Not bad for 8-11 hours work

The Artesian City website is mostly banged in as to menu structure. I’m sure I’ll find things I want to tweak when I get started on content cleanup, and the whole purpose of moving to Joomla is to add gizmos, but not bad for 8-11 hours of work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s how I did compared to my original list of things to do:

 Friday:

• download the latest Joomla release and look over the installation requirements. I’ve done it before, but I want to refresh my memory. Tried it, but the .zip file wouldn’t extract. Ended up using tar.gz, which is faster on the server (use cpanel to extract it after sending that file up), but precludes poking at it locally before using.

Saturday:

• upload the files and get the mySQL databases configured. See previous; setting up database and user was straightforward in cpanel
• at this point, the existing website should still be visible because I’m leaving the files in place, but if they are not, I’ll put up some text explaining what I’m doing. because I had to stick the files on the server, it overwrote the index file. Had it been more production-critical, I could have used a folder, but then I would have had to migrate – I knew I would have the site mostly done by Monday regardless, so I “plunged.”
• For now, I will use the default Joomla template, in the blue color. done – matches the logo eerily well. Still plan to reskin the site ASAP.
• get my logo in the upper left corner, at least (creating a proper template will be a phase II thing) done. Annoying that my logo doesn’t fit the space without being that small, but again – reskinning. No point spending a lot of time tinkering with rhuk_milkyway.
• get the menus the way I want them mostly there, although I’m sure it will progress.
• move the content over (create articles that put the content where I want it) mostly there, but links will have to be updated and presentations fixed a bit.
• look at the mailing list configuration and capabilities and set up a contact form. basic contact form is there and will mail me a contact request – a true marketing mailing list is “phase II”.
• figure out the best way to get my wearables catalog and my promotional products catalog linked to my main site. Unfortunately, both are designed in a way that resists total integration; I wish those vendors allowed more sophisticated templating or at least provided a version of the site with more stripped-out menus so I could try an i-frame technique and see how that worked. Wearables turned out really nice in the i-frame. The promo products catalog was terrible, so I just popped it in a new window with no navigation. I have little control over these sites, but I need them for product catalogs.
• from there on out it’s bug-trapping and refining. I hope to make my site more current and write more “newsy” kind of blurbs once I get it done, so the site should take shape and change character over time, but right now I’ll settle for a Joomla version of what I already have. No surprises there!