Why I switched to WordPress
Blogger is a mandatory blogging service that I have used for a long time to share ideas in writing and images. At first I only used Blogger to create a personal blog. A blog containing a collection of poems and journals that I wrote myself in a writing style that is still very fiery.
The blog still exists today. Until then I decided to move it to my own blog generator because some of my external assets that I stored on Google Code actually violated Google's rules, so my account was then blocked and in the end they both lived happily ever after.
At that time I uploaded some anime MP3 files to listen to on the blog. If you think about it now, it's only natural that at that time I was blocked. But after all , Google Code finally decided to close its services too in 2016 because the more open source project developers are here, the more inclined towards GitHub is more open than Google.
2011 was the year when I was excited to learn how to modify the appearance of the blog. That year was the year when I felt confident enough to share my coding knowledge which was still limited in the ability to change CSS color codes and add embedded video code into posts; copy-paste coding model which I again got from the internet too. Until then I decided to make this blog as a placeshare show off.
It has been almost 10 years that this blog has been active under the Blogger engine with the same features. I feel that now is the perfect time to migrate to another content management system, to start learning to face new risks that I have never encountered on Blogger.
Why is the title "Moving to WordPress"?
Click Feed . I want to know whether the form of a title like this can trigger curiosity and disappointment from readers on my blog, especially readers who have been following the development of this blog since 2011.
Not. I never thought about moving this blog to the WordPress engine. I also never thought about moving this blog to another content management system like Drupal or Joomla. The main goal I create a blog is to immortalize my writings on the internet. WordPress (and friends) is for me too complex, too popular, and too frequently updated. I'm worried if I can't keep up with the developments. WordPress features too many. Whereas what I really need is a feature to display posts as HTML, and some standard blog features to interact with readers such as a comment feature and a contact form.
A static web page generator is fine, but it doesn't have a reader interaction feature. I also didn't have the chance to try it at that time, because I was still afraid of the command line display. It was only recently after the release of Mecha's 2.0.0 that I started tapping into static web page generators a bit as there were offers to contribute to building Jekyll and Gatsby-based websites. But Mecha has already grown so it's a shame if I don't use it for my own personal needs.
Overcoming Long-Term Worry
There is a time when I will grow old and therefore there will be more and more things in the world such as to take care of wiveswife and children. Blogging is a great hobby, but not every real-life problem can be solved by writing.
So… by moving my blog to Mecha, I'm actually in the process of capturing the contents of this blog as files and folders that can be moved to other places easily. Someday, if I don't have the time and money to take care of everything, either because I fall into poverty, because my eyesight is increasingly blurred, or because my life priorities have changed, maybe I will share the source code of this blog to the public as ZIP or docker files that you can download and extract to read locally.
Actually, it has been a long time since I wanted to turn this blog into a Mecha blog, but I had a problem with my limited hosting space. Even though the final size of the entire data on my blog after changing is actually only in the range of 60 MB (including Mecha size and the images in the post), but still there are worries if my server load will swell, especially for managing input from visitors such as comments and statistical data that I might not be able to control easily.
In addition, this blog also does not use a database. They only contain regular files and folders. There is concern that the process of reading and updating files is much more burdensome than reading and updating databases.
Present condiition
Currently, the data import process is 100%. But from an appearance point of view, HTML markup and link form may still not be perfect. Especially the problem of redirecting old links. Because the links on Blogger mostly end with an extension .htmlwhereas on Mecha-based blogs, the link form does not end with an extension.html
In addition, the security guarantee on this blog is still very minimal. I had to omit the control panel feature because I was still unsure of its safety. As long as there is not enough input from Mecha users, security issues with the control panel extension will not be guaranteed.
Since there is no control panel feature, there is no comment moderation feature either. Well ... just get ready the next time this blog gets flooded with junk comments.
Blogger is actually good, but because Blogger is not a content management system, there are so many limitations. One of them is that there is no access for me to edit incoming comments.
I also want to be free from third-party services, and I want to make more articles with a broader discussion theme, not only about technical matters.
By the way, recently I'm planning a collaboration with an acquaintance of mine on Facebook to raise the DIV project together. In the future I will be more involved in JavaScript and server-side programming languages such as for handling PHP and databases. If you need help creating a custom website or plugin, you can contact him. Later, if in your project there are parts that I need to work on, I will have a role there.
AUTHOR: Nilesh
LABEL: WORDPRESS
CATEGORY: ESSAYS