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WordCamp Toronto 2013 Magazine Website Development
- 1. Magazine Website Development Case Study Formally the ridiculously titled Dr. WordPress or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Template Presented by: Sean Nilsson Site development by S. Nilsson & S. Rasmussen se@ncreative.ca | ncreative.ca
- 2. Agenda •Introduction •Project Overview •Custom vs. Template Solution •Plugins& Service Providers •Migration & Design Issues •Launch & Results
- 3. Introduction •WordPress fan •Website “maker” since Netscape •Member of N Creative •Musician Sean with WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg
- 4. Project Overview Website redesign of Running Magazine. Original site a WordPress Multisite. Years since last core update. Client looking for: -Affordable Solution -Flexible for updates -Quick customer service
- 5. Custom vs. Template Solution Choice was made early to develop site from a premium theme to keep costs down and keep flexible for non-developers to manage. -Actual Hybrid Solution -Good base with GoodLayers theme -Foundations framework -Odd issues/adaptations needed -Flattened UI -Document Revisions
- 6. Client Enabled Page Builder
- 7. Template Solution Pros Faster development (cost) Page building tools Prepackaged solution Cons Relying on other developer’s code (scary!) Generic feel
- 8. Customization of Template Custom size 728 x 90 + responsive Custom placement Custom slider Custom Author Widget Widgetized Widgetized CSS revisions 300px sidebar
- 11. Plugins& Service Providers Decisions on plugins and service providers have long lasting consequences. Care was taken to work with good code. Goodlayers Disqus Adpress Addthis Image Widget Fancy Author Box WP Engine Yoast
- 12. Migration Issues •Giant databases in multisite •Very old WordPress install •No working export function •Highly customized original theme •URL structure update •No Featured Image support •Actively updated site Old installation of Multisite. Databases inflated to 200mb+ sql files.
- 13. Transfer relevant tables from Multisite
- 14. Launch & Results Site launched without much issue. N Creative continuing to support in training and fixing bugs.
- 15. Thanks for listening. Enjoy the rest of WordCamp2013. Sean Nilsson se@ncreative.ca | ncreative.ca
Editor's Notes
- WordPress user for 3+ yearsWorking in online for 10+ years.Extensive background using Adobe (or Macromedia back in the day) FlashMember of N Creative. Loose collective of Web development/graphic designShameless shelteredinsound.com plug
- Website solution needed for an online representation of Canadian Running.Install was multisite from 2009.Clever staff who wanted to be able to do content updates and designs in-house.When issues arise, need developers to solve the problem quickly.
- Started out with plan for templatesite but when reviewing there was a number of customizations that needed to be made.Goodlayers theme purchased through Themeforest.net. Goodlayers had reasonable customer service. With premium themes, sometimes hard to just find the file that controls certain features.Foundations framework at the core of the site. Similar to popular Bootstrap framework.Some interesting choices to the original theme. Heading banner WAS NOT standard 728 x 90px banner size. Sidebar WAS NOT standard 300px wide. Blog presentation was odd in places.Theme had pretty nice “flat” user interface. Not too much fancy stuff to remove.When working from a premium theme, important to document changes to theme or use a child theme approach. Good theme developers will continue to support their themes with updates and bug fixes.
- Convenient page builder interface.
- Pros outweighed the cons in this application. Still scary to rely on others code but have working on the site you get comfortable with the code placement.Important to research theme developers (see 2012 presentation).Generic feel not relevant with all the css updates and changes.
- Overview of main template updates
- Client provided a wireframe of homepage and internal pages.Nice working with a client well versed in design already.
- Client provided a wireframe of homepage and internal pages.
- Bad vendors or product that don’t fit well with project will sink you. Spend your time researching in depth for the best solution.Goodlayers theme was good to work with.Disqus for comments. Old site had 90,000+ unapproved comments!Adpress. Used for ad placement. Google Doubleclick issues with responsive design. Still looking for perfect solution on this one.Addthis for social.Image widget easy for client to update sidebars.Fancy Author box premium plugin replaced theme build author box.WP Engine. If nothing else, place your WordPress site on a reliable server. Good experience with WP Engine. Pros, safe, fast, back-ups nightly, good support. Cons, forced updates (good but scary). Expensive (Not really).Yoast for SEO. Just the best. Enough said.
- Transferring tables in phpmyadmin as easy as importing tables in then renaming to the appropriate titles. Posts, Post Meta, Taxonomy, Users, etc. Plugin to define “featured image” from post.
- The idea that the developer’s work is complete when site launches is old thinking. Developers should continue to support, update WordPress core, plugins, etc.