Oh wow! I have never been so frustrated looking for answers in my life. The documentation for WordPress – imho – is atrocious. Granted it can apparently be learned mostly~ in the course of five days. Don’t get me wrong! I am not an expert by any means, but I’ve figured out a great deal. I started on Saturday with minimal knowledge of php, and absolutely no clue how to create a WordPress theme, from scratch no less! Here we are on Wednesday, and my bootstrap converted theme is ready enough that I feel okay putting it onto my live site.
Okay, so maybe I didn’t truly build it from scratch. I did have a bootstrap template to work from; I composed all of the theme php files however.
I don’t have an up-to-date task list of what has been crossed off. There is a neat little app on my BlackBerry I use to manage my lists for me, and I delete the completed entries every night usually as part of my sleeplessness ritual. I do have a current one however, and here it is for your amusement or intrigue.
/blog/wp-content/theme/page.php/blog/wp-content/theme/page-about.php/blog/wp-content/theme/page-contact.php/blog/wp-content/theme/page-home.php- Move WordPress directory
/blog/back to/ /blog/wp-content/theme/page-project.php/blog/wp-content/theme/page-portfolio.php- Create project pages
- Create blog posts
- Finalizing decisions about links (eg. author link: LinkedIn vs filter posts)
- Finalizing content organizational decisions (eg. project: posts, images, source)
You see, what I’ve done so far has been the easy basic stuff. Like making the sidebar display tags in the bootstrap’s style for tags, or displaying 3 recent posts, and even tracking down why my local server wasn’t hard cropping the thumbnails. Yeah, all of that is what I am considering easy and basic, because now I need to convert the static pages into manageable pages tag them with the appropriate {slug}, and then test those page-{slug}.php template files. None of this is standard work in WordPress, and since none of the pages are even remotely similar in layout beyond the header and footer, it should be quite a task. I am not sure how much content will need to be shoved into the page content itself, and how much will go to the template files.
That is all I know, right now, about the work ahead. The work behind me is a different story though. There have been two difficulties thus far: • finding and accessing data within the WordPress framework, and • creating an effective workflow.
I actually think I’ve got the workflow down pat right now though. It starts with my Windows 10 desktops:
- VirtualBox Ubuntu Server, SSH terminals, and Hosting Web Panel
- FileZilla, SFTP Sessions, Explorer windows for navigating directories and copying data
- Live Site & Local Site
- Sublime3(w/ SFTP, SublimeZilla, php linter plugins), AND also all my many research tabs
- Google Play Music & Chat windows/client.. and occasionally GIMP
Yea, I even found it necessary to finally get around to downloading, and installing AutoHotKey. I had previously come across some source on GitHub which when compiled with AutoHotKey would allow me to set up quick switching between desktops based on enumeration. The script was no more than a mere hack of the hotkeys made available by Microsoft, but whatever it gets the job done. Manually switching desktops one at a time, or by mouse is far slower than a *nix like hotkey. Of course using alt+F1-12 is a bit out of the question in windows unless I want to just skip F4. I went for Numpad Substract + 1-9. I have the number pad on the left of my keyboard, and I don’t use it for math.. so I figured this was a good use for it since Ctrl, Alt, Tab, and Caps all had problems. Caps Lock and Tab had functional problems, whereas the other two were just awkward (my alt is left of the Windows Key).
I think it is a pretty sweet setup, all of it. I save changes in sublime, it uploads the changes to the local server. Then I switch to Desktop 3, refresh whatever page I was working on to see the changes take effect. If I make changes to something other than a php file, I am probably already on desktop 2 or I switch to it so that I can quickly and easily transfer files to whatever server needs them. If there is a problem with either the Live server or Local server, I go to desktop 1 and sort that stuff out.
I even organized the 3~5 new passwords all this has given me. Initially I just plugged them into my BlackBerry and didn’t give it much thought. When I started mixing up logins I knew it was time to fix things up. I think I may have even fell victim to a brute force attack which compromised my initial password. It kept becoming invalid until I generated a brand new one, and the live server said there had been 500 login attempts.. so what’s a guy to think? The really weird thing, though, was that FileZilla was unhindered; so perhaps saving the password there was how it was compromised. So I could be infected… meh! A problem for another day, it isn’t like they can steal any money from me. I am incredibly broke!
