I continued my work on reconstituting the Update Archive. I was able to significantly improve my efficiency when it came to swapping out the old code for the new. I was able to complete the long journey to 2024, but as I was running out of time, I realized there were some other tweaks I needed to make to the files. Better to get it knocked out know when the list is still short. (Yes, I can search for specific pages, but I did like Wolf’s folder structure for keeping everything organized.)

When it comes to the look of the site, I’m having a real uphill battle trying to override the default CSS. It’s just something I’m going to have to hammer away at until I get it fixed. The current settings for blockquotes are really obnoxious and I need my div classes to format text the way I want. (I refuse to rely on the WYSIWYG text editor. The code those things produce is just so daggone ugly.)

For now, I want to focus on the grunt work of creating all the files and then I can focus on making it all look the way I want. As this is finals week, we don’t have to pull full days, so that means more time to focus on getting the site back up in working shape. Stay tuned.

So, yesterday I thought I’d fool around a bit with a new CMS. Little did I realize that this was an all-in deal. After hours of fighting with the system just to get a handle on basic functionality, I then had to deal with the grim reality that I wouldn’t simply be able to import the pages from my old database, which means that I have to reconstitute the whole site, all seventeen years and 3000+ pages of it. Oh, what fun.

I’d been meaning to modernize my code anyway and also make the site friendlier to mobile users, so this had to happen. I really did like Wolf CMS, but I probably shouldn’t have put off upgrading so long after the developers closed up shop. I suppose now, during the lull between school years is the best time for it.

My first step on the road to reconstruction is the Update Archive. Once that’s set, I have a reference point for the site’s content and can continue to rebuild from there. Though I have a fairly extensive offline backup, there are some gaps, but I still have the old database to dig into if needs be, and failing that, I should be able to grab content via the Wayback Machine. It’s going to be a long process, but it’s not like I’m doing everything from scratch. It could definitely be a whole lot worse.

I’ll be chronicling the recovery efforts here. Don’t expect much in the way of story progress until I’ve got everything in a serviceable form. Stay tuned.

I did a little proofing on Tico1. Not much because there was something about a graduation ceremony that folks were making a big deal about. I would later go on to implement the edits to JJ2 and TWH. I’ll work on the Space Arc stuff I’ve done tomorrow. Not exactly thrilling content, I know, but maybe I’ll do a little actual writing as well. Stay tuned.

I continued to proof Tico1. I’m enjoying immersing myself in the story again. One thing I’m noticing, though, is that my writing for dialect has become more refined since I wrote this, so reworking that to make it more consistent is going to be a bit of work. (And I can remember going back over the manuscript a several years back as well, but such are the joys of the iterative process.)

In other news, it’s been brought to my attention that the version of PHP the site’s been using is well out of date. When I tried to update it, the site stopped loading, which means that I’m going to have to migrate to a new CMS. That’ll be quite the undertaking I’m sure. I knew support ended for my current CMS years back, but I figured so long as everything was functioning, why change? Well, we’re reaching the point where that’s no longer the case. Currently I’m looking into using Drupal. It’s supposed to have a bit of a steep learning curve to it, but apparently it has some built-in functionality for adapting to mobile browsers, and that’s something I’ve been meaning to do for the site for a while now. I know it won’t be as simple as plugging in my current database, so I’ll have to roll my sleeves up and have at it. This will go well with my intentions of modernizing my code and doing some other tweaks to design. Fun, fun, fun. Stay tuned.