I still have some tweaking to do on the New Theme but here is a static preview of it. It has to be converted to wordpress. It requires javascript to function fully but at this time I think it’s pretty well functioning with out javascript.
Always welcome with comments.
I have switched my feed to feedburner. You shouldn’t have seen any difference. Hopefully all current subscribers aren’t having any issues.
I love WordPress. I like Mediawiki but it has it’s downsides, most importantly is the update process. Because I don’t have command line access to my server updating mediawiki is a royal pain in the butt. Basically it requires me to reinstall the wiki through the install process and then return the localsettings back to the way there were before hand. While not overly complicated it does make updating mediawiki more complicated than I like. It also provides one very big draw back for me, transferring sites must be done via a database dump and that doesn’t always work so well for me when I have to reupload the sql dump. Not something that isn’t a problem with other softwares but putting things into retrospec WordPress makes it so much easier.
But WordPress doesn’t make for a good wiki by itself. Linking pages is annoying as you have to type in the url code, and if a page doesn’t exist it’ll just go no where. In comes the plugins. Such an awesome thing is the invention of plugins. I can modify my wordpress to make the wiki links in one easy step similar to mediawiki thanks to Wiki Page Links. I also found a plugin for foot notes (FD Footnotes) that doesn’t interfer with the wiki pages.
With these two plugins I can now make wordpress a decent wiki like documentation system. The one thing that I like about mediawiki that I’ve yet to get on wordpress is the table of contents jumps for pages. But that really isn’t something that is overly important as I can do that in code anyway. But right now I’ve got a good start to making my world building project public in wordpress. yay!
I’ve been working at a role playing site for many years (Dragonmount). I’ve had various different positions and various different jobs from it. But right now the biggest thing that it’s missing is a role playing character database linked into their message boards.
Once upon a time Dragonmount had a message board system tailored to the idea of multiple characters. It was a custom built message board using asp. It got old quickly and the server we were on floundered under the load, so after many changes Dragonmount had some issues and abandoned the message boards.
Dragonmount doesn’t have any different character logins and the chances of it happening again are pretty slim, as the format of Dragonmount has changed dramatically over the 11 years of its existence. But in the general vein that a character database linked into the message board system I’ve started working on a plugin for MyBB.
Unlike many of the other message board systems out there, MyBB has a plugin system. What this means in layman terms? Basically I can add function and features to the message board with out having to rewrite the core files. So you say? Well when you change core files you have to manually update when there is a patch to the system. And as all web software there is almost a gaurantee that there will be a patch you would have to do that to. With MyBB you don’t have to worry about it. All the modifications are contained in new files and thus will not be overwritten unless the changes to the core files happen to add the exact same file name to the new system. So all in all I can make a pretty massive change to the message board system and not have to worry about losing or having to majorly work around them when there are security fixes and the like.
I love MyBB for this very reason. But back to the project.
Back in the day when there were different character logins at Dragonmount each post you made you had the choice to use which ever character you wanted. This is one of the main features of the plugin I am working on. In addition to this is the ability to create a character biography that is linked to the character. Thusly maintaining a character database.
This is a pretty massive project and I’m learning a lot about how to make a plugin for MyBB. Currently I have working on my local copy the Create a Character function and the Public Character Listing. There is still a massive amount of things to do. I’m currently working on trying to get the approval link on the Public Character Listing to only show up for those people who are in the right user groups. Not really an issue, just currently were I stopped before writing this post.
I could really make this an elaborate project, but this is a simplified version of my “perfect” play by post message board system. My way is not the “perfect” way for everyone it’s just my vision of what I think is needed for a role playing game like this. Its not even a plugin yet, right now I’m just modifying the system manually, I’ll make a plugin later after all the functions are working so I’m not troubleshooting the functionality with the plugin issues of setting up the files appropriately.
It’s fun and I enjoy the time I spend on it. It’s a good programming project for me and it helps me understand MyBB‘s underlying system.
In the near future I will be putting up a new theme AND switching from the feed currently here to a feedburner feed. I just wanted everyone who subscribes to know that the feeds will be changing soon. I will let you know the day before I do it. I want to put it all in at one time instead of two separate things. So I still have to finish the theme.
It’s been a tough week, but it’s turning out good. The first of the week saw lots of rain and Shea got rained out so we are out a day and a half of pay. This sucks but there is nothing we can do about it, Shea tried to stay but after a certain point he had no choice in the matter, he had to leave.
