Rise from your grave!
April 15, 2013 12:11 PM Subscribe
I have webspace and a domain which is currently hosting a Wordpress blog -- an instance of WP running on the server, not a redirect -- on it that I haven't updated in a year. I want to use the domain to showcase my projects, past and present, and one of these projects is the current main blog. So I have a few logistics questions below the fold.
1) What is the best/least-break-y way to keep that blog alive but off the main page. What do I need to make sure to update (i.e. Google Analytics links, etc.)? What should I expect to break? Should I put it in a subdomain?
2) I tend to just use Tumblr for my projects, so I don't really need to host anything else except a splash page with links. What is the best way to make that "showcase" page? I haven't touched HTML since before CSS was a thing, so the only thing that hand-coding it will assure is that it is ugly and not up to any sort of spec.
The admin of the server is a friend (it's his own webhosting company), but I don't like to bug him, so I just want to come to him with everything at once.
The website is in my profile if you need to take a look at it for any reason.
1) What is the best/least-break-y way to keep that blog alive but off the main page. What do I need to make sure to update (i.e. Google Analytics links, etc.)? What should I expect to break? Should I put it in a subdomain?
2) I tend to just use Tumblr for my projects, so I don't really need to host anything else except a splash page with links. What is the best way to make that "showcase" page? I haven't touched HTML since before CSS was a thing, so the only thing that hand-coding it will assure is that it is ugly and not up to any sort of spec.
The admin of the server is a friend (it's his own webhosting company), but I don't like to bug him, so I just want to come to him with everything at once.
The website is in my profile if you need to take a look at it for any reason.
Response by poster: Awesome! But is there a way to break out of the template?
posted by griphus at 4:51 PM on April 15, 2013
posted by griphus at 4:51 PM on April 15, 2013
I think what COD said would be the easiest way. If you really wanted to separate the two, however, and you moved it to a subdomain or a new directory (it shouldn't matter much which route you choose), you'd need to update a few things:
- The WP and site URL in WP general settings. If you mess this up for whatver reason and can't get to your site, it can be updated in the DB and/or the wp-config file I believe. But it sounds like you don't have access to the site via FTP?
- All of the links in the WP database would need to be updated. The Velvet Blues plugin seems to be pretty decent at this, but if you we're having problems you could also check out this script
- if you had links on other sites or stuff indexed by search engines, you'd need to set up some redirects for the old stuff to go to the new stuff. That'd be some mod_rewrite action and you would want some help from someone familiar with it and access to the htaccess file
- You'd probably need to update the htaccess file for your permalinks, depending on the settings. Assuming that WP has write permission for the file, it's probably just a matter of clicking update in the permalinks settings... And WP will tell you if it couldn't write the file. In which case it would need to be manually edited
...and I just realized pretty much everything I wrote is on this Wordpress codex page.
I'm not a google analytics expert but I think you would just have to update the site URL in GA?
As far as creating the splash page... If you go the way of COD, maybe there is a decent template in WP that you can use which would take care of the basics. My guess, however, is that the templates are pretty specific to your site. You maybe could create a custom template, but you'd have to have access to FTP (again, not sure if you have this). Check out this page, especially the part that says creating your own pages. Basically, you just need a little PHP comment snippet so WP knows its a page template, then you can select it as the page template from the drop down in WordPress. You can include as much or as little of the WordPress snippets that you need. It might also depend on your theme as far as what you get by default. I'd see what you can do within that so you'd get some basic structure for free with Wordpress then maybe target specific stuff with CSS (and honestly, you can probably get away with putting the CSS within style tags on that page) or see what you can get away with in the wysiwyg editor if you decide to manage the content that way. Just make sure the template calls the_content (you can just mess around with an existing template to see what does what if your not so familiar with WP). And make sure your ga tags get called, too, if you want to track that page (might need to add them in by hand depending on where they live in WP).
posted by wintrymix at 4:52 PM on April 15, 2013
- The WP and site URL in WP general settings. If you mess this up for whatver reason and can't get to your site, it can be updated in the DB and/or the wp-config file I believe. But it sounds like you don't have access to the site via FTP?
- All of the links in the WP database would need to be updated. The Velvet Blues plugin seems to be pretty decent at this, but if you we're having problems you could also check out this script
- if you had links on other sites or stuff indexed by search engines, you'd need to set up some redirects for the old stuff to go to the new stuff. That'd be some mod_rewrite action and you would want some help from someone familiar with it and access to the htaccess file
- You'd probably need to update the htaccess file for your permalinks, depending on the settings. Assuming that WP has write permission for the file, it's probably just a matter of clicking update in the permalinks settings... And WP will tell you if it couldn't write the file. In which case it would need to be manually edited
...and I just realized pretty much everything I wrote is on this Wordpress codex page.
I'm not a google analytics expert but I think you would just have to update the site URL in GA?
