Wordpress

In theory WordPress is a fantastic tool to write a blog, without needing to learn to code. In practice I am tired of WordPress and I have been tired of WordPress ever since they started to use blocks, and ever since I noticed that it uses React. 

React and Meta

I know that PHP was developed by Facebook, and that we use it all the time, but I also know that React was developed by Facebook as it was morphing into Meta, the destroyer of the independent web. Instagram and Whatsapp were destroyed by Facebook, as the monopolist took over those accounts. 

A month or two ago we had the chance to jump on the Substack wagon while it was hot and to ride the wave of new followers and experience a growing community. I could have joined in. I could have become one of those “I’m one of you people” but I didn’t. 

Substack Life

Substack went from being a newsletter to almost becoming a community of writers. I say “almost”, because for me to consider a community a community it has to behave like a community. It has to be a network of friends of friends, and it has to be about individuals connecting with other individuals, through their community. 

For at least a year I have been annoyed with WordPress, not because it went from the classic editor to Guthenburg but because it now uses React and I hate the idea of using React because it was a FaceBook project. I don’t trust Facebook and I don’t want to use anything related to them.

I don’t want to use FaceBook because it reminds me of the life I don’t have, Instagram because it switched from being a network of friends to a network of spam, WhatsApp because it’s owned and controlled by FaceBook so privacy is at risk, and finally React because it is part of the FaceBook universe.

Today I tried Switching from MySQL to MariaDB with Infomaniak as a webhost. This morning they sent an e-mail to say that we could switch from MySQL to MariaDB automatically so I tried. For the test I:

• downloaded a new install of wordpress to my local machine and put it in the MAMP htdocs folder under mariadb.
• I installed MariaDB on port 3310.
• Using the command line I created a wordpress database.
• I configured WordPress. Within seconds the website was up and running.
• When I saw that the interface was that the same and that I had to make no changes I went ahead with Infomaniak.
• Of course I backed up the MySQL server data, just in case.

Within a matter of minutes of telling Infomaniak to switch from MySQL to MariaDB the migration was finished and the website was up and running again. It was quick and painless. If something did go wrong I could easily step back but I also ensured that the user interface for MariaDB and MySQL were the same. When you’re coding websites from scratch some databases require different lines of code to function. That was my concern, and that’s why I decided to experiment with a small scale trial on my own machine.

I’m afraid to open the veluxes because of the threat of finding yet another large spider. I don’t mind having to dispose of it, but I hate the idea of having one walking around without me knowing. A great alternative to open windows is to go for your daily walk. You’re far from neighbours, from smokers, from metalworking and more. You are free to daydream. Today the Mont Blanc was clearly visible. The image is at max zoom with an iphone 8+.

Today I started following the “Building Progressive Themes with WP Rig.” course on Linkedin Learning.

Before you start playing with WP Rig make sure that you have installed Composer. Composer is required to use WP Rig during the build process. Composer itself requires that you have PHP on your machine. After that it should be easier to use. I also ran npm-install-peers because I kept getting error messages.

During the daily walk today I saw that the grass along the side of the road is dry and dead. It crunshes as you walk on it. As you look at other fields they are dry and probably crunchy too. We had some rain a few days ago, but within minutes of the rain stopping the landscape was dry again. We never get rain. I am impatient for a day of rain. I am impatient to look forward to good weather, rather than bad. It seems to be absurd to want rain in Switzerland. In winter skiers and snowboarders want snow.

For a while, I have been thinking about creating my own WordPress themes, but I didn’t know where to start or how many hours it would take. I always assumed that it would take many hours and that I would have to create templates, style sheets and more for a number of pages. In reality, you need an index.php page and a stylesheet. Anything else is a bonus.

A shortcut is to find a theme that you like and to see which fields you want to modify and just modify that behaviour. Choosing to use another font requires one or two lines of code. With minimal effort, you can personalise a theme.

Today I woke early, shopped, studied German, read the news and then studied WordPress Child themes. It rained on and off, and I took a break from studying to go for a walk and I stayed dry almost the entire time. I carried a Sea to Summit three litre bag with me, in case I needed to keep the phone etc dry. For a moment I thought it would start raining but it didn’t so I stayed dry.

Recently I migrated my photos from Instagram to a WordPress blog. The process took some trial and error. The first step is to understand how to read JSON files and format them in a way that WordPress can use. The next step is to import that data into Wordpress.

To request your data follow this link, request the data and wait for an e-mail telling you that the files are ready to download. When the files are ready to download download them and unzip the files.

The Fun and games of attempting to migrate Instagram data continue. I have now spent several days on the task. I have my Instagram posts currently sitting on a local blog. The challenge has been to migrate it from my local WordPress installation to the main website.

After dozens of failed attempts the SQL database, seperate from this blog’s database was getting filled with lines of data. I was up to over 31,000 pieces of data or more. I didn’t check the term a plugin uses.