V1: Replica
Years ago, I wrote Python (Django) skeleton framework to quickly build custom content management systems for clients. After being hired full time to work on VR, I rewrote the framework specifically for A Life Well Played, and named it Replica. At the time, I was burnt out on WordPress and PHP websites, and just wanted something fast, written in Python that accomplished pretty much the exact functionality of WordPress and most other CMS’s.
Replica allowed me to quickly prototype new ideas and design quickly, while keeping content formatted in Markdown (or optionally HTML). I accomplished this by rewriting a lot of Django’s templating system to allow loading templates from from a database instead of HTML files, with syntax similar to modern MDX.
The Admin portion was based on what Ghost CMS was originally supposed to look like. Powered by Chart.js, I created a UX to easily see what posts were scheduled to publish, ideas I was working on, and engagement.
The problem with building your own CMS for a single blog I quickly found, however, is that you’ll spend more time building the system, then actually getting to write on it.
Overall, the experience gave me a better understanding on UX best practices for building future dashboards, and what’s practical and needed for users.
V2: The Move to WordPress
Knowing the direction I wanted to go, after about 4 years, I made the switch to WordPress. Because of careful planning of data structure from the start, it was incredibly easy to export 100’s of posts to WordPress, by mapping a JSON structure to WordPress’s WXML. Knowing how I wanted to layout out new content going forward, it was also easy to port over my custom templates (both dynamic and static) to WordPress’s theme system.
While no longer maintained, the theme can still be viewed on Github.
V3: Ghost And Beyond
While WordPress offer’s a lot of great tools for writing and making the site truly yours, unless you have a great hosting plan, it can still be slow. I also wanted a more static solution, but with the ability to post and not require to build the site every time I wanted to publish new content. Enter Ghost CMS- Headless. Ghost in Headless mode detaches the admin dashboard with the site endusers see completely.
I have a completely separate site that I can write on, and on publish, will rebuild a static version of the site hosted somewhere else completely. It also gives me the freedom to build the front-end however I want, with out the worry of how I’ll make it it work with any confinements.
Ghost still lacks a lot of the basic functionality of a CMS and a strong community to keep it growing, but once you get out of the traditional thinking of how a CMS should be structured, just about anything is possible with it in Headless mode.
As of 2022, A Life Well Played blog has been merged into my main website, Underlost.
