This is where things get frustrating! I discovered a significant glitch in my “Falcon” development site.
But first, for those not familiar: Falcon is my development site, where I’m currently working to convert Schumin Web to the WordPress platform. It’s running WordPress 3.2.1 right now (but will probably jump a version or so before I’m done). I’m running it all in a test location while I build it and then port and restore content. Then when it’s finished, I’m going to move it onto the main URL, and then it will cease to be “Falcon” anymore, since it will become the production site. Then I’ll probably set up a new development site as “Falcon” for future development and experimentation, such as a full redesign (the site under WordPress will look mostly the same as it has for a number of years).
To run certain parts of the site, I set up custom post types. I have custom post types for the Fire Alarm Collection, Quote Articles, Photo Features, Site Updates, and Splash Photos. What this will look like when finished is nothing new, as those of you who have been with me for a while, when you see the way these things look, will see something very familiar, even if it’s totally different under the hood. The problem is that when you page through the pages of these custom post type archives, the site will act as though it’s displaying the next page, but the content will not change. Let me show you what I mean:
Page 1 of the Splash Photo Archive on Falcon.
Page 2 of the Splash Photo Archive on Falcon.
Notice what’s different and what’s not. The site does recognize that the pages are turning. The bottom image on “Page 1” has a “previous page” link, and the bottom image on “Page 2” has a “next page” link. So good stuff there. However, the actual content is still the same. On both pages, the first image on the top page is still that one of me with the giant nutcracker, and the ones on the bottom image are still the last Potomac picture and silly pose.
That’s the problem. The pagination changes, but the content doesn’t. Frustrating! On a scale of 1 to 10, this is about an “8”. It will not stop continued content porting to the WordPress site, but it will prevent a launch. That’s because the problem is in the theme, and not in the content itself. This, of course, is the beauty of content management systems like WordPress. The site content is completely separate from the design elements. Thus even with a significant unresolved bug (where your help in solving it would be greatly appreciated), I can keep my eye on the prize while I troll for advice. I’m finishing up the Journal entries from 2004 right now while I wait. Seven more years to go!
Thankfully, porting content isn’t all that hard. The biggest pain is the photo sets. The time period I’m working in right now (2004) is a period where I didn’t keep full size photo set masters. A16 was the first set where I kept full-size masters for the images that went on the site. So I have to restore all the photos in this period from scratch because no masters for the photo set presentation were kept. I have the original raw photos meticulously preserved, but not the set masters. Annoying. Then from 2005-2008, the photos look a little overexposed and the colors are a bit strange, so I’m likely going to restore those from scratch as well despite having masters for them.
But yes, progress is being made, but I now find it highly laughable about what I said about completion on this. I hinted here that December was the earliest realistic date for completion of the site under WordPress. Little did I realize just how much content I have on this site. Things are moving, but approximately now as a realistic completion date? Yeah, right. But I admit that 2004 is going quite smoothly – better than 2003 went. No clue when I’ll be done, though.
Update: Issue resolved. Thanks to my friend Josh Edgar for peeking at my code and helping me out with it.