$project-report 01

As reported earlier, I seem to have found the motivation to pick up the pieces on a project that I’ve dropped a fair few times over the past 10 years or so. And as promised, I am going to ape Phil Gyford and refer to it as $project until it is ready.

The Story So Far … back in 2008, I got a little grant and permission to build a website that was, at the time, work-adjacent. It did OK, until work and I parted company and life happened. The site languished, and then I needed a domain for an experiment so I used one that was to hand. End of $project.

Part of me always knew, I think, that I would want to resurrect it, so I took the precaution of saving various kinds of backup, downloading screenshots etc. etc. The original site had been built with WordPress and what seemed, at the time, like the most wonderful theme in the world. But I had moved on and so I first tried to develop a new version of the site using Grav (which powers this site). It was not to be. Too complicated, then, to do essentially a full redesign. So $project languished.

Then came the freedom, last week, to start thinking about $project in earnest again, and the first decision I made was not to redesign but to recreate. Why shouldn’t it look old-fashioned? It is old-fashioned. The easiest way to do that would be to use WordPress, but not the all singing, all dancing WordPress of today. ClassicPress is what WordPress used to be, but more secure. And so here I am, slowly rebuilding from scratch.

The overall look is mostly done. The About pages are ready, as is the first post. I’ve got a new image rotator gussying up the sidebar, which I need to finish and move. There’s still plenty of work to do. The original site made good use of maps; I’m looking forward to seeing how that has improved. Then there’s the question of comments. I think I have them all, but how to re-integrate them? And, of course, I’ll want to indiewebify the site. But this will do for a first $project report.