Switched over to Lightpress. Nice.
After a few hours of debugging, emailing back and forth (thanks alot for the help guys) and some "enouragement", I have finally switched over to LP.
What is Lightpress? Think of it as simply a lighter version of the WP front-end (as the name implies.) However, it doesn't skimp out on any of the features. It runs totally independent of works in conjunction with WP and uses the same data you have in your database. I like it because the code is cleaner, the queries run faster and the templating engine is easier to work with.
LightPress has been designed from the ground up as a full replacement for the WordPress front-end ...The only interaction with WordPress is through the database. This means that LightPress is fully compatible with WordPress 1.5, including the new 1.5.1 release.
I was going to convert my entire blog layout over to LP, but decided to use the default Kubrick clone, and simply modify it with my own header image(s). I like the new look. Its much simpler and easier on the eyes.
The developers behind LP were nice enough to help me convert alot of my sidebar items over to LP with little effort. I am pretty much happy with the current state of my blog, but I am looking forward to when they integrate the current WP admin changes to LP and also get the WP plugins to work with LP. But even if that never happens, I'd still be happy with it as it is. Light, fast and simple.
Sweet!
I should point out that I’m only the author of that post, credits for LightPress should go straight to Ludo.
Oh, I didn’t even realize Ludo didn’t post that entry. There is no names on those entries! Well, I give full credit for Ludo for such a great enhancement to WP. And I’d like to also thank the rest of the team for being so patient with me and helping me switch over.
BTW, how do you attach the author’s name to each post?
Maybe i should check Lightpress out… I’m using WP. I find the usability of the admin interface to be great. However, after digging through the HTML and PHP to make some custom changes to how the pages behave, I’ve lost a lot of respect for the software. No I18n, php logic mixed directly with html, html in poorly named files so that things are hard to find. Just really messy IMHO.
Great software from an admin standpoint. Very rough from a developer standpoint. Typical PHP stuff (I’m allowed to say that cuz I’m forced to write PHP all day long while co-workers near-by bask in J2EE and Python goodnes).
So it sounds like LP is better in this regard… would you say that’s true?
Hi Todd. I read your blog all the time. Nice of you to drop by =]
Yes, LP is definitely a lot cleaner with its code, its design, its xhtml, etc. They even use some PEAR packages to abstract the DB layer. Not sure what templating engine it is using, but there is no PHP code within the templates at all.
A little difficult to put in little hacks here and there (like my random image script I put together in 2 lines of php code to load different header images), but it enforces better coding practices (and we developers should always strive for that!)
Definitely give it a try.. its totally risk free (I sound like a salesman.) To play around with it, just copy your current WP files to another folder (in your case, maybe ditchnet.org/lp) .. download the LP files and just upload them to that folder. I didn’t even bother to keep my old .htaccess or index.php files. Then all you gotta do is modify the config.php and change the baseurl in your .htaccess file and that’s it. Read through the install just in case I forgor something.
Once you get everything up and running, you can go in and tweak things as you like. I modified the kubrick header to my own (I don’t know what inspired me to do that ;-))
If you have any questions, ask myself or better yet, the developers themselves. They are very helpful and usually response very fast. Good luck! =]
Ramin thanks for the LP evangelism :)
Oh, and don’t believe what Jerome says, as without his initial review and subsequet development/brainstorming efforts LightPress would still be a hacked together script.
As for PEAR, we only use the base PEAR class (mainly for its error handling and destructor), the DB and Template layers are written for LP.
We have a long way to go still (management plugins and better WP integration, backend, etc.), but we think LP is already quite usable.
Oh, and whatever you need just ask, a project without user input is dead. :)
Forgot to link to Jerome’s review of WPFF, the script from which LP was born.
Apparently the spam killer on LP or WP works a little too well. It treated poor Jerome as a spammer. I turned off the auto-kill feature (should now move supposed spam into the moderation queue for review) until I can figure out why this happened. Here is Jerome’s original comment:
Ramin,
Ludo just sent me your email (for future reference, the AdminOptions plugin is all my fault!). Didn’t notice the authors were missing, the Kubrick template is still a little rough around the edges.
You can take a look at the default template for some template tag hints. Here’s a snippet that displays the author’s name with a link to all of their posts:
posted by <a href="{option_url}/{option_author_prefix}/{post_author_login}"> {post_author} </a>The template engine is something that Ludo whipped up. Simple but effective. A plugin “howto” is forthcoming…
—
This email has been sent because you have comment_spam_kill and comment_spam_mail set to true in your config
Thanks for the LP advice, guys. I’ll check it out this weekend… I’ve been itching to customize my WP instance, but dauted by the unholy php/html source mixture.
Ramin, I’ve become a real fan of your blog. The Leaflink interface is nice-looking!! You’re quite the client-side bad-ass!