It was time to make the run to upping this WordPress site to the current version, 2.1, nicknamed “Ella”. Hey, it is jazzy! There are promises of better code under the hood and some new features I’ve yet to really look much into.
I’m pretty religious about following the upgrade instructions, backing up the static files, making a database dump, shutting off the plugins, downloading newer versions of the plugins, etc.
But I also took the opportunity to do what I should have done when I move my site to Dreamhost, which is to use their “one-click” installs as it makes future updates, also one-click. But I was able to jump my previous install on board without too much sweat or cussing.
First, I moved the entire directory, which includes not only wordpress but a few other piles of content, to a temp directory on my server– this gets pretty easy using Fetch (perhaps the piece of Mac software I have used the longest, it is the champ) for my ftp — I open a second connection to my server, so I can drag content form one directory to another pretty easily. Once my main directory was empty, I just cranked up the Dreamhost Control panel, and ran the one click install, telling it to use the MySQL database table that already existed (crossing my fingers it would not wipe it out).
And it worked like a champ, just did the one click wordpress database upgrade, and my site was there… uh oh, it is old skool default template! How romantic!
I thought about leaving it like that.
But all I had to do next was to drag my theme directory from the holding pad to where it belongs. Woah, Neo! Dreamhost socked about 25 templates in the directory. Handy if you dont have one yet, but I slogged them to a different place, as I did not want them all loading up whent I go to edit my theme.
Next, I uploaded newer versions of my plugins, and started re-activating them. Rather than one by one, I try ’em all and hope for good fortune.
And it seemed to be all kosher!
Only test now is that Twitter plugin I spoke of earlier today, since that’s not on the list. I’ve activated it, and this is a test of the CogDogBlog WordPress Twittering Operating System…. Beep!
Nice features seen so far:
- Autosave as you draft. I’ve lost more than a few either due to human or wordpress error
- A Files manager not sure what it does, but seems to allow you better access to your files that are edited form within WP.
- Better Upload Form for composing in WP, having to always tell it not to use thumbnails everytime was a pain, now it remembers my choice (I think)
Sing, Ella!
Hey Alan, I noticed your post over at the PodPress forum about how the player doesn’t display (at your sample here: http://www.nmc.org/sl/2007/01/24/sl-…th-gudand-hao/). I had the same thing happen. I noodled around changing my theme and eventually PodPress started displaying my video thumbnails, but still does not display the little frame the player is supposed to create (though at first it didn’t even display the pictures). If you want to see, here’s my sample: http://www.hummingcrow.com/2007/02/05/alley-foraging/. And it looks like my players get “display: block” instead of “display: none” like yours. I hope this gets solved soon – I don’t have the necessary skills to fix it on my own. I’d have replied to you in the PodPress forum but I refuse to supply my actual birthdate including the year just to register. I’ll be watching your wheels turn to see if you locate a solution. I like PodPress, but this isn’t the first time it’s gone wonky on me. May be time to part ways.
I agree that PodPress has been troublesome- it is updated about twice a week; its rather complex and my use of it is pretty minor (not really needing much of a fancy iTunes presence). I tried poking around the code to see if I could hack the player to play, but failed.
The reluctance is to go back and change old entries to use a different player- I use Audio PLayer on another site that has only audio enclosures- http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/
PodPress has the advantage of dealing with a wide range of content types, so I’ll hope for an answer soon.
Yeah, me too. I loved it for my videoblog, and I’d have to go back and redo nearly every entry from June 2006 on if I want to switch to a different player. Which I may have to do. Ugh. Good luck to all the PodPress users out there!
FYI PodPress 7.3 seems to fix the player problem. I got full visibility back. Guess I will hang in there with PodPress a little longer.