Grrr and double grrr.

I've done something somewhere that prevents the content displaying.

I've also spent quite a lot of time looking at other more CMS heavy options this week. Bit geeky is not enough when you're after a quick fix. How does it go, "Cheap, Fast, Good. You can only ever have two out of three." Something like that. I'm after 1 and 3.

or does it?

The Lazydada site is testing a redevelopment of gdekadt.com in a WordPress stylee. Benevolence is the starting point. But I'm now looking at removing all the blog stuff from gdekadt - running two blogs seems a bit to much. KISS.

Once the "professional" gdekadt site is (re-)done I'll move on the personal site & testing ground: probably to be based on a the WordPress Squible theme.

In the meantime I'm still very much enjoying the ease of RapidWeaver. (Except for the FTP issues it has)

The South Park Scientology Episode. Thanks to the default WordPress blogroll link to Donncha.

Permalinktastic

Bleedin .htaccess file just disappeared. Huh? Back in and working. Now.
WordPress codex stuff here.

Aside

The plugin that makes generating beautiful photo albums & slideshows off your flickr account dead easy in RapidWeaver.

Could be good, LAMP-esque as I am at the moment.

On a slightly different flickr note: flickr feeds to iPhoto.

TO DO:Static Front page - no sweat. Simple instructions here.

Hacking Benevolence Theme

Making custom templates

Making custom "home.php" file - and "sidebar_home.php" to differentiate blog style pages from dynamically generated static content. Arse. ... need to use "include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar_home.php');" rather than a simple "get".

The get command template tags call to standard template files. The include PHP command gets template files that are standard AND non-standard template files.

home.php

home.php loses pretty much everything from original index.php - just calls in header, sidebar_home, content and footer.

sidebar_home.php

TO DO: Get a list of Pages displaying ... (need to include template tag to get Pages) example

<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=<h2>Pages</h2>'); ?>

and following on; to include the "Blog" category (no breaks - so it is a seamless list). (Blimey - getting php code to render in html is not nice.

TO DO: Getting list of Pages in the Sidebar, without "Pages" repeating...
DONE: Just remove "Pages" from inside the example above. Donkey.

TO DO: Benevolence Theme needs a (CSS?) solution to render sub-Pages nicely in the sidebar.
IN PROGRESS: using a .pagenav li.page_item li selector I can add indent - but it seems the text color won't change...
(NOTE: since I've had to re-do sidebar_home.php due to it losing all its contents - I'm getting a nice rendering of this. Magic. One thing I changed was to put the php calls to display Pages and Blog inside a title div.)

Hacking the standard templates

header.php

TO DO: Remove title from header.php (the "lazydada" bit: this should be done with some fancy graphics and such-like).
DONE: Commented out bloginfo link from blogTitle div. Knocked out a banner graphic. Very much a v1.
TO DO: do that properly - (perhaps an Image Ready navbar with fancy roll-overs: in the CSS of course)

sidebar.php

TO DO: Need to add the pages call into the regular sidebar, then exclude category "Blog" from the category listing to avoid duplication in said sidebar.
DONE: wp_list_cats('list=0'); replaced by:
wp_list_cats('sort_column=name&optioncount=1&exclude=2'); where my "Blog" category = 2

footer.php

TO DO: Modfy footer.
DONE: easy.

TO DO: Sort out permalinks
DONE: Created .htaccess file - (WP 2 is not creating the file despite what is says - tried changing permissions (using Transmit) but no joy. ) - added code as promted by WP-admin.

hmmwokay...

Got a new host as recommended by the Zeldman himself. Mine (Powweb) needed me to set up a new account to mess about/test/run the new project: henceforth lazydada.com. So fuck em. (mt) let me have 5/6 sites within my shared server which is nice. Anyway moving on... this is about getting WordPress to power a site.

So how's it going?

Not too bad at all: It is simple as they say. (I am a bit geeky already - but nothing much of that is required.) The only plug-in I'm after right away is Static Front Page from Semiologic. Flickr nonsense will come next. As for themes - I'm looking at hacking either blix or Benevolence by Theron Parlin. We shall see....

