I was thinking a bit about the meetups that have been going on in Philadelphia and in New York City. We don't really have a format for our discussions. Not that I was thinking of changing that, but I was curious:
If you could have someone who knows something about WordPress talk about one thing with you, what would it be?
I imagine that there are a lot of people who are just starting WordPress or who are considering whether they should that might like to hear what it's all about. Or if you've just gotten started, you might have questions about why things generally work a certain way.
I'm curious if the responses would lean toward a general overview of WordPress and getting started, or if there would be a few specific questions that everyone who's using the software needs answered. Remember, this would be an opportunity to talk with someone in person, so you wouldn't want to waste the time on a support question that you could get answered on the forums.
Some questions I've been asked recently at the meetups range widely. Can I use WordPress as a CMS? How do I allow people to contribute to my site without giving them complete access? Is there something I can do to make image handling work better? How can I tell if anyone is reading this thing?
Do you have questions? Let's hear them.
I might schedule a discussion at a meetup based on what questions come in. I'll announce that when the time comes. If you're in the area, I hope you are able to attend. I really need to firm up my plans for visiting the New York meetup this month, specifically, how I will get there (drive? train?) and where I will be going.
I would like to ask how it really works. I don't have a grasp of css or even html and I therefore don't alter much because I don't know what affect it may have on other parts of my site. There is much of it that I fear is not working correctly because I lack the ability to see it as a whole. I can't even use some plugins because they need tweaking.
I have had ongoing issues with two things:
* Permalinks -- I can use "almost pretty" but cannot use "pretty" permalinks on my FC5 system.
* The image upload facility does not work for me. I BROWSE for the image, select it, click UPLOAD, and then that pane goes blank and the image isn't available.
Those are two very-frustrating issues I'd talk with an expert about.
My question would be... well, you don't want to hear my questions at the moment. ;)
Honestly, to add to the input, we've been having a forum discussion over at the NYC WP Meetup Group forums about finding a manner to easily insert and control images. Most users want to know if there's a drag and drop method for inserting images. Frankly, I myself have always found that faculty (image management) surprisingly lacking compared to the rest of WP. We've been toying with a lot of things and plan on discussing our findings at the meetup. I'll ask the group if they have specific queries beyond that as you've phrased it and point them over here!
If you're coming to NYC this month, I believe all the info is on the site, but I'll send you specifics so we can figure out the best way for you to get there, etc.
Cheers!
Jā
This is not a newbie question, but still the question I would ask:
I would like to add the possibility for users that are logged in to edit their replies (for typos and the sorts; I intend to add a 'edited n times, last at time@date' and I intend to save the intermediate results). I attempted it twice and both times I simply failed to make it work within a reasonable amount of time (a weekend).
What complication was I overlooking? I tried to hack the core code, but perhaps I should have tried to write a plugin that allows this?
Hey Ivo, there are a few plugins that handle editing comments. The most well known I believe is Theron Parlin's Edit Comments, based on an older plugin by Andrew Sutherland.
You may be able to dig up others, but check out Theron's first. The "last edited at" would be a fine and logical addition especially for those of us accustomed to using forums. The versioning idea (saving the intermediate results) is an interesting one I'd like to hear more about. Hope this helps and that you can modify the plugin (or make a new one) to do the job.
Another approach, depending on what you're using it for, might be to use a forum that aleady has that feature as a backend, though getting the bridging to work and get what you want it to do done may might not be worth the effort (I'm just on a forum-pushing kick since I feel they foster community and discussion much more than blogs ever will, but that's completely off topic, hehe).
Jā
I would like to know if there is a way to back up Wordpress that can be explained in simple English.
I seriously get lost in the Lessons when it comes to this.
Blogger was so easy. Just copy and paste the template. Wordpress is just so complicated..
These are great ideas. In summary so far:
* An overview of the page construction process for HTML authors.
* Making Pretty Permalinks - The down and dirty of rewritten permalinks
* Images in WordPress - Why your blogging software is good at blogging and not good at being Gallery.
