About to launch a website built using Textpattern? You'll want to make sure everything is fine and dandy before launching. It's so easy to get focused on the site specifics that a few basic must-dos can easily get missed, so hopefully the following checklist will be of use to you:-
Pre-launch checklist
1. Remove textpattern/setup/
Get rid of the textpattern/setup/ directory — once Textpattern is installed you really don't need or want this directory so it is best removed.
2. Validate
Make sure your markup complies with good web standards. Textpattern is "Standards compliant by default" so it is worth making sure that what you are launching is too.
Make use of the W3C's Validator as well as their CSS Validator.
3. Remove test content
Make sure you delete any test content you've added (you know all that useful Loriem Ipsum text you possibly put up for testing). There's also article #1 that Textpattern added on install, that "Welcome to Your Site!" one, and Donald Swain's comment (#000001).
4. Remove unwanted templates/plugins
The chances are that there are a few page and form templates that you're just not using (including those Textpattern installed). It's worth removing these so that a few months down the line you don't get confused over their purpose, or where things are actually happening. Basically make sure that everything under your Presentation tab is nice and tidy.
Similarly, it is worth taking a glance over your plugins table (Admin>Plugins) to make sure that anything not being used is at least disabled, or better still deleted.
5. Pre-flight diagnostics check
Ensure everything passes the pre-flight checks on the diagnostics tab. You'll find the site diagnostics under the Admin tab of textpattern/ and hopefully will see the text "All checks passed!" in green. This will make sure that:-
- textpattern/setup/ has been removed (#1 on my checklist)
- your file directory path is writable
6. Go live!
Make sure that your site's production status is set to live and not testing (and definitely not debugging). You don't want any unpleasant Textpattern or PHP errors showing on your new site once it is no longer in the development phase. The live status also has less of an overhead on the server.
Suggestions?
This is by no means a definitive list, if you have any suggestions/additions to this then feel free to leave a comment below. Hopefully the checklist will help some of you out there when you next deploy a site with Textpattern.
Good stuff. I always use a no-index meta when developing on a sub domain and always forget to remove that! Doh.
Also I don’t bother about validating CSS as I use a sprinkle of CSS3 which doesn’t validate.
— Oliver Ker · Wed Jul 21, 08:14 AM
I have similar issues with using the W3C validator, although it was pointed out to me this afternoon by a colleague that you can change the CSS level. There’s some (hidden) ‘Options’ that let you control the version of CSS.
It’s still worth using to catch any of those little mistakes in the basic CSS that shouldn’t have got into the stylesheet.
— Andy Carter · Wed Jul 21, 05:47 PM
Use such a useful checklist as 1st article :-)
— Markus Merz | Hamburg St. Georg · Wed Jul 21, 06:44 PM
I don’t validate my CSS anymore. I build website for human not for robots. CSS3 are invalid but looks great in human eyes :-)
One more checklist. If you use ZEM_CONTACT, make sure it works.
— Kus · Mon Jul 26, 08:39 AM
@Kus: I partly agree with you, but still believe there is some value in validating CSS. Yes there will be those errors due to some CSS3 styling, but I ignore those and make sure that I haven’t made any small mistakes elsewhere. It is just one way of helping to ensure that the site will display as expected to the end user. 100% validation with the W3C is a bit meaningless these days.
Like your comment about checking that zem_contact works – probably should add to the list to check that all forms work as expected and that results get sent to the correct email.
— Andy Carter · Mon Jul 26, 12:17 PM