ROAD DREAM
The Journey That Took me Deeper into the World of
WordPress
The Journey That Took me Deeper into the World of
WordPress
The Beginning
In the July of 2010 I got a hint about a project in a dire need of web designer with knowledge about WordPress. Road Dream was a six-man project to bicycle from Finland to Greece and to document the trip. The website was to consist of a blog andfew other static pages, including a list of sponsors. It also needed to be easy to use and update by the client without a need of an expert.
While working on this assignment it became obvious that the platform was not flexible enough for the content management. It lacked certain elements and properties. WordPress needed to be further manipulated to fulfill the needs. Fortunately, WordPress had released a new upgraded version which had these elements and properties build in the core. Still there needed to be more work done so those properties could be used.
The client also wanted the system to be easily maintained and make it light as they would update it on the road. This required me to remove the clutter from the back-end.
I wrote my Bachelor's Theses about this case
In the July of 2010 I got a hint about a project in a dire need of web designer with knowledge about WordPress. Road Dream was a six-man project to bicycle from Finland to Greece and to document the trip. The website was to consist of a blog andfew other static pages, including a list of sponsors. It also needed to be easy to use and update by the client without a need of an expert.
While working on this assignment it became obvious that the platform was not flexible enough for the content management. It lacked certain elements and properties. WordPress needed to be further manipulated to fulfill the needs. Fortunately, WordPress had released a new upgraded version which had these elements and properties build in the core. Still there needed to be more work done so those properties could be used.
The client also wanted the system to be easily maintained and make it light as they would update it on the road. This required me to remove the clutter from the back-end.
I wrote my Bachelor's Theses about this case
The Structure
The site's main media consisted of videos and pictures. Not only was there videos in the main feed but there were also some in the static pages. These videos were to be published both in the main feed and in the specific page. Also the site uses Geotagging as a mean to integrate posts with geo locations.
The site's main media consisted of videos and pictures. Not only was there videos in the main feed but there were also some in the static pages. These videos were to be published both in the main feed and in the specific page. Also the site uses Geotagging as a mean to integrate posts with geo locations.
The site as it's seen in www.roaddream.org
Geo Tagging
Geo tagging the posts and that way making it easier for users to follow their travel was THE single most important criteria in the project. I succeeded on it by using Geo Mashup plugin which I'm yet again using on another site. Since the summer of 2010 the plugin itself has evolved immensely and I recommend anyone to use it especially those who develop sites. In Road Dream's site the posts' locations where also displayed in the post's meta section
Geo Tagging
Geo tagging the posts and that way making it easier for users to follow their travel was THE single most important criteria in the project. I succeeded on it by using Geo Mashup plugin which I'm yet again using on another site. Since the summer of 2010 the plugin itself has evolved immensely and I recommend anyone to use it especially those who develop sites. In Road Dream's site the posts' locations where also displayed in the post's meta section
The map and the posts' that had been tagged formed the route.
Watch Your Language!
One criteria for the site was that it needed to be multilingual. For this I used the qTranslate plugin which enabled to create one single post with multiple translations instead of creating multiple posts for every translation. For the hard coded parts I created a function that could recognize whether the user browsed the Finnish or the English side of the site and adjusted the content accordingly. With the plugin I was also able to organize posts and pages so that the site was consistent through and thorugh. Nowadays I wouldn't need to create my own functions as the translation part of the WordPress platform has advanced.
Watch Your Language!
One criteria for the site was that it needed to be multilingual. For this I used the qTranslate plugin which enabled to create one single post with multiple translations instead of creating multiple posts for every translation. For the hard coded parts I created a function that could recognize whether the user browsed the Finnish or the English side of the site and adjusted the content accordingly. With the plugin I was also able to organize posts and pages so that the site was consistent through and thorugh. Nowadays I wouldn't need to create my own functions as the translation part of the WordPress platform has advanced.
gTranslate in practice.
The Road Dream guys were happy for the site and my performance during the weeks they were cycling through Europe.
The Road Dream guys were happy for the site and my performance during the weeks they were cycling through Europe.
