Over the past couple days Word Press has announce a much anticipated upgrade to version 3.0 with thousands of bug fixes. This update also includes among other things, an attractive and modern-looking default theme and a bulk plug-in, theme, and installation updater.
For those that prefer to write blogs, I admit this is one of the best pure blogging platforms available. I started with WordPress over 5 years ago and I can tell you it is a lot easier to setup and use today then it was back then. Of course I did not know as much about PHP or CSS as I do now so I have to include that in my self taught WP education.
As with any major upgrade I would suggest you install the latest release in a sandbox environment until they release a point upgrade for the little stuff they forgot to include. X.0 updates alway have some issue. As this is considered a major upgrade it also will include a lot of changes to behavior you will need to adjust.
Click the jump to go the official WP site for your new version.
In other news, We continue to forge a head with our plan migration to K2. As we announce a few days back we are moving all the site content to K2 and making a lot of core changes. To give you a better idea of our proposed basic structure I have included a new map of Xanluna!
One thing I have learned from the exercise is always expect the unexpected. Because we are building the site from the ground up “again” I have decided to go beyond the basic’s. I am designing the base theme my self rather then relying on one of the many club’s. If you think making minor changes to CSS or the odd photo manipulation was fun try designing everything including how it all ties together. Believe me I did not think it would be this much work. But of course I am a perfectionist and about the time I think I have it right, I change my mind or find a better option.
Now one advantage of doing this my self is I have greatly added to my personal knowledge, and self education. I have what I want in the end and cannot blame some other designer for mistakes I have made my self. If I was doing this for a customer I would not be able to spend as much time sorting out issues unless the client had very deep pockets. But most don’t and they have a time line to meet. So meeting a deadline can stifle creative thought and force you to take the fastest route to completion leaving behind what could make a site really shine.
When this is all done I am planning to write a complete tutorial on setting up an efficient CMS platform using Joomla! That is if I can sort out all my notes. Right now my work space is a cluttered mess.
I do have one suggestion to make your own development faster if you have not heard of this. Over the course of debugging some of our sites new design I found that the way I was running Apache on my localhost was not as efficient as it could be. Not to mention having to leave out important DOM information just to get the basic site to render pages.
If you have not done so... I suggest you upgrade to MAMP or MAMP PRO from appsolute GmbH. Now this is assuming your doing development on a MAC. There are Windows versions available from other vendors. For those of us who have moved to working on a UNIX or Linux platform you can’t beat this setup.
The abbreviation "MAMP" stands for: Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP. MAMP installs a local server (localhost) environment Mac OS X computer.
Installing MAMP will not compromise any existing Apache installation already running with your OS X. You can install Apache, PHP and MySQL without starting a script or having to change any configuration files! This has made my life much easier than I can really imagine. I can stand up a another Joomla! design within about 5 minutes. No config files to change. Just create the directory under my “htdoc” root. Dump the core files there. Start and stop the (localhost) server and load your favorite browser.
I cannot tell you how much time I have saved my self along with headaches. So spend a few extra minutes and setup a working environment that allows you the most flexibility. You will appreciate writing code again and have more time to go watch your favorite episode of what ever.
That’s it for now. I am back to work. Talk to you soon.
Have a great week!
