darkmatter upgrade

Recently, we undertook a major update for darkmatter journal. This involved upgrading wordpress software (which is used to run the journal), and installing a new look/theme Mimbo 2.

I used a live test site, to enable the other darkmatter editors to check developments, as well as ensuring that the plugins were working nicely. On the day of the live update, we had around 3hrs down-time, when the WP database was upgraded, new theme installed, and extensive checking for dead and missing links.

Updating the theme resulted in a fair bit of work – tweaking Mimbo 2 while integrating some of the new features in Mimbo 3. (The updated Mimbo 3 version while having some nifty features, didn’t really work for the journal content presentation, so continued using Mimbo 2).

One hack to mimbo I especially liked was adding a tabbed box on the RHS sidebar, now neatly displaying the Menu, Popular Posts & Comments. Mimbo 2 also needed to be slightly hacked in order for it to rotate Featured posts (on page refreshes), while these not being duplicated in other posts on the homepage page.

I tried cutting back on the number of plugins, but there are still many being used, especially to enhance the journal and maintain some key features (such as co-authors and footnotes).

Also, shifted to using the robust UK universities JISCMAIL for the darkmatter newsletter. Originally, a commercial company – zookoda – was used, which I was never comfortable with. (And I experienced a mini-nightmare retrieving the user database with over 250 subscribers from zookoda as it closed down. Don’t trust the cloud with your data...).

Hope you’re pleased with the new look of the journal. darkmatter while focussed on developing postcolonial critique for the net, is also developed  using open-source software and thus, a continuously evolving project .

For posterity, here’s a picture of the original darkmatter site.

darkmatter old-site

Filed under: darkmatter-development-blog , darkmatter, wordpress

WordPress as a CMS?

As the co-editor and web-admin¹ of the online journal darkmatter, the opensource blog software platform of WordPress (WP) is used to run the journal. I’m not a proper coder, but a bit of (php, html, css) knowledge really does go a long way with wordpress. And the original theme (Light 1.0) has been modified in order to make it work like a journal.

However, to be able to use WP in this way, a number of plugins are required. Clearly what makes WP stand out from the crowd is its vast plugin community, enabling to remarkably extend its features and make it work more like a CMS.

But there’s a downside. The number of plugins can start to proliferate if you want CMS features. For example, to display multiple authorship for an article requires a plugin (called co-authors, which is relatively new and overcomes the short-comings of an existing multiple authors plugin). While the latest WP has a tagging system it’s still basic, so another plugin is needed for that. Similarly to properly print-format an article, you need another plugin. (And there’s still no properly working PDF conversion plugin). And the workflow is almost non-existent, even with plugins such as role manager.

The problem I’m finding, if you want to do something more than a single authored blog on WP, you need plugins. And plugins need to be continually updated, as WP is constantly upgrading its core package. Plugin updates doesn’t always happen. And then there’s the overhead involved in keeping the site up-to-date and properly functioning.

This constant upgrading (and testing) cycle is high maintenance… Sorry to say, but I may quit using WP for darkmatter.

Therefore, I’m checking out alternatives to WP, which have more integrated features and designed to be used by multiple authors. Some opensource CMS possibilities are Joomla and drupal (the latter seems especially attractive, though has a higher learning curve due to its inherent flexibility). Also there’s OJS, a dedicated opensource journal system. It has solid support, though its workflow system is cumbersome and may not suit our needs on darkmatter as it reproduces the conventions of a print journal.

I’m leaning towards drupal at the moment, but early days yet.

Edit [24/03/08]: Having played around with drupal, it certainly does have a higher learning curve than WP! And is more accurately described as a Content Management Framework (rather than merely a CMS). Clearly powerful and it has many more features integrated compared to WP. But it’s an unfair comparison to make, even though WP is moving beyond blogging capabilities.

The juries still out on whether to go the drupal route (which would take a few months getting to grips with for me). Continuing with WP with a new strategy of only using significant/essential plugins, and not attempting to follow WP core upgrades (apart from security updates). That is, upgrading darkmatter say once every 6 or 12 months would make things more manageable?

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[1] No, I don’t like the maculinist term webmaster

Filed under: darkmatter-development-blog, technology , darkmatter, wordpress

Copyfight – Forget YouTube?

There are many ‘web2.0′ video sharing/hosting sites these days, though YouTube (YT) reigns supreme. Now owned by Google, YT is becoming the search site for video.

However, if you’re intending to upload your own video, there are some serious restrictions when using YT. Not only is there a limit to the length of material, but YT’s Terms & Conditions (see especially point 6) leave a lot to be desired.

A comparison between different video sharing sites indicates that YT doesn’t allow Creative Commons licensing and has way-too-liberal rights to reuse your content. (Though according to this post it’s possible to use creative commons with YouTube, though this hasn’t been made public?) More specifically, as argued in a boing boing article – which has now been deleted?¹ – by Xeni Jardin, the intentions of how YT may use uploaded content is questionable.

Filed under: darkmatter-development-blog, technology , copyright, darkmatter, video, wordpress