How hard is it to undo WP and convert back to a normal html page?

[Blitzburgh]

Hello all,

I am in something of a mess now. I had a very good programmer help me convert my website over to WP. At the time I was completely green to the process and he seemed over the moon about it. In the end though, it has been nothing short of a disaster.

I appreciate the power of WP for blogging. It is a no brainer if someone doesn't want to go through the trouble of setting up a forum and all that entails. But for standard static pages, i.e. a normal website, html is the way to go IMO.

So here we are. I cannot use javascript programs that I have because of WP conflicts, putting in a gallery that works with individual pages is causing my homepage slideshow to crash, yada...yada...yada....

We have been working on this now for 2 months. I am ready to throw in the towel and just put it back to html. Kicker is, I don't know if this means I literally have to recreate the site from scratch or if there is a simpler way of doing it.

Any advice would be very very appreciated.

Thanks, Mike

[kgun]

1. Have you tried to reactivate the default theme?
2. Have you tried other themes like the minimalistic http://www.plaintxt.org/ sandbox theme http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/sandbox?
3. How many plugins do you have and have you tried to deactivate some?
   
   Set up a test / development server and experiment
   
   http://www.oopschool.com/phpBB3/view...php?f=18&t=177 (Link to my own forum, so moderator delete the link if it is insemantic and / or selfpromotion. I have no time to repeat that message).
   
   It should be easy for a qualified It person. On a test server on your computer, you can experiment as much as you wan't. If you use DreamWeaver or similar software, it is easy to have
   
   • A test server folder of your site.
   • A local copy of the final site in the project folder.
   • A final version on the online production server.
   
   

How hard is it to undo WP and convert back to a normal html page?

If that is your final issue and you think of converting the WP site back to a standard site, it may be difficult. There may be more or less automatic conversion software (Google it).

Note that your posts (most of the content) is in the database. This database can be dumped in tools like phpMyAdmin to a flat .sql file that may be more or less difficutl to edit and put into your own HTML site. If you know sql, it is easy to read. In addition there are tools to export a MySQL database to x(ht)ml.

[Blitzburgh]

The problem is the theme is custom.

We have tried numerous themes all with varying amounts of success and lots of failure. Things that would be a snap in html. (Beauty of being able to load an executeable on a single page rather than calling it in the header globally)

Thanks for the link on hosting locally. One of the main things I really miss with Dreamweaver was the ability to host locally, test out the changes and upload when ready. I will pay particular attention to your post and add it to my favorites.

I kind of figured I was dead in the water for a quick go back to the way things were. But appreciate the advice all the same.

[defensity]

Wordpress is a great tool, but like so many CMS systems it does have its limitations.

One thing you can do, if you need a few pages to be heavily customized and individualized, is just create static html for just those pages,
while still keeping the main site in wordpress.

In addition, it would have been good if your designer had created a secondary template in straight html in addition to the wordpress template, so that you can use it for single html pages.

[kgun]

One of the main things I really miss with Dreamweaver was the ability to host locally, test out the changes and upload when ready.

That has been possible at least since DW 2004 MX.

When you add a new site in DreamWeaver, you specify:

1. Local info: Your project folder.
2. Remote Info: There are many options where one is FTP (to your production server)
3. A testing sever that can be PHP MySQL in Local / Network + Testing server folder
4. where the testing folder server may be c:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress

[Blitzburgh]

That would be good except it still conflicts with the site unless you mean making a site 100% offsite pointing to a different URL and everything.

Case in point. I have a slider on my site right now that works great for the homepage. Alternates between 6 different photos and they look sharp. Okay, that is good.

Now, I want to build an interior page that has a slideshow gallery with navigation. Pretty basic as well.

In html, I would just use whatever program I wanted with the javascript and post it in the head. Wala!

In WP - it has to be declared in the overall header. This in turn will crash the site. It's not a 1 or the other, it's a 1 only and nothing else. Same thing for my user submitted forms. Again, basic java. Program is flawless in html - in WP I have had 3 heavily experienced programmers look at it and no one can come up with a way to make it work in CMS. Their suggestion? Rewrite it completely in .php and "hope it works".

[Blitzburgh]

"....That has been possible at least since DW 2004 MX.

When you add a new site in DreamWeaver, you specify:

1.Local info: Your project folder.
2.Remote Info: There are many options where one is FTP (to your production server)
3.A testing sever that can be PHP MySQL in Local / Network + Testing server folder
4.where the testing folder server may be c:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress...."



I think you misunderstood me - I was saying that I miss that since I have went over to WP. Love to be able to troubleshoot the page locally in DW. You can "kinda" do it in WP, but because you don't have access to the header, footer, sidebar etc. it makes it 50 times harder.

[kgun]

Wordpress is a great tool, but like so many CMS systems it does have its limitations.

In a sense it is stricter than a php http://www.phpframeworks.com/ that can be incorporated in your own projects. wordpress and javascript plugins like jQuery is great.

Query: wordpress html5

and you will find new plugins like http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...for-wordpress/ from http://videojs.com/ The sky is the limit with all the new game / application plugins, but you must know what you are doing. That is why a test server is so important.

One thing you can do, if you need a few pages to be heavily customized and individualized, is just create static html for just those pages, while still keeping the main site in wordpress.

In addition, it would have been good if your designer had created a secondary template in straight html in addition to the wordpress template, so that you can use it for single html pages.

It is very important to be aware of the http://codex.wordpress.org/File:Template_Hierarchy.png

Read more: http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy

In addition to the template tags: http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags

The theme name defines a unique name space (scope). The minimalistic theme is

1. Theme folder.
2. index.php

You can refine that by adding style.css. That can be refined further e.g. by a file hompe.php that trumphs index.php, a file pege.php for static pages etc.

[kgun]

Case in point. I have a slider on my site right now that works great for the homepage. Alternates between 6 different photos and they look sharp. Okay, that is good.

Now, I want to build an interior page that has a slideshow gallery with navigation. Pretty basic as well.

There are many slider plugins for WP. If it is possible, avoid the plugin. I have not tried, but assume that there are JS slider plugins that may be embedded in your static page.php pages.

And wordpress is upgraded so fast that a plugin that worked yesterday don't work tomorrow. Now Wp 3.2 is around the corner compatible with php 5.2+ etc. It is definitely time to set up a test server and start with WP 3.2 RC.

There are three possibilities now as I see it:

1. Take it easy and relax. If it is not broken, don't upgrade before you are sure it will function on the production server.
2. Upgrade to the last stable Wp 3.1+ version.
3. Follow the front with all the problems that can imply with a new version of php and MySQL.

Always check the version a plugin is teste on. It is not so difficult to write you own plugins if you can JS and php: http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-3-...ssentials/book

[Doc]

I'm assuming that you are self-hosted, versus being http://example.wordpress.com
Assuming that assumption is correct, you can edit your header, footer, sidebar, etc., since you say you have experienced programmers at your disposal. PHP is different from HTML, it's true, but it really isn't that difficult.

You could create selected static pages, as mentioned, and create CSS files that apply only to those pages. Another option would be to create a child theme, in which you host your static pages, and leave the existing site as is.

EDIT: Thinking about it a little more, I think a child theme might be the easiest approach for what you want to accomplish. Check this out: http://themeshaper.com/2009/04/17/wo...-theme-basics/