This presentation will discuss the development of a magazine site with over 4,000 posts actively updated daily by a large team of writers and editors. We will discuss migrating a multisite install of a very old version of WordPress into a modern day single install. Discuss providing a solution where the client can redesign page layouts in-house with no coding knowledge through the use of a premium theme and a multitude of plugins.
More than Just Lines on a Map: Best Practices for U.S Bike Routes
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
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
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.
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.