I have created a page here for translations. Just look above; it should be right next to “About.” This page serves as an index to my summaries and translations. It will be periodically updated, because I have to do it manually.

Because wordpress.com bought gravatar, now gravatar support is native. That’s how I have the baby sloth icon. Anyway, if you want your own gravatar, you can go and register at Gravatar.com. The gravatar is linked to your email address, so if you enter it when you comment, blogs that support gravatar can display it.

Am messing around with themes, so new themes may appear and disappear. Am also working on an index page for the translations/summaries.

Hurray, I’ve finally upgraded to wordpress 2.5. This shouldn’t (hopefully) mean many changes for the people using this site. Please tell me if there are any major problems.

At the same time, I’ve switched the plugin used for threading comments. Brian’s threaded comments wasn’t being updated, and it meant every time I installed a new theme I had to switch the comments file, but with this new plugin, that isn’t supposed to be necessary. Anyway, I’ll see how it works.

Apologies, this site was down for awhile while I tried to get everything working again. Things now seem to be mostly back to normal, although I need to go and reinstall some plugins.

BTW, I have uploaded an archive of the data to my backup site.

I just installed Wordpress 2.3. Out of all of my plugins, only Simple Tagging was not compatible. Anyway, it is made obsolete by 2.3. (BTW, if you have either of these installed, make sure to run the converter).

The major upgrade this time is tags. However, this means that you need to upgrade your theme. This is one way in which Wordpress shows that it’s not made for the complete newb. Look. The average person doesn’t know php. Okay, they may be able to c&p, but how are people supposed to know exactly where to paste to get the results that UTW and Simple Tagging achieve effortlessly? Also, since php is code, you can induce errors by putting in special characters, like colons.

Anyway, what you need to do is this. In your theme, there will be an index.php (main index file) and a single.php (single post file). Locate these files.

Then just follow these instructions. http://iivee.com/add-wordpress-23-tags-to-wordpress-theme-bogart/33/

So far, I’ve updated the Skittlish, Lainlog, and Tarski (actually found an updated version) themes. I hope to go through my themes and update the rest of them soon. Actually, now that I’ve gotten Skittlish working fairly well, I might just go with that one. Or maybe I’ll whip up my own header for Tarski.

Before I start, I want to make clear that I’m not an expert. I’m not a programmer or computer professional, just a user. A lot of people have expressed interest in using and customizing Wordpress, so I decided to write this guide. Feel free to ask questions, and I’ll try to answer them.

Installing

To use wordpress, you must know how to use FTP. Knowing how to chmod (change file permissions) also helps for some plugins.

To install Wordpress, you need a webhost which meets certain requirements, namely PHP and MYSQL. Mosts hosts will meet these. Some webhosts have Fantastico, which allows a one-click installation of Wordpress. If you’ve got that, then, just install Wordpress, and go to the customization settings. Yay.

If not, you should follow these instructions. Basically, you must first create a MySQL database, then just alter wordpress file, then run the script. It’s a fairly simple process.

Configuring

Okay, you’ve got wordpress. First, you should login (http://yourblog.com/blog/wp-admin) and start to configure your wordpress.

First, let’s go to Users.

One thing I recommend is turning OFF the rich text editor unless you like to use them. I don’t, because I’m used to just manually typing in links. To do this, go to Users, and find yourself. Go to the Edit page and there should be a box saying “use visual text editor.” Unclick that box.

While you’re on this page, you may want to give yourself a Nickname. Otherwise, any posts that you write will be attributed to Admin. Write a nickname in the box, and Update Profile (click the button). Then, under Display Name Publicly, choose that nickname.

Then, go to Options.

Under General Options, fill in the correct information. Remember to hit the Update Options button so that the changes are registered!

Under Writing Options, you can change the size of the text box you post in (I find the default too small, so I increased it to twenty lines).

Under Discussions, you can change the moderation options. Here you can set whether you are emailed when someone comments, and decide how much comment moderation you want. The default seems to be that you must approve comments before they are displayed, so change that if that’s not what you want.

Privacy determines whether your blog can be crawled by spiders and whether you ping Technorati or not. However, for added security, I suggest using .htaccess.

Now, you can start installing themes.

Themes are like layouts. To get themes, you can go to various sites and download them. This is the official site. Or, there are many recommendation lists.

However, some themes may have problems. They may not be widget-ready, which means that your widgets will not display, and some may not be compatible with some plugins, such as Brian’s Threaded Comments. Others may work in your preferred browser, but not in others. (IE is especially bad in this department, because of a CSS bug)

Once you have found a theme you like, load the folder to wp-content/themes, using FTP. For some themes, additonal menus may now appear under the Presentation category. To customize your sidebar for a widget-ready theme, go to Presentation>Widgets and just drag-click away. You can put text or even Javascript in the Text widget, but to put in PHP code, you must install a plugin.

Okay, now you’ve got a pretty nice looking blog, right? Okay, here comes the exciting part.

Plug-ins

Now, there are many plugins out there, and many sites offering them. There are several things you should keep in mind when installing plugins. Firstly, make sure they’re compatible with the version of WP you’re using. Secondly, sometimes plugins interfere with each other, so you may not be able to use all of the ones you want at once.

Here’s some plug-ins I use.

Akismet: comes bundled with WP. To activate it, you need to register with Wordpress.com and receive an API key (it’s like a string of text). Then activate Akismet in the Plugins menu and input the key. Akismet protects against spam. There are other anti-spam plugins out there, but I haven’t used them.

