Website Tweaking

As noted in a recent post, I tweaked the WCG Comics website so that users can place orders right from the home page. The landing page immediately highlights the most recent and popular comics for sale, rather than news, announcements and promotion. While that latter content is still there—my website has also always served to document my comics activities—I realized that the sales buttons needed to be front and center.

On top of that, as part of the ongoing need to keep the site compliant with current web standards, I just migrated to a new payment processor. From the very start, I've used PayPal when my website was in simple html and, and later, css format, and have always been happy with it. My main concern has been that some users might believe a PayPal account was required to make a purchase (it isn't). However, PayPal recently began sending me notices that the protocol used at my site was out of date and should be upgraded. Unfortunately, I found the directions and requirements for PayPal's updated integration protocol to be beyond my technical abilities, so began exploring and testing other payment plugins that more seamlessly integrated with my WordPress website. 

Though it took me a little time to understand the whole ecosphere of the e-commerce process, I began by installing WooCommerce, a popular e-commerce plug-in for WordPress that works fairly seamlessly (WooCommerce is owned by the same parent company as WordPress). This turned out to be a no-brainer since WooCommerce works and partners almost universally with all the top payment processors. It was just a matter of determining which one worked best.

I first tried connecting WooCommerce to PayPal since I already had an existing account there, but surprisingly, the same obstacle related to the level of technical proficiency needed still existed, requiring a level of coding I wasn't comfortable with. I then tried WooCommerce's in-house WooPayments—without going too far into the weeds, I surprisingly found the verification process very complicated and frustrating. Though I understand the need to properly verify my business credentials, it seemed unnecessarily long and complicated, particularly given my experience easily getting approval from other processors and doing business online for more than 25 years. With all that—and even after exchanging some emails with the company (there was no chat or telephone option to speak with someone in person)—I felt caught in a loop with nothing to show for it. (To be fair, without going into the minute details, the delay was related to the need for the IRS to properly confirm my business status with paperwork I never needed before and that still needed to be processed.)

Frustrated by an exercise unlike my relatively straightforward and painless experience with other processors, I downloaded a plugin for Square, another prominent payment processor—indeed, I've used Square and have had an account with them for years to make sales at conventions with a credit card reader (and now with my mobile phone as a tap device). In contrast to PayPal and WooPayments, getting verified by Square nearly instantly turned out to be a very simple and straightforward.

So very long story short, after all that and some testing that went smoothly, the migration is done! (I should add that at one point in this process, when I was starting out and playing around, I somehow "broke" my website—fortunately, I had a backup—albeit not a recent one—that I was able to quickly restore. But it taught me a valuable lesson—to use the sandbox accounts I had created to test changes first and to back up my website more regularly!) 

While I don't believe the PayPal protocol was due to be retired or rendered obsolete anytime soon, the new plug-in processes orders all within the WCG Comics website umbrella rather than redirects users  to a third party website (PayPal) to complete a purchase. As a result, the process looks more seamless and professional. It's a change I actually wanted to make for awhile and I'm glad for once I was ahead of the curve in doing so when I had the luxury to figure it all out rather than under the gun because the protocol was being discontinued. 

WordPress Migration

In addition to my comics work, I’m a bit of a computer geek and, along those lines, one of the skills I’m proudest of is my web capability—launched in 1998, my WCG Comics website initially gave me a simple web presence, then evolved and grew. Not only does it enable me to sell my comics directly to users, it’s also a promotional channel, now supplemented, of course, by my social media accounts and this blog. Also like this blog, it serves as a historical record of my comics work and career, documenting and listing projects and activities like my annual photo galleries and reports of the San Diego Comic-Con, news coverage, interviews and more.

The website began as a simple HTML page in 1998. Then around 2007, I taught myself CSS and upgraded the site to html/css. In 2017, I gave the site a major design overhaul, which I've retained through the present day, also making it more mobile-responsive. This was all made possible with Adobe Dreamweaver—a WYSIWYG and html editor tool that was once an industry standard. Since then, I continued to use Dreamweaver to update manage the website.

As I mentioned in a post earlier this year, I began weaning myself from the Adobe Suite of graphics and design applications, and have already successfully migrated away from Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. However, finding a replacement and alternative for Dreamweaver was surprisingly difficult—they just don’t seem to exist. Though I thought I found an acceptable if somewhat clunky alternative in a product called BlueGriffon and even purchased it (fortunately, it wasn't very expensive), it turns out it was discontinued in 2019 and, more significantly, would not work if and when I finally upgraded my Mac OS, which was the primary reason I’ve been migrating away from Adobe. The only viable alternatives appeared to be pure coding editors or applications that only created proprietary website files—applications that would not allow me to simply open or edit my existing html/css files, so I’d have to re-create the site from scratch.

wcgcomics.com in December 2009

That all said, website development and management the last decade or so has moved to web-based CMS (Content Management Systems), the dominant player being WordPress. (I also am familiar with Weebly, where I maintain a personal family website.)

Over the years, I played with WordPress, but always found it  daunting and impenetrable. (I’m self-taught and rely on documentation—e.g., Google and YouTube—when I get stuck or need to learn how to do something.) However, finally faced with a real need to move away from Dreamweaver and html/css completely, I leaned more heavily into learning and understanding WordPress. 

In recent years, I had already taken baby steps in this direction, first creating an account at wordpress.org to "play" in. More recently, when I became a bit more determined, I asked my webhost company to create a subdomain "sandbox" within my website where they installed WordPress, which allowed me to experiment and play more with the system within my account.

