So, as you may have guessed from the title, this is my first test of the SteemPress plugin for WordPress.
SteemPress header from the WordPress plugin page
Why SteemPress?
Earlier today, SteemPress announced it was now the proud recipient of a nice hefty delegation with which to encourage its users! Never one to turn down the opportunity for an extra scrap of Steem Power, I decided to give it a try! Believe it or not, I'm not quite the scavenging vulture that comes across in that statement. Truth be told, I love trying out as many new implementations of the Steem blockchain as I can get my hands on, particular those that blend in with my normal creative endeavors. I'd been meaning to try out SteemPress for some time now, and let's just say today's article gave that little extra nudge.
For those who are unsure what SteemPress is, and don't want to click the link above, here's a paste in of a quick description found there.
If you are not already familiar with SteemPress, it is a WordPress plugin co-founded by @howo and @fredrikaa that allows posts made on any WordPress blogs to be automatically converted and posted to the Steem blockchain. Beyond making it convenient to share content published on a website also to steemit.com without the need of added editing, we also provide many added features. These include post scheduling, SEO protection and much more. To download the plugin, or for more information, see the link below: https://wordpress.org/plugins/steempress/#descriptionSo as you can see it's a pretty handy tool, and one with massive potential given the widespread use of the WordPress content management system across the web!
Why WordPress?
Over the past several months I've been every so slowly rebuilding my "website empire." Admittedly, it was never that amazing in the past, but for a brief while I didn't have any sites up at all. Right now I have barely anything up, just a lot of placeholder work in progress. The last site iterations were built using Adobe Muse. Some time ago I decided to move away from it and favor WordPress based sites instead, as I had already begun to see the burgeoning Steem support and interaction that I knew wouldn't come to Adobe Muse widgets, and I'm all about that Steem! My decision was a fortunate one as not long after Adobe announced their intention to discontinue the Adobe Muse product, so I'd have been orphaned from my current site builder of choice in the coming months regardless.
So I'm back in the land of WordPress and enjoying it so far. One of the things I discovered was that many of the problems I had with WordPress in the past, and greatly disliked it for... were most likely not it's fault, but rather the result of poor hosting! I'd been using web host FatCow, and the server responsiveness, database errors, etc, were abysmal. Since I've set up on SiteGround instead, the interface is screaming fast and smooth and I've had no problems. I'm also excited that it again gives me access to the Comic Easel plugin, which is one of the most ubiquitous ways for webcomic artists to publish and organize their stories online.
Why SteemPress and WordPress?
As I mentioned, I've been working to rebuild my personal websites. Doing that means I've started to copy over the writings that I posted directly to Steemit.com, reformat them, etc. Going forward, if I wanted to keep that dual approach it would mean the same. Write at one place or the other, copy over, reformat, etc. If I can write in one spot and publish to both effortlessly, that's a huge win.
I see my personal site built on WordPress as a fully customizable Steemit page. What it takes many people a while to realize, is that Steem is not Steemit. Steem is so much more. Steemit is only one small website leveraging the Steem blockchain. With tools like SteemPress and the other project I'm massively excited about, Finally Comments, I could create a little Steem based world for myself and my few fans, without any of us ever having to leave my personal site. Of course I want to leave my site to meet all the other awesome folks on Steem, but nevertheless, the point stands. With WordPress and the few tools already existing, anyone can create a fully featured customizable Steem utilizing webpage.
What's This Finally Comments You Speak Of?
FinallyComments header from finallycomments.com
Finally Comments is a project by @sambillingham that allows you to generate code to embed Steem based comments anywhere on the web, much like a Disqus or Facebook comments plugin. While it's usable now with some simple cut and paste, a WordPress plugin has already been announced as an in development priority. If you follow the link that I believe this SteemPress article will generate (remember, I'm testing it for the first time, wish me luck!) back to my personal site, you'll see after a couple minutes that I've set up a Finally Comments section below the blog post. So... not only have I cross posted my article to Steem, I've then brought back the best parts of Steem to my own site with site with just a few clicks. Users can vote, comment and interact in all the ways they would on Steemit direct from a personal site instead!
Ok, enough for one night. I hope this test goes well. I'm anxious to see how this formats over to Steemit! I also hope I've inspired some of you with a little more knowledge on how easy it can be to Steem the Web! Please excuse the sorry state of any websites of mine you may stumble across right now. I promise I'll whip them into shape soon!
-Bryan "the Imp" Imhoff
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://bryanimhoff.com/2018/06/05/a-first-test-of-steempress-thoughts-on-combining-wordpress-and-steem/