Adapting existing site to WP

  • Hello,

    I am new to WordPress, having installed my first-ever blog last month at https://www.showbits.net/ . I’ve had a blast learning about and configuring this site, and though it may not be perfect, I am eager to have more experiences through which to learn more about CMS.

    I have a site that is many years old, calling for an overhaul or update of its structure and look. I am wondering if WordPress is well-suited to host the content of https://www.gamebits.net/ . At first it seems a likely candidate – a navbar of Pages, a main blog column – but I’m unsure what to do with the Subpages. That is, once you click on Release Dates, PlayStation 2, or Other Articles in the navbar, you encounter a dozen other links. Where would these fit into a WP theme?

    The only way I can think to host Gamebits in WordPress requires positive answers to these two questions: Is there a way to create Pages that automatically index their Subpages, and is there a way to create Subpages that do not appear in the navbar?

    Can anyone help me either answer these questions; devise a different way to associate WordPress with Gamebits; or determine if this combination is not a good fit?

    -Ken

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • At first it seems a likely candidate – a navbar of Pages, a main blog column – but I’m unsure what to do with the Subpages. That is, once you click on Release Dates, PlayStation 2, or Other Articles in the navbar, you encounter a dozen other links. Where would these fit into a WP theme?

    Coulnd’t be easier. Think of categories in WP (PS2 and so on) as your pages and then post entries to that category. This are the links.

    So in short:

    Category = your pages
    Postings (in a particular category) = the links

    Thread Starter kgagne

    (@kgagne)

    Neat – I hadn’t thought of that… thanks!

    While my brain wraps around this approach, I find myself with more questions:

    – There is a way for the main page to default to a particular category, isn’t there? I would want a category of postings called, say, “blog”, which would not be reviews (see the main column on the front page of the current https://www.gamebits.net/ site).

    – When visitors click on a category such as “PlayStation 2”, is there a way for the output of that click to mimic the “Name, Publisher, Rating” three-columned output currently seen at https://ps2.gamebits.net/ ? (Is this what the “optional excerpt” part of the post-writing process would be for?)

    Some of these questions must have strikingly obvious answers to WordPress veterans. I really am new to this medium and appreciate any patience or help. Thank you again.

    -Ken

    There is a way for the main page to default to a particular category, isn’t there?

    Yes.

    I’m not sure about the second question, though. I’m sure it can be done, but I’m nit sure what your current website is doing, so therefore I’m not sure how to tell you to do it ??

    An even easier YES > https://ryowebsite.com/?p=46

    No, optional excerpt is NOT for doing something to “mimic” your existing listing.

    However, based on the direction outlined above by jowra, your ‘3-col output’ would be a “category archive” in WP-speech. Using category templates you can achieve all kind of effects.

    You already have one WP install; make another one for “playground” and experiment ??

    Thread Starter kgagne

    (@kgagne)

    My old site uses static HTML files and folders. I would like to migrate its content to WordPress without breaking the links.

    An example of an existing file is this:

    https://www.gamebits.net/gcn/crzytaxi.shtml

    I’d like to paste that file’s content into a WordPress post, slug name “crzytaxi.shtml”, under category “gcn” – that would produce an identical URL to the old content. But it seems slugs can’t contain periods. So I thought it’d work to use a permalink redirect plug-in, incdicating that

    /%category%/%postname%.shtml

    should now point to

    /%category%/%postname%

    But I can’t seem to get that to work, either. Do I have the right concept? If so, where is my error in execution?

    -Ken

    Thread Starter kgagne

    (@kgagne)

    I finally got the redirection I wanted to occur using either of these methods: using this plugin:

    https://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/

    to process a regular expression redirecting /(.*).shtml to /$1/

    or adding to the server’s .htaccess file these two lines:

    RewriteRule ^404\.shtml$ – [L]
    RewriteRule (.*)\.shtml /$1 [R=301,L]

    Thread Starter kgagne

    (@kgagne)

    Migration of my old site (500+ HTML files) to WordPress is complete! Thanks to all who made suggestions. The final product is at https://www.gamebits.net/

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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