Weeknotes 24:27

December 23, 2024

Week of December 15–21

Migrating from WordPress to Craft

The best way to develop new skills in Web development is to “just build websites.” So to build upon my Craft CMS skills, I decided to recreate this site by migrating it from WordPress to Craft on my local computer. This will give me a chance to use the skills I learned from the two Craft CMS courses I took on CraftQuest.

The Craft site has a Craft 101 page for WordPress developers interested in migrating their sites into Craft. They have created a WordPress Starter Project and a WP Import plugin to make it easy to migrate from WordPress to Craft. I followed the instructions of the Craft 101 page and under an hour had the content of my site and basic Craft templates to start building upon to recreate using Craft.

I used the starter project files as a starting point and then modified them for my specific needs.

  • I started with the pages and posts template on Wednesday and knocked that one out fast
  • I built out the homepage template from scratch on Thursday
  • I worked on the blog archive page on Friday and was able to use things I learned in the Building a Content Archive course on CraftQuest to recreate my archive page which groups posts by year. I was also able to recreate my layout functionality option by converting my PHP to Twig

I plan to write a more detailed post of my experience in the near future.

The CSS is Awesome Game

I celebrated CSS’s birthday on Tuesday by watching a special episode of Winging It. Michelle Barker and Kevin Powell teamed up to compete against Stephanie Eckels and Miriam Suzanne in several different games ($10,000 Pyramid, Password, and Jeopardy). I enjoyed commenting in the chat as the game progressed. I don’t think I would have like being on the hot seat trying to answer the questions that were being asked. I had a fun time watching those CSS voices sweat it out and learned a few things along the way. A nice way to celebrate CSS (and my) birthday on Tuesday.

Featured in the Craft CMS Newsletter

Earlier in the day on Wednesday, I checked my Site Counter account to monitor traffic to my site. I noticed that I was getting a lot of traffic to a post I had written the previous week about reacquainting myself with Craft. Based on the source of the traffic, I deduced that the post must have been featured in an email newsletter. I was thinking it might be the Craft CMS newsletter–because I had mentioned them on Bluesky when I publicized the reacquainting post. But I had not received the newsletter in my inbox so I could not confirm.

Later in the day when I went to see Interstellar at an IMAX theater, I saw the newsletter in my inbox while I was waiting for the movie to start.

Screenshot of Craft CMS newsletter email linking to a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago about getting reacquainted with Craft.
My post featured in the Craft Community updates section of the December newsletter

A Day of building

I got to spend Friday afternoon doing something I really enjoy–building things. Many years ago, I took the Motivated Abilities Pattern (MAP) test. One of the insights that I gained was that my central motivating outcome was to realize concepts. Front-end development has really been a sweet spot for me because it has allowed me to realize a concept by bringing a design for a website to life through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And one of my favorite activities as a child was building models and LEGO sets.

I started by working on the archive template for my WordPress to Craft project I mentioned above. I was excited to see that come together and figure out how to do some things in Twig that I had done with PHP on my WordPress install.

My daughter bought me a LEGO Space Shuttle set for my birthday. She came into my son’s room where I had been working on the Craft template and wanted to build a set she had while I built mine. She had received a flower set in a white elephant gift exchange. I had a lot of fun building this set. I forget how much joy building a set like this brings me and reconnects me with the inner child who has always enjoyed LEGO.

Completed LEGO space shuttle model with bay doors open and satellite on the arm

What I built

  • WordPress plugin – I built a simple WordPress plugin to display a blurb at the bottom of each of my posts linking to my post about looking for a new opportunity. My site saw increased traffic from the Craft CMS newsletter. I wanted to take advantage of the increased traffic on my site to point people to my post about looking for a new opportunity. A tutorial from WP Beginner helped me to build my first WordPress plugin.
  • LEGO Space Shuttle
  • This site in Craft

Articles I read

What I watched

Books I am reading

Walking

  • Monday – 4.26 miles in 1 hour 16 minutes – My son joined me and we had a chance to talk and connect.
  • Tuesday – 2.73 miles in 51 minutes
  • Wednesday – 4.24 miles in 1 hour 16 minutes

What I played

  • NBA Live 18 – I played a game with my son as we waited for NBA 2K25 to finish downloading.
  • NBA 2K25 – I played a game on Saturday. I was planning to play with my son but we watched the Chiefs-Texans game and did not get a chance to play on Saturday.

1 Comment

  1. Weekly Links 01.06–01.12 – ntdln

    January 13th, 2025

    […] Weeknotes 24:27 (Jeff Bridgforth) […]

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