WordPress - Easy to install (and use) blog software

Feb 15, '05 03:02:00PM

Contributed by: robg

The macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[Score: 8 out of 10]

In addition to running macosxhints.com, in my 'spare time,' I try to keep our family and friends up to date with the goings-on in our lives. Over the years, I've tried various ways of doing this: a version of Geeklog hosted on my home machine, a homebrew solution also hosted at home, and using iBlog (a previous PotW) to update the site on .Mac. While each of these had benefits, they all had downsides. I couldn't sleep the home machine (and upload speeds were limited), Geeklog was overly complex for a home blog, my homebrew solution was a real pain to update, and iBlog really works best if you do your updates from the same Mac all the time. I wanted to find a solution that would work from anywhere, and that was hopefully simple enough that my wife Marian would enjoy using it, too. (Trying to explain how Geeklog works is quite the challenge, since it's a complex system).

Enter WordPress (WP). I had looked at this app a couple of years ago, and wasn't overly impressed. But just this week (today, in fact), they have released version 1.5. It has come a long, long way, and now meets nearly every need I have in a simple-to-use blog package. Since WordPress makes development versions available, I've been using 1.5 since late last week (thanks for the pointer, Merlijn!). In that time, I've managed to migrate all of our various blog posts (we're not prolific, with something under 100 posts in four years :) ) into WordPress, and I've been thrilled with the results.

WordPress is, by far, the simplest MySQL/PHP app installation I think I've ever done. Assuming you have MySQL and PHP working, and you've created the database, installation takes well under two minutes. They claim five in their documentation, but I think that's conservative! I first installed it on my OS X box, and it ran perfectly. I experimented with the engine a bit, and like what I saw, so I uploaded it to our personal site, and started migrating, finding themes, etc.

The admin interface to WP is wonderful; it's amazingly simple to add and (for the most part) manage stories, links, and other content. The editor is brain-dead simple to use, though you'll get the most out of it if you know some HTML for links and formatting. Note: if you're using Safari, you'll probably want to read this hack, which explains how to get "quick HTML" buttons above the editor window. They are disabled due to a Safari bug (apparently), but they seem to work fine when enabled. Version 1.5 of WP now includes the ability to restrict comments to registered users, and there are some additional anti-comment-spam measures as well. The whole admin interface just feels "smooth" and I have yet to find something that I couldn't figure out just by looking at it. Since it's a web-based app, you can post from anywhere you have a browser, and WP even includes a bookmarklet to let you quickly turn any site you're viewing into a new post on your blog.

One of the great things about WordPress is that it's been around for a while, and has a very active community. I downloaded a bunch of themes (the list is near the bottom), and found one I liked (GreenTrack; my modified version is seen above right) to use as a starting point. There are also a ton of plug-ins available (from various sources), a support forum, and a documentation wiki (and probably many other WP-related sites, too). The fact that you can already find a large number of WP 1.5 themes, despite its official release date of today, is a testament to the activeness of the community -- very impressive!

Customizing themes is relatively simple, though WP isn't a completely template-driven setup. For instance, in the theme I chose, there was no "written by" tag, which I wanted. To add it in, I had to find a theme that already had an author line, then find the proper PHP function call, and then insert that into the proper template in the theme I was using. Not impossible, by any stretch, but if you're not comfortable rooting around in HTML and PHP files, it can be a bit intimidating. I had similar issues with the sidebar, where a couple of categories I wanted weren't listed, but I was able to add them using the same method. I even managed to get iTunes info into the sidebar (just because it's fun!) using Freshly Squeezed Software's Recent Tunes, which outputs and uploads (via FTP or SSH) a user-configurable HTML file for current and recent tracks.

WP is simple to install, relatively powerful, and has an easy-to-use admin and writing interface. Add in a strong community developing themes and plug-ins, and you've got a really strong application. It's not perfect, but it's probably the closest I've seen yet for a simple, easy-to-use, yet not 'feature stripped' blog. And now if you'll pardon me, I'm off to find some more cool plug-ins!

Comments (21)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050215150246445