wptutor.com : Wordpress Tutorials

Now is the best time to upgrade

And I’m not talking about the much talked about Wordpress 2.5

Stability

Running a blog, especially if it is professional, for a business, or simply just needs to be as robust as possible requires tried and tested software. Upgrading to the latest version of the older Wordpress 2.3 branch is a great way to ensure a stable and predictable blog.

New versions, like Wordpress 2.5 promise a lot, but are only in their infancy, even if it does just add to the previous code. The trouble with new code is that it is often not thoroughly tested. Or lets be a little more fair, there are always bugs that get through.

The older 2.3 branch benefits from being out there for a long time. Many bugs and security issues have been identified and fixed. Most of the potential issues have been sorted out.

Plugins

The 2.5 branch introduces a new interface for uploading and dealing with images and other media. This is a fantastic change which enhance the blogging process, making the management of pictures and movies so much easier. But it breaks a lot of plugins used to achieve certain specific tasks for images and movies, and there is a good chance that they will not work in the new interface. If the functionality is now built-in, which it might be with all the changes, then there is less to worry about. But if its not, then it will take time for the original plugin author to upgrade their plugin and get it compatible, so unless you can do it yourself, can pay someone to do it, or the plugin author is really on top of things, you’ll have to wait a while. That is not always feasible.

Best to wait

So, if you want predictability and stability, stick with the 2.3 branch until the 2.5 version has been tested by the community for a while. Only jump right in if you are ready, or like to play around.

Tutorial Update – March 28th, 2008

All of the tutorials for the “Management” menu have been finished. These are all the management videos, including the ones from the last update.

Manage – covers all the management pages
- Categories – manages the categories for posts
- Export – allows all blog stuff to be exported
- Files – manages wordpress core files and plugin files
- Import – allows blog posts and other information to be imported from another blog
- Pages – manages pages and their content
- Posts – manages posts and their content
- Uploads – manages the files like pictures and videos that you have uploaded to your blog via the admin interface

Enjoy those and I’ll keep hacking away at the rest.

Wordpress 2.5 On The Way

Wordpress 2.5 will make it’s debut pretty soon. There is a sneak peak of Wordpress 2.5 on the Wordpress Development Blog.

Wordpress 2.5 is available using svn, so you can try it out if you like. As usual, I would suggest holding off on using it for a production site. Bugs are picked up quickly when new releases are made, and instead of upgrading over and over again or being annoyed by strange behavior in the software, hold off for a while until a few security releases have been made.

What this also means is that a whole lot more tutorials should be on their way. The current batch of 2.3 tutorials will be completed first and then the tutorials for 2.5

Tagged 2.5

2008 03 18 News Comments (0) Permalink

Tutorial Update – March 17th, 2008

Here is a listing of some of the new tutorials that are ready for consumption. Expect them to change a little in format, but the content will remain pretty constant for a while.

The Post Management Tutorial covers exactly what it says and gives a rundown of all the stuff found on the post management admin page.

Pages are mostly static and don’t pop up in the usual flow of information on the front page. The Page Management Tutorial will show you how to deal with them, just like with posts.

Categories are used to sort all your posts neatly and tidily. Learn to manipulate them and twist them to do your bidding in the Category Management Tutorial.

Running from an evil and unhelpful webhost, moving sites, or just making a backup. The Blog Export Tutorial shows you how to make a backup of your site, including all the posts, pages, and other information currently stored on your blog. NOTE: not a substitute for a real backup!

Finally the File Management Tutorial gives a really short glimpse at the rarely used (in my case) file management page. This is not for pictures and stuff you upload, but for changing core files.

That’s it for the mo’. There are a few more tutorials up and running, but are not finalized yet. When they are, you’ll be the first to know.

2008 03 16 News | Updates Comments (0) Permalink

The Story So Far

I’ve had a long love for Wordpress. Ever since my first taste of it nearly four years ago I have explored many of its features and tried out all the bits and pieces.

Piecing the site together and figuring out which bits go where was fun, but there was, and still is very often, a big gap between what a programmer can tell you from their wealth of knowledge and your current understanding.

So with that in mind, the aim of this site was decided. The aim is to make using Wordpress as easy as possible, offering quality tutorials in both video and textual formats to help get the most from your Wordpress blog.

Here are some of the things that I will cover in due course.

FTP, SVN, uploading, installing themes and plugins, and other scary stuff for non-geeks. I found the biggest hassle was that these steps are seen as trivial by those who can do them already, but are not for a newbie. My biggest aim is to make the installation and maintenance EASY which doesn’t mean it can’t be a little complicated. There are plenty of tasks that I used to do “the simple way,” but took forever. I knew the steps and felt comfortable performing them. But that makes me a robot. And I’m not, I promise.

The Wordpress admin area, where all management of content is done. Almost all tasks can be done from here. Apart from some theme layout, which can be avoided by using free ready-made themes, writing, editing, organizing and options are all configures from here. Understanding the basics makes everything run smoother.

Wordpress plugins extend Wordpress to do some pretty excellent things and although not obligatory, they offer excellent features that you soon won’t be able to live without. I’ll pick the good ones and see how they can help and improve the Wordpress experience. Starting with my favorites that I use all the time already.

And that’s it for a start. Keep checking the pages on this site for new tutorials.

Happy writing.

2008 03 14 News Comments (0) Permalink

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