WordPress is certainly a polished Content Management System and application. One cannot help but be impressed when one goes to update to a newer version. Since I had automatically installed the application on Webmasters servers using their script, I had version 2.7 initially installed. With just a click of the link to update and a couple of parameters for the Webmaster server, I was able to update to 2.9.1 without having to do any FTP. I merely gave the program the information for the FTP and it did the rest. For a developer who is used to having to wrestle with poor documentation and all kinds of CHMOD changes to install an update, the whole process just floored me.
But there is more. I decided I needed a plugin for doing slideshows. I was able using the Plugin menu in WordPress 2.9.1 to search for the plugin, download and install it, and then activate it all from the admin Plugin menu. That is truly impressive!!
Overall, I am truly impressed with WordPress. With just a little bit of work, I was able to install 2.9.1 Wordpress on a WAMP test server. Here the process was a little more difficult as I had to do the 5-minute installation and set up the database. WordPress uses a “secret” word set up to provide added security. So it was not as simple as setting up a Drupal site connnection, but the documentation was excellent and worked.
The only trick I noticed with setting up WordPress on the Webmasters server was that the graphics did not work immediately. I had to fool the server by doing a CHMOD on the content section to 777 and then back to 775 toavoid the prohibited message on the graphics.
I was also IMpressed with how nicely WordPress handles graphics and photos (Media). You can upload a graphic by just clicking on the add an image link above the post box and a Lightbox2 style upload box appears with a browse button to let you find the graphic and upload it. It then automatically opens a dialogue to handle the caption and other data. Smart! Getting graphics and images set up correctly in Drupal is a major difficulty.
Working with the WordPress theme is almost exactly like Drupal 6. Most of the color scheme is in the images and most of the layout is in page includes. Unlike Drupal, there is one main style sheet that has most of the style. I modified the Harmony theme to change colors and the style sheet was clearly annotated for the page sections. Although I use the Web developer bar on Firefox for CSS, it most mostly not necessary with WordPress. I found that since the style sheet was so clearly annotated, I could find most items without having to use the “View Style Information” option in the Developers bar. WordPress 2.9.1 is IMpressive.



