Wordpress to Publii
I am migrated my personal website from Wordpress to Publii. Here are a few observations on Publii, from my experiences to date. I also wrote some more general thoughts about moving to static HTML.
- Using software that is both mature and completely free of user manipulation gimmicks really feels like magic. Publii is very enjoyable to use.
- I prefer the WYSIWYG editor, especially because I use a lot of nested lists. Blocks interface is like WP blocks editor, but it's not quite as refined and I've never loved blocks editing anyway.
- You can choose a different editor for each post, but once you choose the editor you can't change it for that post. (Easiest solution is to copy the content elsewhere, delete the post, and create a new post with the desired editor.) I started a few posts with the Blocks editor early on, and I find myself recreating them in the WYSIWYG editor for various reasons.
- The default theme ("Simple") is enough to get me up and running. Tweaking the theme settings and setting featured images for the posts is all I'm doing for now.
- The rendered site is really fast.
- Images in my imported content were giving me trouble (appearing in WYSIWYG editor and preview, but not appearing on the live site). Publii comes with a plugin called "regenerate thumbnails" which is the answer. Locate the plugin and run it, if your images aren't showing up. (I believe this was supposed to be run at the end of my Wordpress import, but I either missed it or it failed to prompt me. Probably I missed it.)
- December 2024: Over the months, I am starting to see more problems in the website sync process (FTP). When I only update a few files and Publii only needs to sync a few, it usually works fine. When I update lots of files and the sync process needs to update say 100+ files, it will frequently just hang on something along the way, and stop progressing.
- It does not appear to proceed or timeout, even if I leave it alone for 30+ minutes
- If I cancel and start again, it does not pick up where it left off. The sync starts over, so the number of files to transfer is still large and it typically hangs again.
- If I FTP the whole file tree using Filezilla from the local Publii output directory, this usually takes care of it.
My Process for Migrating from Wordpress to Publii
At a high level, this is the process I am using to move this website from Wordpress to Publii.
- Wordpress export
- Posts and page content using default WP Tools / Export
- Download media library using plugin Export Media Library plugin by Mass Edge Inc
- Ignore warnings regarding possible incompatibility (worked with WP 6.6.2)
- Install and activate plugin, then go to Media - Export to configure and download zip
- Also download a zip of the wp-content/uploads folder directly, for good measure
- Export tablepress tables to CSV using that plugin’s built-in export
- Create a new Publii site
- Import Wordpress content using the built-in Publii WP importer
- Select all posts and set everything to draft
- Figure out a theme
- Set up navigation menu
- Create tags
- Add Matomo analytics plugin and configure
- Preview overall theme, layout, nav (locally)
- Set up new.coreysnipes.com on hosting so I can preview the site as deployed, including FTP account
- Configure Publii server connection so it can sync (publish) everything
- Work through remaining posts
- Edit each and fix links
- Edit each and check images. Run the "regnerate thumbnails" plugin if needed. This should fix the featured image and inline images so they appear in the published site.
- Revise and refine content
- Work through posts
- Fix broken links and images
- Set posts' featured images as needed
- Set tags
- When refinement is complete (enough) archive the Wordpress files and replace with the new Publii static site content
- Back up WP files and data as needed
- Update Publii server connection to connect to the live coreysnipes.com site
- Sync from Publii
- Check live site for any problems, broken links, etc
- Continue to refine and publish content on the new site