Late last night, like 8pm I checked my secondary work email and I found I had been accepted to work with Heritage again. While I’m not sure which application they were accepting, I’m assuming it’s the one I sent in yesterday versus the one I sent in more than three weeks ago. But it really doesn’t matter I got the freelancing work. My goal is to do at least one project a week if not more. I hope more but we’ll see.
My biggest concern now is they aren’t taking taxes out and I want to pay taxes on it when I can otherwise the money will get spent. So I need to figure out how I can do this and make sure the government gets their money and I get credit for paying these taxes. Last time I did this I didn’t have to worry about it cause I was only working for part of the year – 3 months in 07 and 3 months in 08 before I had to turn off cable. It’s 5 months this year and I hope to continue working with them until I either have a full time job or my own clients take off with reliable projects and pay. Since I’m not pushing locally yet as I don’t have the time I don’t expect that to happen until after both girls are in school. So another 2-3 years before my own business will be viable fully.
Anyway I can feel a bit better about our situation, while it’s not alot of money it’s more money that we had coming in. It’s really sad that everything always comes down to money. Sometimes I wish I’d been born in a simpler times, but then I’d never have met my husband, my mom and dad probably would never have met. That’s the thing with meeting outside of your home town. My parents met in Denver, but my Mom was born in New York. Simpler times means she’d probably never have gone to Denver and thus I’d never have been born. But still the sentiment still exists. I can’t say that I could stand living that type of life now, after having lived a technologically filled one. If things were to go to pot today and technology stopped working I would find it very difficult to live with out my family. I miss them dearly now but I get to talk to my parents every week and they get to see their grandkids over the web cam. It’s nice, with out it we’d not have a whole lot of contact and I would be lost. So while I wish for simpler times, I really don’t want it either.
Heard the line on Food Nework’s Next Star, and it applies here. I’m done. After DM8 I’m done with DM in any helping capacity except some minor things I’m working with now. Cairhein house lead and Warders Master at Arms, and I have a feeling that I will just have to leave completely in order to remove the temptation to help.
I tire of so much bull shit. I don’t want to get into it cause all it’s going to do is server to piss me off so close to my vacation and I don’t want to do that. But I’m tired of it, just plain and simple tired of it.
I have been hesitant over the past year or so to pick up learning a framework of any sorts, it kinda feels like cheating. But I picked up 960 grid system a while ago and I do like it, it takes some of the guess work out of designing. But I don’t use it consistently. Then I picked up jQuery and fell absolutely in love with it. It makes life so much easier and I don’t have to wrote bunches of javascript and make sure it’s cross broswer computable for the most part.
So last week I got a big protion of a new project information and it looked like I was going to be a doing alot of coding. My biggest concern is paypal integration and security of the application. I started looking around. While there might still be issues I decided to pick up cakePHP. I’ve been using it for three days or so and in that time I’ve decided to rewrite my Grocery List Meal Plan Application again using it. I’ve worked on that particular app for two days. And most of that was trying to figure out how to do a few things that were giving me problems. I have added functionality and areas I hadn’t incorporated into my initial design in a matter of hours instead of days. Talk about cutting down my development time. Grated it take two days to get the probelms of what I have done now resolved but that’s because I’m still learning and it’s to be expected. I have one more hurdle to nip in the bud and I think the rest will be smooth sailing because at that point all things will be building on what I just learned.
I think it’s going real well. I am really enjoying it. After the functionality is done I’ll work on theming the application and possibly routing but for now I’m leaving it all as it is. Here’s to learning something new!
Was directed to a plugin that would do the work for me so here it is. CSS Naked Day at Raising the Herd.
Don’t fret tomorrow all the pretties will be back.
Last night I had insomnia so I spent about two hours making my mockup html into this wordpress template. From about 1am to 3am I worked to edit it and make it work in wordpress. Which is about right when I think about how I charge a wordpress theme about 2 hours worth of my time, not including graphic work which generally takes more time than that. Glad to see that my estimation are pretty on still.
I like this one just as much as my original Raising the Herd Theme with the bright sunny blues and greens. I think this one will stay awhile. The background image (from DinPattern was the inspiration for the color theme. The pics are mostly ones Shea took with his film camera. My mother took the one of Sammi alone.
See brown can look good.
