May 28th, 2008 | Book Progress | 1 Comment
Since the big changes in the admin panel in WordPress 2.5 and newer, I had to make quite a number of modification in the previously done chapters to reflect the new admin interface. Yes, I am among those that don’t like everything in the new adminstration panel… but I think we have to live with it for a while.
First I had to rewrite the description and functionality of the admin panels, according to the new changes, like the Media Library, the gallery, the location of different features and so on. Sometimes the most difficult thing is to remain neutral, not to comment how I feel about certain “not so wise” changes that were introduced in this version. Anyway, it is as it as and I have to describe what the new user will see and not to confuse them with references to older versions.
Luckily, I didn’t make too many screenshots of the admin panel in the previous WordPress releases. What I had was more for testing purposes: to see how will they fit into the page and how legible they would be. I also had chapters that I showed to computer users that were not familiar at all with WP, and those chapters also had screenshots. I have used the feedback given by my “test readers” to improve the content and to make sure that the text doesn’t come across as some kind of insider jargon - which might be a real danger if you spend a lot of time among WP users. I wanted to get feedback whether the book would deliver what my intention was: to lead an average computer user to understand what blogging with WordPress means.
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May 9th, 2007 | Book Progress | 2 Comments
Whole day I was struggling with this question: how much general information regarding the WWW should I include in the introductory chapters?
I am fully aware there is a huge amount of information out there, even with a simple search anybody could find it. But in the WordPress Support Forums I have had to answer question like:
OK, I downloaded the WP files, they are on my Desktop, now what? I don’t understand what all that blabla is about server and config file. Where should I upload it? Do I need a domain? How do I upload the files. I am completely new to this, so be gentle…
You can imagine the desperation of any helper when seeing a question like this. Where to start? What should I explain first? - and the same questions are very valid even in the case of a book that is targeting the non-technical beginners.
Do they have any basic understanding how the web works? Have they ever heard at least the “word” html?
Strictly speaking, you don’t need to understand how a static HTML web page works as opposed to the database driven dynamic web sites. On the other hand, if you do know the difference - you will never end up in the Forum saying “I saved all the files from my old host/server and installed it on my new server/domain but my blog is empty! HELP, pleeeeease…”
Those are the idiots who never realized that nothing is stored in their files. Except your customized theme you can throw out all your files. You can find them anywhere, no need for them. Really. Everything that is dear to you - is in the database. Therefore I ended up with a brief comparison of the traditional HTML sites and the database driven dynamic sites using PHP. I could understand this basic concepts when my programmer son explained to me the first time… even without understanding one line of PHP code. I think my readers are not dumber, so they will understand it as well.
The many, many hours spent in the Forum gave me this enormous advantage: I know precisely what kind of mistakes to expect from a newbie. If you see the same mistake repeated by hundreds of users, you know there must be a problem, so better address it to help them.
Yes, I know, it also means there is a problem with the documentation, which is mainly written by geeks for geeks - with a few exceptions. Let’s leave that for a future post…
Tags: database documentation dynamic web sites html newbie mistakes php wordpressShare This
