I like to mirror and build my wordpress site on a testing server and get it all ‘just right’ then push the changes to production when I’m somewhat ready to release. This a standard practice in the IT industry and gives us the advantages of
- the site is never in a half-baked or broken state
- development is super responsive since the server is on our local network
- the site statistics don’t get polluted by the traffic of development
- we can try new things without worrying that we’ve broken the website
- we have a backup which is active and recent
But, because wordpress is not built with any anticipation of this concept, some problems arise
- How to pull fresh comments and posts from production to testing?
- How to push new and updated posts from testing to production?
- How to handle images and media attached to posts?
- How to handle site configuration options?
- How to handle Theme changes?
Today we’ll tackle the easiest of these problems…
How to pull wordpress comments and posts from production to testing?
I want subversion to always ignore compiled files. There is lots on the internet about using property svn:ignore but nothing about setting a global-ignore.
Where the heck is this danged config file?
On FreeBSD I found it at “~/.subversion/config”.
Yes, in my home directory… so “global” means just global for one user which seems kinda pointless. I guess that’s why no-one uses it. I gave it a bit of this action which works.
[miscellany]
global-ignores = *.pyc
Problem:
I’ve started working on an existing project and needed to add myself as a user to the repository. It proved kinda tricky. First I couldn’t get Tortoise to authenticate, then I couldn’t add myself as a user, and then I couldn’t work out how to put a password on my svn user.
(“Here’s how I fixed all that…”)
Well here it is, the new look johnmee.com
I’m not happy with it yet but if I kept on working on it till I was happy, then it would never be released. It’s one of those idealist versus pragmatist tensions that every software project must endure.
Things I am happy about are:
- isolated development environment – I’ve worked out how to run wordpress on a development server and tweak away to my hearts content without having to do any of it live and in production. This makes my idealist very happy and is worth a post of its own very soon.
- slicker look? – well the jury is out on this but i’ve switched to this inove theme which is darker and looks a lot more web2.0 – whatever that is. It has some very nice CSS which the idealist in me likes. More on this later.
- no ‘pages’, all ‘posts’ – getting to know wordpress I’ve been torn to know whether I should create “pages” on subjects which will stand (or move with) the test of time; or “posts” which record the moment in time. I’ve made the executive decision that pretty much everything I write will be a moment in time. Thus I have ditched the few “pages”, and moved everything into posts. It’s my blog so if I want to go back and edit recent posts so that they make more sense, then I blooming well can
- tags and categories consolidation – I’ve gone through every post and tried to consolidate the tags and categories into some sort of uniformity
- Travel letters imported – all my travel letters from years ago were sitting separate from the blog and in their original web format. I’ve let go of the past and moved them all into the blog post format for easier and more uniform access.
- custom category page – I’m learning heaps about wordpress. So much that I’ve probably got enough material on wordpress tips I’ll hopefully be bringing you a series on that. Important to me was to present the Travel posts in a custom way, which meant creating a special category template. You can click on the travel page and see what i’m talking about – it’s not the usual archive of posts.
There’s still lots and lots of stuff to do. Such as:
- images – no one was finding the photo gallery before. I need to move all my photos into the blog and attach them to the travel posts
- front page is too busy – as Mick noted, the new look is far too “busy” compared to the old one. He liked the simplicity and I’m inclined to appreciate the criticism. So very high on the agenda is to tone down the home page. Perhaps just show the last two posts in full.
- context sensitive sidebars – since I’ve worked out how to ‘program’ wordpress I know I can do something with the sidebars. I want the sidebars to be different between the archive pages, the single pages, and perhaps different again by category. I’m wondering if images down the sidebar would work in the travel pages.
- work on jamabelle – i know there are a lot more letters from james which are even more deep and valuable as they chart his global soul seaching following the break-up of james and isabelle. I must find the one where he hangs around with an Indian swami for a time. I think i should move these into the blog so they present better, but am not comfortable with it since they’re not my works
- trim the database – the wordpress database likes to keep an archive of all the previous edits and dead categories and links and other trash. Only a geek would care as it has zero impact on the presentation, but I want to clear some of this cruft. Just makes me feel like I’ve mopped and vacuumed or something.
These are the new and old themes side by side…
Do you prefer the old or new? Why?
It’s quite an experience. It is not as hard as I’d expected to go without food everyday. I haven’t died, or staggered about, or had difficulty speaking, reading, or talking. I don’t even have a horrible pain in my belly. There’s been no greater discomfort then when I’m really hungry after a long surf. I’m marveled to find even the fact I am fasting can be completely forgotten with any half decent distraction.
Read more…
Problem
Getting a 500 error from IIS 5.1 on Windows XP whilst trying to run from various document roots.
The server was unable to logon the Windows NT account ‘STSSERVERAdministrator’ due to the following error: Logon failure: user account restriction. Possible reasons are blank passwords not allowed, logon hour restrictions, or a policy restriction has been enforced. The data is the error code.
For additional information specific to this message please visit the Microsoft Online Support site located at: http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.
Read more…
I went car camping recently. In case you don’t know this is the kind of camping which doesn’t require you to carry stuff on your back; you just load up the car, drive, and set up camp next to the car somewhere nice.
I have a few pointers for myself, and maybe you, for the next time.
Essential items to take car camping…
Problem
I need an email server for testing. It accepts email just like a real one, but does not actually send any email out to the real world. I need to be able to see the emails that it is not sending.
Read more…
A domain name database that goes through every word in the dictionary and shows which words are not currently registered as domains and who owns the ones that are.
I’ve got a little beef with the local coles regarding the scales they provide to weigh. Because they’re selling by weight the laws require that the measurement is true. But I suspect there is nothing to say where exactly the scales must be located.
Where can I weigh these goods being sold by weight?
John is a freelance programmer living in Sydney Australia. He blogs whatever takes his fancy; computing tips, travel letters, and random stuff from his life. He does it primarily to learn and demonstrate the running of a website.
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