Did you hear that sound? That low, thunking kind of sound? Yeah that’s the sound of a writer working on a book about WordPress banging their head against a wall (or desk). In case you didn’t know, book publishing timelines are rather long. Not as long as say, Microsoft OS releases, but typically longer than the release schedule for WordPress. Using WordPress is slated to be release in July (feel free to pre-order now), and in case you hadn’t looked at a calendar it’s March and my first draft of the book is nearly done.
Between now and July a few things are going to happen. One, I’ll get another crack at all the chapters during “author review” (aka “do it right this time…”) and during final review of the galleys. Two, WordPress will release 3.0 which unifies the WordPress and WordPress Multiuser codebases together.
Huh.
At first my worry was WP 2.9.x because I knew that some important, user-facing changes were coming, but lucky for me, there were enough delays in getting the initial proposal approved that WP 2.9 was available for me from the start of writing the book.
I knew, however, that WP 3.0 was on the horizon. I knew that it could potentially change how people use WordPress and set up their blogs. If you could choose to create a blog network (like WordPress.com), when you install WordPress, that might be something I’d have to cover in detail. Not only that to cover it in detail I’d have to have enough time to experiment with it and have examples to show for the book.
Crap.
After stressing out about this more than just a little, and playing with the alpha versions of 3.0, I posed a few questions to the wp-testers list (namely, where did the Network setting go from Tools) today. Thanks to the members of the list I’m happy to report that for most of us WordPress 3.0 isn’t going to be a big deal. I haven’t seen the final features list, nor is the UI final, but the whole single blog vs network blog issue is settled. Here’s the deal:
It ain’t for everyone.
Just like WordPress MU isn’t for the faint of heart nor of code, turning on the network function will require more than your average server and WP ninja skills. I was reminded as well that many hosts are rather averse to people running MU on shared hosting accounts (funny that, not wanting someone to set up a blog network on their servers), so that’s something you might want to check out before you launch that uber-cool new blog network on your basic $10/mo account.
Believe me this is a huge relief. Oh, I’ll still cover WP 3.0 when it’s out, and it looks like the timing is right that I’ll be able to have a good idea of what I’ll need to change, but I don’t have to write a whole chapter on “How to start and run your own blog network…”
Or do I?
As part of working through my chapter on managing multiple blogs, I do have to account for the fact that WordPress is like potato chips, you can’t have just one. How do you manage multiple blogs? How do you know if you should have a totally separate blog, or just some clever template work to make sections more distinct? Is a the MU environment the best solution, and it’s time to find a way to implement it?
Although this is a book aimed at novices, I think it’s a reasonable thing for people to wonder when they read some of the descriptions for WordPress MU/WordPress 3.0—maybe they need to have an install like that. Now my job is how to articulate why it probably isn’t a good idea to fire up WordPress 3.0 in network blog mode and maybe there is another way to accomplish the same goal.
At least that’s the plan. We’ll see how that goes.
(thunk… thunk…)
