The Move to Wordpress
Over the past few days I’ve been busy re-coding and tweaking for the big move. At last, I’ve managed to port over the archives and site to Wordpress.
Essentially my most challenging task was trying to make it appear seemless. However, most of the time in this transition was spent re-coding various aspects of the site that I felt could be tighter. For instance; I never was entirely pleased with the Navigation menu, which has now been updated, thank you very much and as far as the style switcher is concerned it’s being re-coded as well to work smoothly with Wordpress.
My reasoning behind making the jump from MT to Wordpress wasn’t because of the recent pricing scheme released by Six Apart but mostly due to the fact I’ve always wanted Wordpress to power this site. I’m a supporter of Open Source software and use it everyday at work and at home, whether it be Firefox for web-browsing, Thunderbird for email, or Miranda IM for instant messaging I believe Open Source has a lot to offer, not to mention superb community support.
In regards to Six Apart’s decision to conform to a paying model, I say more power to them. Movabletype is an excellent CMS and in the near future I plan on deploying MT 3.0 on this server and powering the main kartooner.com site, which will serve as a portal of sorts. I realize I could have stayed with version 2.61, but I’ve heard great things about Wordpress and felt the need to make the plunge. Change my perspective if you may and work with something different.
Already I’ve noticed several noteworthy features of Wordpress. For one, the interface is beautiful and streamlined to the point where your entire site needs only one template. In MT it was necessary to set up Individual and Date-based archives. WP dynamically generates the URIs according to how you’ve set it up, therefore eliminating the need for several templates or includes for that matter.
The MT Import feature worked flawlessly as you can see. All 300+ articles have been transferred to Wordpress and it only took a matter of seconds. No re-building, no muss and no fuss. The only thing I can think of at this point would be that some of the articles used different plug-ins, but that’s an issue I’ll deal with in time.
All in all it was a successful transfer and merits special thanks to the team of Wordpress developers who’ve devoted their time and energy towards a wonderful product.
9 Comments, Comment or Ping
Jarek Piórkowski
I also see a little redesign. I like the new menu being an accent, but where has the green template gone?
May 15th, 2004
kartooner
Jarek, my post pretty much explains it, but since the move from Movabletype to Wordpress I’ve had to re-code various aspects of the site. Granted, this has occured invisibly, and that was my intent, but Wordpress is a different beast.
The stylesheet switcher will return again, meaning all of the color schemes will be retained. I spent the greater portion of the past couple of days porting everything over, and as you can imagine I need a break. :)
Thanks for the comments Jarek.
May 15th, 2004
Jarek Piórkowski
Damn, you’re right. I better learn to read now.
“… the Navigation menu, which has now been updated, thank you very much and as far as the style switcher is concerned it’s being re-coded…”
Pfff. Stupid me.
May 15th, 2004
beto
First thing I thought when reading is was “Oh no, not another ’screw money-grubbing Six Apart, I’m switching to Wordpress’ post”. I know many that had been working overtime this week to change CMSs on their sites just to give MT the finger. At least it looks like you had better purposes on your switching.
Time-consuming work and home issues have avoided me the chance to go over this with my site, but when there’s a chance, I’m eager to give Wordpress a try.
May 17th, 2004
kartooner
I’ve always liked Movable Type and will continue recommending it to future clients. It’s a powerful and polished CMS. However, this transition has long been in the works and happened to coincide with Six Apart’s recent pricing changes for MT. Namely transitioning into a full-fledged company (instead of just two people) and having to charge for what was previously donationware essentially.
If you need any help, shout my way.
May 17th, 2004
Mike
I understand this one entirely, MT is wonderful but after giving WordPress a whirl, the dynamic updates just grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and screamed “We’re amazing!”.
However having stuck with MT, I’m not sure I want to give up their new comments system which has firmly and confidently protected me from comment spam. I’m also still at a loss as to how to code in the stats which I have running on my MT powered blog. I’d need a clear helping hand on how to code them.
May 21st, 2004
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