Using WordPress as a CMS – Posts & Pages

I seem to be building numerous websites lately that clients want to be able to manage themselves, and I’ve been using WordPress to power them. For years WordPress was considered a blogging tool only, but within the past few releases it’s definitely proving itself as a very capable, light-weight Content Management System (CMS). In fact, aside from a more advanced permissions model, there really isn’t anything I can think of that WordPress can’t be configured to do right out of the box. For a normal, basic website WordPress allows non-developers to manage their own content easily, using an interface that is not too challenging or technically demanding.

For developers, building templates for WordPress just takes a little understanding about what the content of the website is going to be. It’s important to understand when to use the post type “Page” and when to use the post type “Post”. After a lengthy discussion with a client of mine, I wrote out an overview that I figured I’d share in case anyone else was trying to figure out how to use WordPress as more than a blogging tool.

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WordPress on PHP 5.3.0, “General Settings” blank screen bug fix.

I recently ran into a frustrating issue when WordPress (2.8.4) started acting bad once the server was updated to the latest php 5.3.0. The main issue is pretty well documented if you search Google, and is not a WordPress code problem rather a php bug. My issue was that my “General Settings” screen stopped loading, and hung with a mostly blank page. This was nothing more than a pain. I’ll wait to update my php for a real fix, rather than rolling back to 5.2.

Here’s what I did to make the problem go away.

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