Brian’s Threaded Comments: This is probably the feature people most miss when leaving LJ. Brian’s threaded comments works, but it is incompatible with some layouts. If you look through my layouts on the theme viewer, you’ll see that some don’t have threaded comments. To install threaded comments, install the plugin normally (put it in the plugins folder), then, VERY IMPORTANT, take the copy of comments.php that comes with the plugin, and REPLACE the comments.php in your current theme (meaning go into wp-content/themes/yourcurrentheme) with the Brian’s Threaded Comments comments.php. Otherwise, this plugin will NOT work. Then, activate the plugin, and configure it under Options, where a new menu will appear. For many themes, it will work, but for others, it will not. I am working on figuring out why this is so, and seeing if I can fix the problem.

Executable PHP Widget: I installed this so I could use PHP in the sidebar. But, this is not a very critical plugin, unless you have a desire to do this.

LJGravatar: A modification of Gravatar which allows you to display LJ usericons. I talked with the plugin author here about it. Also, to use this, you must alter comments.php to put in the code so the gravatar can appear.

LJ crossposter: Allows you to crosspost to LJ. Watch out, though, if you create new categories, it will automatically check them as crosspostable. So, if you only want certain categories of post to be crossposted, make sure you uncheck them.

Simple Tagging: allows you to use tags. Now, LJ also allows tags, but they don’t have categories. Many people use WP’s categories feature to organize their posts, you say, so what do you need tags for? So, if that’s all you need, you might not want to include a tagging plugin. But, I find it useful, because I don’t want to have five bajillion categories. I think of the categories like a Table of Contents, and tags as the index at the back of the book. So I wouldn’t make a catgory called ‘Code Geass’ because I think eventually I stop posting about it, when the show is over. Instead, I make an anime category, and a Code Geass tag. That way I don’t have extreme category multiplication, but I still am able to just click a link to get all the Code Geass posts together.

Wordpress DB Backup: This is a very important plugin which allows you to easily make backups of your database. It’s easy to install and use. You can also schedule backups.

Wordpress OpenID+: This is a fork of the Verselogic OpenID, which I like better because it doesn’t make a new blank; you can just type your LJ URL into the webpage blank, and it will authenticate.

ThemeSwitcher: Not really that useful, but a lot of fun. Lets you change what theme you’re looking at.

WP-Polls: Lets you use polls. Fairly straightfoward to use.

WP-Slimstat: Stats program. Easy to use.

Hints: If you have trouble with a plug-ing, try visiting the webpage, or searching in the wordpress.org forum.

I’m continuing to modify my wordpress, and I discovered this plugin that lets the viewer pick which themes they want to see and use! Themes in wordpress are like different layouts. So far I have about ten of them, some of which are quite cool, so check them out. To navigate between themes, use the dropdown menu named theme viewer.

Actually, aside from being oh so cool, this plugin does have a use:  if you favor an eye-bleeding theme, your users can switch to a more sedate one. IIRC there are other plugins in wordpress which allow users to make the type larger and to perform even more customizations.

Heh, I changed the version of theme switcher, and now it seems to be working fine, so switch away. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get Brian’s threaded comments to work in all the themes.

However, it works in both the default theme and Lainlog, so comment away.

I also have added a page featuring a chatroom, and a del.icio.us sidebar. I think the sidebar is getting sort of overpopulated.

After a bit of mucking around, I’ve gotten OpenID working. Although as Meril says, free software is only free if your time is not money (although in a way, that’s also true of LJ), wordpress is not hard to use at all, as long as you just stick to the basics. I’m not a Comp Sci major or anything like that, so I didn’t have much prior knowledge; yet, I was able to resolve most of the general issues with the plugins and themes that came up. Many of the plugins are just plug n’ play. So, if you’re interested, I urge you to get on board so I can link to more people. XD (or, use <a href=”http://wordpress.com”>wordpress.com</a>. You won’t be able to install plugins, but there are many useful features.) Anyway, on the blog now, all you need to do is just comment with http://username.livejournal.com to trigger openID, I think. If you have any criticisms of or suggestions for the bloglayout etc., I’d be glad to hear them.

Ah well, I shall stop boring everyone with tales of wordpress. Next up:  some short JLit.

I managed to get the gravatar part of the LJGravatar plugin running. What you need to do is just install the script, and then put in some code in the comments.php to have the image show up in comments. Okay, pretty simple. So now I have a gravatar. The problem, though, is now getting the LJ part to work. This plugin doesn’t seem to be used that much, so there don’t seem to be many people to ask for advice. I’ve tried asking on the LJ comm, though, so we’ll see if I can get more help with this. I asked some other people who use wordpress, but they looked at the code and didn’t think there seemed to be any problem with it. I also chmoded the folder to 755. So it should be able to create a new folder.

Actually, wordpress is pretty darn easy to install. And the plugins aren’t so bad either. The only one that has really been giving me trouble is identikit.

So far, I have installed:

Akismet:  comes with WP; antispam
Brian’s Threaded Comments:  allows you to have threads. However, you must set the thread depth level manually. It’s easy to install, but you need to replace the comments.php in every theme.
LJ cross-poster:  self explanatory
Open ID:  Allows you to use open ID.
Post levels:  Allows you to set various levels of posts
Role manager:  Allows you to create roles
WP-Polls:  Allows you to create polls.

To install:
Some avatar plugin:  There are several, and I am studying them
Comment email responder:  Allows commenters to get comments emailed to them
Something to simplify updates
Some backup utility
Subscribe to comments

Any more suggestions?

Hurray! I just got a new blog at yuzutea.net/log. Am merrily installing all kinds of plugins and such.