but I, to this DAY, have never gotten that to work and all it does has slowed down any blog I ever try to put it on. Maybe this has some promise.
HERE they state that, even though the two have merged, it is usable “…on Typepad, Tumblr, Blogger, Movable Type, and other platforms with more to come!”. Well, for such a big thing, it doesn’t list Wordpress, either .com OR .org. Or is that a given that I don’t know about?
But since, they have merged, and IntenseDebate makes no mention of Wordpress, but Automattic, on their site, does - is it integrateable with Wordpress since the merge? And what exactly will the merge bring?
It will be interesting to find out - I love plugins, integrations, and the like. If you have some information, and know more than I do, leave a comment and let us know, it would be greatly appreciated.
Popularity: 61% [?]
I ran across a tabbed widget plugin this morning. I have heard from a lot of people along the way that they have gotten frustrated trying to create tabs on their own, not knowing Javascript and all.
I installed it on “Are You Wordpressed?”. You can see an example at the bottom of my sidebar. Typical plugin installation: FTP it to your server, go to plugins on dashboard, activate and you’re good to go. Under Design will be a new option entitled “Tabbed Widgets” where you can configure up to 8 tabbed widgets. Once configured, you will go to Design, once again, this time selecting “Widgets” and add it as you would any other widget.
The plugin is very nice, very simple to use. Pretty self-explanatory. It also gives you the option of having rounded corners. It has the option of having the top tab be random, and will allow a rotation of the different tabs at a time interval chosen by you. You also have the option of having it “accordion style”. I chose that style to try it out, but not sure if it worked. It seems like it should layer the tabs on top of another, instead of horizontally and they slide up and down, based on the selected tab, but it didn’t seem to work.
The only down fall I am seeing, is that since I already have a tabbed section on my sidebar that came with the theme, the style of the “Tabbed Widget Plugin” doesn’t match. At this time, I am not sure if I should look through and see if I can assign it the same style as the tabbed box I already have, or just try to duplicate the code that came with the theme for the tabbed sidebar and try to alter the code to make another one, only with the attributes that I would want in a second box.
All in all I would have to give this plugin a thumbs-up. This would have been very useful on other blogs that I have had, and can see it being very beneficial and useful.
The “Tabbed Widget” plugin was made by Kaspars Dambis. And can be downloaded HERE.
Popularity: 69% [?]
So, paid themes are all the rave. We expect them to be nice. Free themes are even more the rave - and we HOPE for them to be nice. But as a member of Entrecard, when I’m making my drops, I run across some UGLY themes. No, I’m not mentioning names - or mentioning when I’ve seen them. But trust me they’re out there.
Now, what I want to do here is get these ugly blogs some recognition. Sometimes, even though a writer will have some REALLY good content, their site is just absolutely horrid. That’s okay, but the thing is, is that these blogs rarely get read because they are just…that…ugly.
So the contest is this - submit your UGLY Wordpress Blog for a chance at 2,000 EC’s.
The contest will start as soon as I finish posting this. It will run until Midnight EST, Sunday September 28, 2008. The winner will then be announced and 2000 EC’s will be awarded. (If you don’t know what EC’s are - they are Entrecard credits. If you don’t know what Entrecard credits are, then read HERE. Yes, you can even sign up for Entrecard just to participate in the contest, it’s free.) The winner MUST be present to win. (Just kidding.)
Here are the rules and gameplay:
- You must only submit YOUR blog for the contest. We’re not trying to slam other people and their efforts here.
- It MUST be a Wordpress blog. (sorry, Blogger-people)
- To enter, leave a comment to this post announcing your entry, and a link to your blog. I will then screenshot it and update this post with the participants as they come in.
- You must then write a post on your blog telling about the contest, and ask people to come here and vote for your site. Your entry will be complete once post is verified.
- Voters can then vote, by way of comment to this post of which site they would like to see win the “Ugliest Wordpress Blog EC Giveaway”.
Good luck to all!
P.S.
Web-Betty has added to the prizes! She has offered a review of the winning blog! Thanks, Web-Betty for contributing!!
Popularity: 100% [?]
Have you ever wanted to exclude certain pages from your headbar navigation area? There is a way.
Sometimes you might want to have a page, but not have it visible in your main navigation area up top. I have found, often times, that I want to have a static (non-changing, informational) home page (instead of blog posts), but it will add that page in the navigation area, along with a “home” link that’s most often already there. I have also found that the top navigation area can become quite cluttered, ultimately leading to the navigation area looking messed up or not good with the theme. Sometimes you just don’t want it up there and would like to link to it elsewhere, say your sidebar for instance. This can all be done with slight alteration to “the code”.
First things first. You will need to know the “Page ID”. I always find this by way of “Manage Pages” via the WP Dashboard (admin area). When you’re looking at your list of pages, you can simply HOVER OVER the title of your page. In the bottom left hand corner of your Internet Browser (IE, Firefox, etc.) you will see a link similar to this:
http://areyouwordpressed.com/wp-admin/page.php?action=edit&post=2
The “areyouwordpressed.com” will be substituted with your blog url. The 2 is your Page ID. I would, personally, write out a list the page title and the Page ID to have quick access to it while you’re altering the code, which we’re about to do here in a second.
Next, you will want to go back to your WP Dashboard, go to Design > Theme Editor, and then look for a page listed on the right called header.php. (Once you get there, I would right click, select all, then copy. Open a blank notepad document and paste it there. That way if anything happens to get screwed up, you have a good copy of what you started with to begin with, before you made any changes, or accidentally did something wrong.) 
Once there, you will want to look for something that looks like this:
<?php wp_list_pages();?>
This is a snippet of php code that tells Wordpress to list all of your pages between the parenthesis. In order to exclude certain pages, you will add the following with no spaces:
'exclude=4,19'
Your new code will look like the following:
<?php wp_list_pages('exclude=4,19');?>
***The numbers 4 and 19 are dummy Page IDs. You will replace the 4 and 19 with YOUR Page IDs. If you have more than two, you will just continue the trend, Page ID # COMMA Page ID # COMMA Page ID # COMMA.
Make sure to click “Update File” at the bottom left of the page when you’re done, and VOILA! You have successfully excluded whatever page(s) you want from the navigation bar of your site! If for some reason you goofed or something doesn’t look right, refer back to that notepad document you copied all the original code into. Simply clear out everything in the theme editor on that page, then copy and paste the original code back in there and try again!
Good luck!
Popularity: 89% [?]
Today only, I will be giving 250 EC’s to anyone that subscribes “Are You Wordpressed” Email Updates.
Please email me @ brandi[at]AreYouWordressed[dot]com once you have subscribed with the email address you used to subscribe, along with a link to your EC Site Profile Page so that I may reward you with your EC credits.
I will distribute EC’s this evening. Thank you!
Popularity: 77% [?]
So, I have to whore out my advertising space over there on the right. ——>
Currently I am running a 125 x 125 space for One Whole Dollar for a week. That’s right. ONE DOLLAR!
It’s through Perfomancing Ads. They handle the payment, and even do paypal. Please? 
Popularity: 73% [?]
