Ayetti957 wrote:
@John Walker I know I should probalby just use wordpress for everything, but my work is so awkward in WP and so much faster in DW that it seems like a huge step backwards.
Ayetti957,
You can quite easily convert your static html website to Wordpress. It means you have to convert every page to a template so if you have 100 pages it probably IS NOT the way to go. If your static html site consists of 20, even 30 pages then its worth the effort.
Firstly I would make a dummy site to test this on of say 5 pages before getting in a mess working with multiple pages if you don't really know waht you are doing.
What you need to do is open every page and give it a template name:
For instance open your index.html page and insert the below at the very top and then save the index.html file as homepage.php
<?php /* Template Name: Home Page */ ?>
If you have a contact page open that up and insert the below at the very top and save the file with a .php extention so if your page was originally contact_us.html save it as contact_us.php
<?php /* Template Name: Contact Us */ ?>
Next open your css file and insert a template theme name at the top, for instance Springtime (can be any name you want)
/*
Theme Name: Springtime
Author: Your Name
*/
IMPORTANT:- Your css file must be saved as style.css
Ok now you have the basis of the conversion.
Next transfer all your php files over to the Wordpress 'themes' folder. Create a folder within the 'themes' folder, give it the same name as your theme name which you declared at the top of your css file.
Next go to the Wordpress dashboard and choose 'Appearance'>'Themes' and choose your new theme.
Go back to the Wordpress dashboard and choose 'Settings'>'permalinks' and select 'Post name' from the radio button list.
Back in the Wordpress dashboard choose 'Pages'. Create a new page and call it 'Home Page'. From the right side bar under the 'Templates' drop menu choose 'Home Page'. All your template names should be listed under the 'Templates' drop menu. Create as many new pages as you have template names and associate those new pages with their template name by choosing it under the 'Template' drop menu.
Go back to the Wordpress dashboard and select 'Settings'>'Reading' and set the 'Front page displays' to 'a static page' (choose the appropriate radio button) and select 'Home page' from the 'Front page' drop menu.
Ok add some content to your Worpress pages. Open homepage.php in your 'theme' folder and select all of the content that you want to be dynamic and cut it from the page. Then in Wordpress go to 'Pages' and select 'Home Page'. Select html view in the editor and paste the content you cut from the 'homepage.php' into the editor and publish the 'Home Page' in Wordpress.
Back in homepage.php in your themes folder insert the php loop below where you cut the content from.
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php edit_post_link( __( 'Edit this section'), '<span class="edit-link" style="clear:right;">', '</span>' ); ?>
<?php endwhile; // end of the loop. ?>
Repeat the same procedure for your other pages.
For linking from page to page what you also need to do is look at the permalink for each page of your site,. A site set up locally on your computer they will be something like:
homppage.php.............http://localhost/wordpress/
contact-us.php..........http://localhost/wordpress/contact-us
Make sure the links in your pages are correct:
<a href="http://localhost/wordpress/">Home</a>
<a href="http://localhost/wordpress/contact-us">Contact Us</a>
Obviously when you come to transfer to a remote server cchange the http://localhost/ to your domain name.
Where Wordpress fails is it makes it difficult to easily create more than one editable 'content block' per page so you need to google 'multiple content blocks in Wordpress' if you want several content areas you would like editable.
