First I started using categories as tags. Then got too many categories to be manageable. Then I converted them all to tags using converter from WP, which fucked up the categories. Then I got all those back to categories, which fucked up the tags.
I then tried to find a plugin that will help me deal with that mess and found none. There were few for older versions, but the ever changing WP internal structure that got more and more complex with each version forced those developers to give up.
So I did it manually. Deleted everything I did not want as category and thus ended up with 100+ posts in General category. Then one by one I assigned them to appropriate categories. Sucks, but it was the only thing that worked.
Does it really must be like this?
I did try to do it directly in the database. No way in hell. Posts are posts but are also pages. And maybe one more thing, not sure. Categories are not property of the posts or vice versa – instead they form a taxonomy. Which can be multiples for one cat/post pair. Each update is new taxonomy, you see. Really useful. And taxonomy is then one part of relationships table. The other part is object_id. Quite explanatory. You see object_id is …
Bah. I probably got half of the previous paragraph wrong. I can understand why no one wants to write a plugin that deals with that mess. I do hope Automattic has some sort of database re-factoring planned along the way. Otherwise this thing will self implode.
I seriously doubt this. Why? Because, as all systems with many users and many versions (think Windows), WP has a big problem on its back called backward compatibility.
Writing new version, which would have better new database structure AND being able to upgrade from any of old DB versions is a quite a task…
They already do that. 2.0 has broken compatibility with 1.x, 2.3 did the same with previous 2.x versions. And those are the ones I noticed.
Underlying changes were large and good chunk of plugins needed an update.
I don’t keep my hopes high though.
No offence, but if you are professional web developer, why you are using WP? I thought that web developers make their own web site/pages… And are you using other php scripts like Joomla, drupal etc. for developing or you make your own projects? If you’r using open-source script than you are an editor not professional web developer. Sorry for my direct questions, but I also doing something similiar like you, and just wonder… I hope you’ll approve this comment to discuss. Regards.
Ivan, I built quite a bit of personal engines and certainly don’t feel the urge to do it again and again. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Re-using existing tools to build a web site, CMS, portal or whatever does not make one lesser web developer.
Hardly just an editor though — building a completely new theme using WP, sometimes even writing custom PHP queries to achieve something is no less professional than rolling with your own stuff.
Anyone can use ready-made WP themes. It takes a designer/developer to make your own. That alone is distinction enough.
Backward compatibility in wordpress has always been a BIG problem for me. There are few plugins that i had to re-code because their developers gave up on them with new versions of wp. So , i decided to declare a war with backward compatibility :D