There is no WordPress plugin to touch it, and the alternatives are simply too cumbersome to integrate.

For most needs, Simple:Press forum provides all that you need, but I’ve also mentioned before that it is not as simple to administer as some – but only because it has a wealth of options. And under the lid, tweaking the code is not particularly easy – again because there is so much included that it can be hard to find exactly what you want to change.

Mechanics aside, I have been trying for months to develop a simpler alternative built on posts and comments. This is not the most difficult coding challenge, but it is time-consuming, and there always seems something more important to do. Whilst doing the more important things, I noticed that Pods CMS has recently changed there forum for a completely different, simpler interface.

Looking deeper, I saw that it was based on Stack Overflow. Similar, in some ways, to Yahoo Answers, this approach means that we can focus on answering questions. This is a bit of an eye-opener for me, and I realize that promoting a forum to answer questions and share experiences and opinions is asking too much for one application.

I’ve decided to split my forum into a Question And Answer Section and a Discussion Forum. In an ideal world, these would be linked, and it would be absolutely possible to build such a beast with Pods CMS. But the time to build this from scratch means I’d rather look for something usable now, and seek better integration later.

The key here is to find something usable that is easily integrated into WordPress.

Step forward Question2Answer.

I’ve installed it on own of my sites, and I’ll report back on the details later. I’ve no intention to import questions from Simple:Press Forum, as I believe the two applications can work side by side. There will probably be a few more integration issues, but installation of Question2Answer using the WordPress user records was surprisingly easy.

Rather than repeat it here, I’ll refer you to my Question2Answer WordPress installation notes on the author’s support site.

For manual installers, it is set and forget. For automatic installers (SimpleScripts or Fantastico) it is often quite invisible.

Unless something unexpected changes, WordPress 3 adds little different to the way wp-config.php works, so it is still vital to learn a couple of tweaks.

wp-config.php is well documented internally, and the installation instructions tell you what you need to change to make sure that your WordPress installation can see the database.

But, there are two situations that commonly occur in a standard WordPress installation that are far from ideal: memory exhausted messages and excessive page and post revisions.

WordPress Memory Problems

I have mentioned memory problems with WordPress before. Though I only experienced it when upgrading with large plugins like Simple:Press Forum installed, I suspect this can also happen during normal running of some large plugins. Pods CMS has an error report, but as it looks to be a one-off, it could well be due to some other problem.

When I first experienced this problem, I used the temporary solution of de-activating large plugins during the upgrade. However, I later found the permanent solution to be an amendment to wp-config.php, as I noted on the original post, and repeat below.

Excessive WordPress Revisions

When WordPress introduced automatic saving of posts with revisions, it looked perfect for undecided people like myself. Changed a post only to realize you prefer an earlier version? No problem with WordPress, as the default installation settings give you a more or less complete revision history. But this can cause a problem if you frequently revise many posts and pages. Not only can you end up with a massive list of revisions on the edit page, but your database is becoming increasingly cluttered with copy upon copy of the same text – an absolute nightmare if you ever need to directly search or edit the database.

Many people hate the whole idea of revisions, and turn the feature off. I like to keep some recent versions, so I set the number to 3. Whichever you choose, you need to include a step in your installation routine to change the default setting by amending wp-config.php.

wp-config.php Changes

All you need to do is add the following two lines to wp-config.php. It shouldn’t matter where you put them, but for convenience I add them before the line that includes “stop editing”.
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

I wouldn’t normally use a beta version on a production website, but the full release will be available before that site is fully live, giving me a chance to test some new features.

Site installation continues to be simple, and I took the simplest option of using the automatic script provided by my server host. This has the nice option of changing the default admin username to something less guessable – always a good idea for improved security.

WordPress Settings

Settings are the same as version 2, so I made the usual adjustments:

General Settings

Tagline and Email. I also ticked the membership so anyone can register, but it would be better to leave this until you get the membership plugins organized (more on this soon).

Discussion Settings

Enabled threaded comments, with depth set to the maximum of 10. Set moderation to hold comment if 1 link. More on discussion settings when someone asks for it.

Privacy Settings

Always a good idea to make sure your site is visible. If you can think of a situation where you would set it to block search engines, please tell me.

Permalink Settings

Vital to select the Custom Structure and change it to /%post_id%/%postname%/ (we can discuss why this is so if you like). I usually change the category and tag base to something more site specific – there might be a slight search engine advantage, but I just think it looks better.

Other WordPress Configuration

It really should be categories and plugins next, but I could not resist investigating the new default template – Twenty Ten (surely not a tribute to Windows Ninety Five?). This seems to be a great improvement, but I have yet to find a WordPress theme that does not need a quick makeover with the editor. I think the essentials of WordPress themes needs a separate topic, so I’ll do one soon.

There also used to be essential modifications to wp-config.php. I’ll check this, and report back tomorrow.

WordPress upgrade is now so easy, there is almost nothing to it.

The new upgrade to WordPress 2.9 is typical of the inbuilt update routine. It simply updates itself, but there are a couple of points to watch out for.

WordPress Upgrade Fatal Error

First, the usual warning – backup your database and files.

It is easy to be complacent here, and assume that it never goes wrong. Frankly, it hardly ever fails, but if it does, it leaves you with no website, and no easy way of recovering it. If you are happy to run the risk of starting from scratch, then skip the backup – it’s what dummies do.
For us shrewdies, a quick backup is the first step in upgrading WordPress. The backup service from your web host admin panel will do it easily in one step (unless you have a very poor host).

