After numerous attempts to try and integrate a custom-built CMS I made with WordPress, I have come to the conclusion that WordPress is annoying, and that the support offered on the WordPress forums is, to put it simply, useless.

Firstly, if you try to use WordPress’ built-in login functions, even if the user exists in WordPress’ database, you just can’t login. And, this is with WordPress 2.8.6, the latest release. Registration works fine, but login fails miserably. However, you can login to WordPress using the default form located at wp-login.php. However, this just wasn’t an option.

Secondly, if you try to create a plugin to override one of their so-called ‘pluggable’ functions (in pluggable.php), it tells you it’s already declared, even though WordPress’ documentation clearly states that the plugins are checked for the existence of these functions first.

To top it all off, when you use Google to find a solution, you get heaps of posts in the WordPress forums, all with no solutions. It’s extremely frustrating when you find someone who shares your problem, but there’s no solution!

So, if you want to even try and integrate WordPress with a custom CMS, my suggestion is to try another blogging solution – WordPress seems to offer no hope.

Hopefully this might just help someone out – to many people, it’ll seem obvious, but when you’re getting frustrated, you tend to overlook the obvious…

When you’re editing WordPress themes, and you’re including content from a separate database, make sure WordPress is able to connect to the database its data is stored in at the end. I had a custom header and footer set up, and utilised a database connection to get page data. After some investigation, I realised that WordPress needed its database connection back – doh!

While working on a WordPress theme recently, I came across a particularly frustrating issue. The aim was to integrate the existing site header into the blog and, thinking this would be simple matter of a PHP include/require, I went straight ahead. However, I was wondering why variables in the included file were being ignored. It basically came about because I forgot about what require_once does – requires that file once. After using require, the variables magically appeared! Wow!

After a considerable amount of development, including a fair amount of time tweaking the site to work in IE 6, the new version of my portfolio has arrived. In this version of my portfolio, I opted to stick to one page – the portfolio, about me section and contact forms are all on one page now, with the blog being in a separate location, linked to from the home page. I wanted a design that would ‘stand out’ considerably more than the previous incarnation, which I felt to be a little lackluster and a bit ‘plain’. I feel this design is a step in the right direction and I am really pleased with the result.

To check out the new version, visit my portfolio at http://www.smctainsh.com/. Feel free to post any comments you have on this updated design.

Steven

Pardon the rendering errors and graphical problems that may occur while I set up my blog. I’m in the process of testing a new layout out at the moment, which I plan to use as a replacement for my existing portfolio design. Feel free to leave any suggestions here.

Steven