* Developer Help - Where to go when you can't find the plugin you want, and the code you wrote is b0rked.
* Backups - Beyond the backup plugin.
The only one of these items I'm not directly qualified to talk about is the first one. For the rest of them, I've written code that helps (or hinders) the process. That's a weird thought.
Any more ideas? Keep 'em coming!
Owen,
Thanks for volunteering to come north to our little town. In case you don't know, our meeting place is a five minute walk from either the bus (Port Authority) or train (Penn Station)depot.
Back to WP. My number one need is to understand the WP file structure, just well enough to know where to insert code for plugin activiation and template modification. No clue, yet.
My number two whaaaa??, centers on your question: "How can I tell if anyone is reading this thing?" I would welcome an overview of SEO , permalinks, stats, pings etc. Plus, even better, a short list of what would be good to install for starters.
Finally, on your question: "Is there something I can do to make image handling work better?" This is something, or so I delude myself to believe, I do NOT need after having spent a few weeks understanding the options and even writing up some what-and-how-to notes for others.
I look forward to meeting you.
-- Cliff
On Images, I should clarify: I've concentrated on posting images with text. I have not spent time on photo albums and such, which interest me not.
-Cliff
WordPress is currently a blogging platform and CMS for many. I would ask, "What is the future of WordPress, and how do you envision WordPress to be used five years from now?"
With WordPress, I see so much potential and am just curious of where it's going in the long-term.
Hello:
I'm new to WP and the NYC meetup group. I wanted to know if Owen is available for consulting work related to Word Press?
If so, please contact me at the email address I provided.
I don't believe I can make it to the NYC WP Meetup due to my work schedule. However it would be great if someone put together an audio file of the meeting and posted it or took notes and posted it to the meetup forums.
Best,
Steve Eisenberg
Okay, to try to help with the note taking:
1. I believe John's query and Cliff's first one are aimed at the same thing.
2. Dunno if you've been getting other questions specifically on galleries, but as Cliff mentioned, we haven't been discussing them if you misunderstood me. It more a question of just simple "I want to put *that* image in my post in *this* spot. Isn't there an easy method to do so?"
3. I have to put another vote in for Ronafly's question (though I seriously have my doubts if even Matt could address that one completely) and have a few related of my own to append.
4. (for Steve) If there is indeed any type formal Q&A, recording or taking notes on it for reporting shouldn't be a problem. I don't know what Owen's thinking on this though.
So at this point the summary should be looking something like this (excuse the liberties I've taken in descriptions and correct me if I'm wrong or missed anything):
* An intro and tips to gain some understanding of what goes where in templates and themes that makes WP spit things out the way it does.
* Making Pretty Permalinks - The down and dirty of rewritten permalinks
* Images in WordPress - Why can't I just drag, drop, 'n forget? How can I make it simple?
* Developer Help - Where to go when you can’t find the plugin you want, and the code you wrote is b0rked.
* Backups - Beyond the backup plugin.
* Is this thing on? - some guidelines for seo, tagging, pinging, and statistics tracking appropriate to what you want to achieve and who you want to attract
* The future of Wordpress, immediate (2.05/2.1) and long term
Hmm.
My take on images in WordPress is a bit more broad. I think it will be educational. I would approach the topic not as one of "How do I accomplish this thing...?" but as "Why isn't what I want to do well-supported in WordPress, and what can I do about it?" Subtle difference, and the sad thing is, I don't think there are any good answers to the problem. Yet.
SEO is a touchy subject. I am in a circle of folks that would usually shun me when I start talking about SEO. The idea that I've spend measurable portions of my professional career working SEO to my employer's advantage is something that these folks wouldn't like to hear. Still, SEO is a large topic by itself, and covering it along with the other items in this list isn't going to give it the coverage that people would be likely to desire. But ok.
The future of WordPress. That's funny. If I can avoid saying too much about this topic, even without being prompted, I will be surprised. ;)
Owen and Ja,
If SEO is a thorny area, how about the best way to get stats, so you can see who is visiting and from where?