Second, simply click the “Upgrade Automatically” button, and wait a few seconds. It is that easy – but what if it goes wrong?

Occasionally, you will see a message like:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2515174 bytes) in [your-wp-path]/wp-includes/http.php on line 1331

Do not panic – the “Fatal error” has not killed your website. It has stopped the WordPress upgrade, so your website is still functioning exactly as it was.

The problem is very easy to solve. Simply deactivate your plugins, upgrade WordPress, then reactivate your plugins.

If you have had any problems upgrading WordPress, please add your questions, or comments, below.

Actually, I can see immediately that perfection falls short by lacking a screenshot.

So I’ve added one.

WordPress MU Installation

There are still no Fantastico or Simple Scripts that I am aware of to install automatically, so you have to copy the files to your server, then fill in the form shown above (with your own details, of course).

The choice of sub-domains or sub-directories defaults to the correct choice. I cannot think of a reason why you would want subdirectories, but this would make an interesting topic for discussion in the WordPress MU Installation Forum, if you think you need sub-directories.

The manual install routine is still extremely simple, but as with most things, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. The wrong way is to leap in without planning. The right way is to follow these simple steps.

1. Prepare your web server – a clean root directory, or create a sub-directory to run WordPress MU from. The choice will be obvious from your site plan, and if you do not have one, stop now.
2. Copy the downloaded WPMU installation to your web server.
3. Prepare a database and an admin user with full privileges, and keep a browser window open with the database and username on view. Better still, copy them into your site plan.
4. In a new browser window, go to your website root or the directory you used in step 1.
5. Fill in the details on the form, using copy and paste for your database and user name.
6. Note the admin password on the confirmation screen – it’s a good idea to change it immediately to something you can remember.

Note that there is now no need to change the permissions of the root and wp-content directories, though the confirmation screen still warns you to change them back.

I’ll keep you informed of other differences between standard and multi-user versions, as I continue with the foundation, function and formatting stages.

A final note about naming. The multi-user version is now called WordPress µ – that Greek letter being pronounced mew. On this site, I tend to refer mostly to WordPress MU, as that seems to be the most common usage. WordPress Multi User, WPMU, and occasionally WordPress Multiuser are also used, and they all mean the same thing.

Let this be a lesson. If you ever want to revive a neglected site – just start again.

WordPress Update

The first hurdle is the incredible change in WordPress and it’s plugins over the last couple of years. WordPress has added functionality (e.g. tags) that was once only available as plugins.

More importantly, as I indicated in my last post, the purpose of this site has changed, and with it the categories and tags.

The good news is that the basic site is now upgraded and working. The purpose is clear, and now enshrined on a brand new About page. The bad news is that there are a lot of old posts and pages that need re-writing – and none of them really worth the effort.

If you need to revitalize an old site, you need to think about upgrading or starting with a brand new install.

It is easy to decide what to do – just look at your visitor logs. You will see one of three possible situations:

1. Very little traffic, or
2. Generally little traffic except for a few pages, or
3. Lots of traffic.

For 1. you should scrap it and start again.
For 2. you should do similar, but save the good pages first then copy them into a new installation.
Though nice to have 3., starting again with a site that is neglected but still getting worthwhile traffic is your nightmare. There are much easier ways to do it than running WordPress upgrades across very old versions. In fact, I have a similar site to update shortly, so I’ll go into more details then.

Website Technical Action Points

• Make sure you leave an hour per month in your technical plans for site maintenance.
• Never leave a site longer than 6 months without updating WordPress core and all plugins and themes.
• If your site needs upgrading and you are not sure how to tackle it, seek advice in the forum.

For avid readers who are waiting for the forum startup information that I promised in the last post, I’m holding this over until I test some new features on a busy forum. If you need some immediate help installing your forum software, just raise the issue in the WordPress plugin forum.

Topics typical, no doubt of the web business owner who tries to cover all aspects of building a site.

After a few days of tinkering with technical aspects of WordPress and its extensive collection of plugins and themes, I have come to the conclusion that I’ve lost the plot!

When I launched this site, I was clear that I wanted it to focus on the technical aspects of running a business. The aspects that a large enterprise would handover to the IT department. The aspects that a one man business either learns, or farms out to a website developer and hosting service. My strategy was to document the development of websites as I built them, including documentation of this site.

I set these objectives over 2 years ago and last worked on the site over 18 months ago. The plan is out-of-date, and it is seriously hampering the relaunch. It proves the strength of a well laid-out plan.

So before you start on building your web business, make sure the plan is set. If you’ve been running for a while, make sure the plan is current.

The planning process is beyond the scope of this website. I’ll be back soon with the pointers to the best way to build a plan. In the meantime, heed the warning. If you work for yourself, don’t start building the website without a current web business plan. If you are designing and building a website for a client, do not start without their current web business plan.

One exception is the very basic site for existing businesses. It needs a privacy policy and a contact page. Most web businesses also need to encourage feedback and interaction beyond simple commenting on your own articles. Therefore, a forum is important, and you can start one with a general group and a ‘Please Help’ forum. I’ll cover this in more detail in the next post.

Without the plan, you simply end up with a series of articles that do not relate to each other. Categories are so vital to making a website work. As time passes, you can tweak them. But when you don’t do it, or leave the plan unmanaged for 18 months, you end up with this – a rambling out of context article that you cannot even categorize.

Pitfalls and problems might be a good category to add – but never add categories on-the-fly, unless they are in the web business plan.