After a few breakthrough moments this past week, I finally cracked WordPress. (It sounds simple, but one of the keys was understanding the difference between blog postings and web pages—WordPress was initially created as a blogging tool and remains its default setting).

Once I overcame these humps and cracked the code in my mind, I became proficient enough to begin duplicating my existing website with the help of a template theme that met my needs. After I figured out how to expand WordPress's features with plug-ins and themed templates, I was off and running. Being able to recreate my home page and my webstore—complete with PayPal purchase buttons that worked correctly—was my priority. If I could make those pages functional, the rest was gravy.

So I’m now in the process of building out the rest of the site—being able to cut and paste from the old site to the new, maintaining many of the links and coding in the process—has made it almost a breeze.

As such, I’m now on track to migrate the entire site shortly. It’s way overdue and I’m glad I can finally upgrade to a more up-to-date web-based CMS system that will no longer require me to maintain individual files on my desktop computer.

UPDATE (7/8/22):

As of July 8, 2022,  the new WordPress site became active! While it turned out to be a relatively smooth process, there were nevertheless some bumps along the way...

As I began building out the WordPress site in a subdomain, I spoke with a support person at my webhost service who initially assured me that the company would be able to transfer the new site into my main domain. However, a week later, when I contacted the webhoster again, I was informed that such work was beyond their scope of service(!). They initially provided a link with instructions that were too technical for my skill level. When I subsequently told them that this was beyond my skill level and comfort zone, and confirmed again that they could not do the work, they suggested using a plug-in application made exactly for such migrations called Duplicator that was widely used.

All things considering, the process and the application were relatively fast and simple—fortunately, I found a couple of YouTube videos that walked me through the process that I followed literally step by step. Indeed, to be sure I understood the process, I first deployed the migration into another subdomain that I created specifically for the purpose of testing the installation. I figured that if it was successful, I would then install the main site.

The test was indeed a success so I then proceeded with the installation that would overwrite the existing main domain. However, after I did so, I was unable to read the file to initialize the install of the new files(!). In a panic, I restored the original html files and found the site still worked with the old files. However, after consulting YouTube again, I found a small trick that allowed me to correctly launch the installation—with this adjustment, everything went perfectly smoothly like the earlier test. The new WordPress-powered site was now live—whew!

Below are screenshots of the wcgcomics.com website over the years—courtesy of the Wayback Machine!

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October 2000

February 2005

January 2012 – around the time I introduced use of the sliding images

December 2016

April 2017 – this is the layout design I still use for the new
WordPress site.

RIP: PalmPilot Zire 72

After recently upgrading to an iPhone and exploring the device's full capabilities, I've finally decided to put my trusty Palm Zire 72 electronic organizer out to pasture.

I'll miss my ol' Palm—back in the stone age, as my calendaring and personal information needs grew, I began using a personal organizer/Filofax to keep things in order. After several years, however, the inconvenience of having to re-enter information each year on a new paper calendar soon had me eyeing, then eventually upgrading to a Palm device (first the m100, then the Zire 72) where items obviously could automatically carry over year after year.

I often described the Palm as essentially an electronic personal organizer, which had the added advantage of keeping all of the device's stored information synchronized with a desktop computer where I could back it up and also access and edit the data separately. In addition to the calendar, I used the Palm to store and track to-do lists, projects and, using an outstanding secure program called SplashID, a myriad of passwords and other private and confidential information for myself and my family like social security numbers, website and forum logins and passwords, etc.

When I upgraded to my iPhone, however, I soon realized that my new device (which is as much a mini computer and personal organizer as it is a mobile phone) rendered the Palm obsolete and redundant. So rather than carry both a mobile phone and a Palm, I moved to consolidate everything onto the iPhone, which I always carried with me anyway. It soon became just a matter of finding the equivalent Palm applications in the iPhone apps store. My main prerequisites were the ability to migrate my data easily from the Palm to the iPhone without having to re-key information manually; and the ability to access and sync the data on a computer desktop as well as the iPhone.

Along the way, I played with and discovered several great apps and functions.

• For my to-do lists, I adapted Zenbe Lists, which syncs wirelessly from the iPhone to a personal free web account where I can also manage and edit my lists online.
• For longer memos and notes (this is where I keep running lists like films I've seen, etc.), I installed gNotes, which wirelessly syncs my iPhone with Google Notebook, which is a free feature of my gmail/Google account. I already used iGoogle extensively, so adapting to Google Notebook was easy and convenient.
• Finally, for storing my logins, passwords, and other sensitive private information, I ended up simply using the same application I used for this function on my Palm, SplashID. SplashID appears to be the gold standard for such software (and I do recommend it), but the primary reason I decided to use it was because I obviously was able to simply import the data from my Palm to the iPhone version of SplashID. However, I must say there were a few minor technical hurdles I had to overcome for the software to work and sync with the iPhone.
• Honorable mention, however, must also go to Memengo's Wallet application. While SplashID provides a separate desktop application that wirelessly syncs over a wi fi network with the iPhone, Wallet provides a free web account that wirelessly syncs stored data with iPhone over the internet. (SplashID also is significantly more expensive.) This means you can access your data on your iPhone or from any desktop with Web access, and manage and edit the data there as well. (By the way, I should add that these password programs always require password access, so even if you lose your device, it theoretically can't be accessed). I actually found Wallet's iPhone interface to be to be more elegantly designed and organized. I've kept the Wallet app on my iPhone and have left the door open to fully migrate to it based on how SplashID pans out.
  

In a future post, I'll be mentioning a few other apps—both on the iPhone and online—I can't do without!