Hrumpf - removing Portfolio Net Publish (trial verson) prevents Apache web server from staring up. Thanks to MacOSXHints and sjoshi for "sudo apachectl configtest". sudo rm netpublish.conf you little f*****. Grrr, Extensis Portfolio. Grrr.

I like.

Available here.

Contents (Starter & Deluxe Kit only)
• Holga Color Flash camera
The famous Medium-format dynamo - now with a built in flash and color-gel filters! Prepare to employ your trusty Holga day or night as the flash opens up new worlds of low-light images with the beloved Holga effects - soft focus, double-exposures, streaming colors, intense vignetting, and unpredictable light leaks. A "B" setting keeps the shutter open for as long as you like, and the dandy new tripod thread allows for smooth tripod mounting...

• 1 Roll of Black Opaque Tape
The perfect solution for light-leaking seams that you want to cover. This special variant of electrical tape will not leave a nasty glue residue after it's used. How nice! ...

Here's the wee thing in Google Earth. Download this file: House outline and then have a look. You'll have to zoom out and pull the view back a bit - as it doesn't show when it first loads. But, hey, it's Google Earth and that's good and great.

OK - WordPress can do Pages which contain static information that is generated dynamically. And setting up a non-blog home page is no big deal either. Last year when I was first looking into setting up this website it had seemed much more hassle than it was worth. Now I'm getting used to the faffing about involved in running it this site; I'm ready to do my homework on it. B'gads even Zeldman's using it now. It'll take a while though. Lazydada by name...

[aside] good grief - Sin City is a terrible movie.

Having a clear-up of my files found this. A painting from about 1998 by my old friend Steve Rendall of my missus (c) [before she was] with Sarah (l) and Juey (r). Steve - you clever fucker. I love this painting. Unfortunately Jen wasn't too flattered - or I'd have had it. Love this painting.


* personal interest
** nice photo
*** good photo
**** great photo
***** david fucking bailey


Transmit by Panic has replaced Interarchy as my ftp client of choice. Been having trouble today with uploads to my host using either RapidWeaver or Interarchy. Transmit has so far been faultless. It's a nicer application in use too.

Flickr Uploadr is the tool for Flickr uploading. Beats the other option. Third option was nice - but needed iPhoto - which I'm currently dropping like a sack of big mouldy onions. I'll definitely have a look at version six when I get round to it - for easy printing and those nice books but not in a big hurry. Recovering 6GB of space by dumping its duplicated files (which are all archived anyway) will be lovely.

Oh yes - and while I like RapidWeaver - I'm begining to see this as a temporary solution. I'm not keen on the way it duplicates common resources for each page - it's missing the point of lovely lithe CSS standards. I wish that WordPress was more friendly to static page requirements. Oooh - the beauty of CSS done properly.

Most useful web tools:

TextWrangler

Transmit

CSSEdit

Xyle scope

Well...

Extensis Portfolio is still no good at doing what it should - metadata (in this case Photoshop ratings) written to files does not match the schema of Photoshop (or Bridge). Still happy with the Bridge. It would be nice if it could filter files by criteria other than its own labels or ratings though.

Don't laugh too much!

At last I understand the power of Adobe Bridge. The tool for embedding metadata into the image files themselves.

And then I reckon I've become an instant fan of Flickr. Well - when I say instant - I joined about six months ago. But that was all. Now I'm annotating my files with wonton abandon and sending them up to the big server in the sky. Amazing - just by dumping them there I'm getting hits. Good old Yahoo.

I'm dreaming of ways to kill-off my reliance on iPhoto. Its a lovely bit of software - and the new version is improved. But no IPTC/XMP/ITC metadata support is a pisser.

Oh - and Extensis Portfolio is back in use - but only as a niche tool. Another bit of software that really can't deliver. In this case it says it can. But can't. It's better - but can it embed the all important metadata back to the files - not in my tests it doesn't.

Now - just got to get round to tagging and rating my files properly. Ouch.

Get To Work.

Here's a rough image I made using my favourite 3D tool (OK - my only 3D tool) of the new p[a]lace as it (just about) stands: in glorious 3D.

Looks like we have an architect for the house. Of the four that I've met - some highly recommended only one seems to be reliable and capable.