As to draging and droping images into posts, if PhotoPress is a pain (I haven't used it for awhile) then the WYSWYGPro (enter filthy phrase:) "that you must pay for" does it neatly. Check my recent posts to my site and if that is good enough for your purposes, you might think about reaching for your wallet.
And yes, let's not avoid WP future-world. But more urgent today and tomorrow (for me) is how to cut and paste code (mostly plugin code) into WP files. End of nag.
-- Cliff
Exactly. This is precisely my take. Hence our plans for sharing what people find works best from them as what can be done in the mean time. I phrased things to leave it open for you, Owen, to step in with something I may be overlooking if there really was an easy way. I have some interesting new ideas for people and I was hoping you might be able to give us some clue as to if there are plans for improving this stuff in future releases as well as improving/replacing the TinyMCE RTE at all.
As for SEO, yes, it's a touchy subject but there are some things I'd like to briefly touch on involving everything I mentioned there since Wordpress out of the box has a lack of any default settings for any of the very basic simple stuff that has to do with search engines/robots (why is that?) as well as a very poorly implemented system for pinging. It's enabled by default and it's an amazing pain to control. Most starting out don't realize the simple steps to be taken to restrict search bots appropriately, etc. nor do they realize their first batch of test posts are pinging all the major aggregators every time they publish (or re-save a published post). Most wouldn't be too thrilled at that thought. Anything even slightly related falls between the cracks somewhere in between the famous five minute installation and starting to play with the blog itself. After a while, people catch wind of the existance of these things but have no way of knowing what an appropriate level of attention should be given to setting up, tweaking, analyzing, etc. Reading a lot of the blogs for helping other bloggers makes it seems like a much bigger deal than it needs to be for some folks while others do need to take it into careful consideration. There are some basic things people should be aware of and some simple guidelines to go by. This is something I feel doesn't need to be a touchy subject as it's not going to touch on anything besides what people should be aware of from the outset. Obviously this is something I would like to field if people want to listen.
Simple concepts and measures involving IP is another awareness topic I'd planned to bring up with my group at some point especially since we do have a few journalists and ex-journalists getting into the realm of blogging. Basically, for the majority of starting users, simple awareness is lacking.
Cliff, we can talk a bit about statistics and I feel it goes along with the former. One's need for checking statistics and the package(s) used is relative to what one aims to do. Web denizens have a facination with numbers and coming from someone with OCD, obsessing over every last detail of analytics for one's blog can quickly become a time wasting addiction and lead to a change in the way you write or use your blog in general sometimes to cater to the masses rather than doing what you set out to do. That said, it's understandable to want to know if you're meeting your goals in reaching the right people if anyone at all. We can talk about some tools that may be appropriate. I have a very good personal example to share about some perspective to be gained without going overboard.
I'm looking forward to hearing anything Owen has to say about the future of Wordpress. :)
One final question I'd like to have addressed though is why have Matt and some of the WP devs insisted on sticking with the development of what's clearly the worst forum software of all time? ;) I obviously have strong opinions about that and we'll be avoiding the topic, haha.
Once again, I've rambled on too much, but I hope I've cleared up a couple things about the image-management and se/stats/pings etc discussion. Hopefully I haven't made it more confusing.
Jason
Thanks, Ja. Your take on what I troublesomely called the "SEO" area is exactly what I was trying to say.
As to images, I have a suggestion. I could make a brief show-and-tell regarding the for-pay WYSWYGPRO way of handling them. Someone else could do the same with PhotoPress, someone else could cover ... you get the idea. There are so many ways to handle images in text that having an advocate for this way and for that way etc. might be clarifying.
-- Cliff
[...] I had a pretty good itinerary of possible things to go over from this discussion on Owen’s blog which we never even had to resort to. After most of us had settled in, we went around introducing ourselves and briefly going over our uses and interests in Wordpress. I made sure to keep things from getting too civil by interrupting with irritating comments which apparently served to amuse me at the time. [...]