As far as creating the splash page... If you go the way of COD, maybe there is a decent template in WP that you can use which would take care of the basics. My guess, however, is that the templates are pretty specific to your site. You maybe could create a custom template, but you'd have to have access to FTP (again, not sure if you have this). Check out this page, especially the part that says creating your own pages. Basically, you just need a little PHP comment snippet so WP knows its a page template, then you can select it as the page template from the drop down in WordPress. You can include as much or as little of the WordPress snippets that you need. It might also depend on your theme as far as what you get by default. I'd see what you can do within that so you'd get some basic structure for free with Wordpress then maybe target specific stuff with CSS (and honestly, you can probably get away with putting the CSS within style tags on that page) or see what you can get away with in the wysiwyg editor if you decide to manage the content that way. Just make sure the template calls the_content (you can just mess around with an existing template to see what does what if your not so familiar with WP). And make sure your ga tags get called, too, if you want to track that page (might need to add them in by hand depending on where they live in WP).
posted by wintrymix at 4:52 PM on April 15, 2013
Response by poster: I have FTP access (and shell access if need be, but I stay out of there generally.)
And, wow, this is a lot more of a to-do than I thought it would be. Now I'm just wondering if I can create a non-updatable archive of the entire blog and just host that. At this point, I don't actually need the blog to have any WP capability. I won't be updating it and I don't particularly care if I nuke links to it on other sites -- it was never anything close to "popular" -- as long as its internally consistent. Would that be less of a production?
posted by griphus at 5:09 PM on April 15, 2013
And, wow, this is a lot more of a to-do than I thought it would be. Now I'm just wondering if I can create a non-updatable archive of the entire blog and just host that. At this point, I don't actually need the blog to have any WP capability. I won't be updating it and I don't particularly care if I nuke links to it on other sites -- it was never anything close to "popular" -- as long as its internally consistent. Would that be less of a production?
posted by griphus at 5:09 PM on April 15, 2013
Ok, you've piqued my curiosity.
Oh right, so, I guess if you set the homepage to a static page then you will need to create another new page to be what the old homepage was for showcasing purposes.
So I took a look at how to archive a WP site into static files (so the implied disclaimer is I haven't done this before except for five minutes ago... your site should be fine but if you can back up the database you might as well, just in case). There is the Really Static plugin (with terrible spelling and grammar, I think it might have been translated from another language).
To install the plugin, download from the site then unzip and upload it into wp-content/plugins and then activate it in the wp admin under plugins.
1. Via FTP, create a new folder at the root level called whatever directory you want to refer to the old site in and set the permissions of the folder to 777 (not sure of your FTP program, but maybe right click or command+i if you're on a Mac). Since you won't be running this regularly, if ever again, you can change the file permissions to something like 755
2. Click on the plugin settings and run the test mode
3. Choose the file system option and update the path to the full url pointing to the new folder you just made and don't forget the trailing slash
4. Same for that last box on the page ("After this, please say where visitors can view this files:")
5. When you click next, the tests should hopefully succeed
6. Click on Really Static under the Settings menu and then the Manual Refresh tab and then click Write all files
Your site should now be archived at http://whateverurl.com/whatever_static_directory/ and since it's in test mode, your real site will still be working. You should keep it in this mode, because it basically just means that it won't update the site url in WP to point to the static directory, which is what we want for this.
I would just back up the current index.php in the root directory (name it like _index.php maybe) and then set up a new index.php (or index.html it shouldn't matter) file with the content of your splash page. This way, you can get back the WordPress stuff if you need it, but it's pretty much out of the way. If you had to bring it back you could just back up the new index and resurrect the old index.php file. Granted your splash page would be down for that time period, but I'm not sure how likely that is to happen or if it matters.
With my quick research, caveat emptor and all that. Still not sure what to tell you about a splash page other than maybe Googling for a simple template of something that you can update.
posted by wintrymix at 6:48 PM on April 15, 2013
Oh right, so, I guess if you set the homepage to a static page then you will need to create another new page to be what the old homepage was for showcasing purposes.
So I took a look at how to archive a WP site into static files (so the implied disclaimer is I haven't done this before except for five minutes ago... your site should be fine but if you can back up the database you might as well, just in case). There is the Really Static plugin (with terrible spelling and grammar, I think it might have been translated from another language).
To install the plugin, download from the site then unzip and upload it into wp-content/plugins and then activate it in the wp admin under plugins.
1. Via FTP, create a new folder at the root level called whatever directory you want to refer to the old site in and set the permissions of the folder to 777 (not sure of your FTP program, but maybe right click or command+i if you're on a Mac). Since you won't be running this regularly, if ever again, you can change the file permissions to something like 755
2. Click on the plugin settings and run the test mode
3. Choose the file system option and update the path to the full url pointing to the new folder you just made and don't forget the trailing slash
4. Same for that last box on the page ("After this, please say where visitors can view this files:")
5. When you click next, the tests should hopefully succeed
6. Click on Really Static under the Settings menu and then the Manual Refresh tab and then click Write all files
Your site should now be archived at http://whateverurl.com/whatever_static_directory/ and since it's in test mode, your real site will still be working. You should keep it in this mode, because it basically just means that it won't update the site url in WP to point to the static directory, which is what we want for this.
I would just back up the current index.php in the root directory (name it like _index.php maybe) and then set up a new index.php (or index.html it shouldn't matter) file with the content of your splash page. This way, you can get back the WordPress stuff if you need it, but it's pretty much out of the way. If you had to bring it back you could just back up the new index and resurrect the old index.php file. Granted your splash page would be down for that time period, but I'm not sure how likely that is to happen or if it matters.
With my quick research, caveat emptor and all that. Still not sure what to tell you about a splash page other than maybe Googling for a simple template of something that you can update.
posted by wintrymix at 6:48 PM on April 15, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by COD at 1:12 PM on April 15, 2013