Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Do Not Attempt To Adjust Your Screen
Hello my pretties! Little bit of a shock for ya? No warning? I seriously thought about doing so but figured you could all handle it.
Remember all the commotion over MT 3.0? I had stated I was looking around for other publishing tools to see if I could find one I really liked? I found some that looked okay but I wasn’t impressed enough to go through the hassle. In the meantime, however, I had raced over to sign up for one of those free copies of Expression Engine that pMachine was giving out.
I got my free copy last night.
I love it. I love it a lot. MT was very comfortable, I was very used to it and since I’m pretty novice to installing things like this, it was going to take a bit to motivate me to do so. Expression Engine does just that. Did I mention I love it?
The installation was so blasted easy it’s almost embarrassing. Granted, since I’m a novice, I made a few errors, minor errors. For example, EE had an “images” folder in the file but because MT has one as well, I renamed EE’s “images” folder so that when it came time to install, EE smacked me upside the head and said, “I can’t write in that foo’!” I also seemed to have been missing a “cache” folder and thought I had created one. Needless to say, sometimes one is exhausted and can’t see the little mistakes but I got some help and after realizing how simple the oversight was, I felt kinda dumb. Fortunately, my joy at seeing a successful installation quickly overshadowed that.
Yes. That’s right. ME! Who didn’t know HTML from a hole in the blog just about this time last year was installing a publishing tool all by her little lonesome. (Sans the assistance with those two folders.) I’m quite pleased with myself and feeling rather smug, yes, thank you.
Then I tinked around a bit in the CSS and index file and got the site to my specifications along with adding templates here and there....in EE, you use templates to navigate. Took me about 30 minutes to get used to the idea.
Then it was time for the overhaul. It was time to import the MT archives. Exporting was easy so I was feeling rather full of myself for a moment there. I went to use the Import Utility that EE has built in and got caught up again. File Not Found. Oy! Once again, user error, (meaning me). I was trying to add the extension to the file name as the EE example showed the extension in theirs. Not needed. I was also shown a little bit of Unix.....uh...code? commands? and with that little bit of assistance, the archives were imported.
Now some people have had a category/sub category issue when importing to EE but I did not. I had gone in and copied all my MT categories into EE and when I imported, only one extra category was added....maybe I got lucky. Dunno...but I did not have that nightmare that some experienced.
Anyway, more tinkering around...more call for assistance when the whole thing blew apart in IE 6.0....and yes, ladies and gentelmen, ONCE again....user error. I was changing the font styles in CSS and had missed a quotation mark from the style that had previously been there. One little fricken quotation mark led me to about a half an hour of head scratching..."But it was just working! Yah, I changed the fonts but that shouldn’t cause THIS to happen!” Normally it probably wouldn’t unless you are me and have this knack for enduring tiny problems.
See, I never seem to have the issues...the big, “We need some serious technical help!....RIGHT NOW!” issues that others have. No! I have the, “User should keep hands off keyboard if user is going to go around renaming things and leaving random quotation marks in templates.”
I’ve tested out comments...sorry trolls....you still don’t get to leave your droppings around. In addition to them being moderated you will also need to deal with captcha (or whatever) which works similar to JunkEater. You will need to fill in the box with the word you see....keeps computers from dumping spam anyway as I am now without MT Blacklist...which worked beautifully!
I’ve yet to test out trackbacks but we’ll see what happens. I’ve done a few test posts and tested other things and it appears that all is in working condition.
I can’t believe how good it feels to accomplish this almost entirely on my own. Yah, I got a bit of help when I was being a dork but 99.5% of this, I DID! I’m feeling pretty good.
Now, before some out there start complaining that they like the old site better....just remember, it’s easy to get comfortable and I understand but I like this site a lot better, I think it’s easier to read, it’s not all cluttered and hopefully by having only one side bar, that issue with overlapping will cease. Further, I love EE. I should have said that earlier. And my absolute, most favorite thing about this?
NO REBUILDING! Did you hear that? NO Rebuilding every time I change the slightest thing and EE is so incredibly fast....it’s perfect for impatient people like me.
Look, EE is charging a comparable amount to what MT is charging for some users but I have to tell you, EE is better. WAY better and you should give it a try. They have a 14 day trial to see if you like it. I’m very, very impressed so far.
Ok kiddies...that’s about all I have for now. I hope you like it but remember, in the end, it’s all about me and what I want and I want this.
