You’re not going to believe this, but hey. Why not, right?
Apr27
on April 27, 2013
at 2:04 pm
and modified on April 27, 2013. at 2:52 pm
Posted In: ComicPress, Wordpress
I am currently making a “ComicPress – Plugin” designed after the Comic Easel plugin, but uses the ComicPress coding scheme that will work in conjunction with ComicPress Manager. Which will allow you to use ComicPress on the Easel theme and integrate it into any theme on the WordPress repository.
It’s either that or I take the Easel theme and move ComicPress into it ;/ ONE OR THE OTHER! Which one would you rather have? .. seriously, need to know.
– Phil
Additionally do you think we should retire ComicPress altogether in favor of the better Comic Management Systems that are available?
I personally like the use Easel theme as a base and move the ComicPress coding into it idea.
What would be the purpose of this exactly? Is it because a lot of people haven’t jumped the ComicPress ship yet? As someone who uses ComicPress, it (ComicPress) just seems like a very problematic plugin. There are weird idiosyncrasies. As if it was built by multiple people. Which it was, wasn’t it? Tyler built it, and you built upon it and kept it alive, correct? It just seems like ComicPress has been on life support for awhile now and it might be time to let her go. Or let somebody else carry her for awhile.
I see Comic Easel as a way to move beyond ComicPress. I could be wrong. I haven’t made the jump over to Comic Easel, but I definitely intend to. From what you’ve intimated, Comic Easel is supposed to be the next evolution. It’s supposed to be easier to manipulate, right? Easier to code? It just seems like doing anything with ComicPress at this stage of the game is moving backwards. I get that people probably haven’t jumped to Comic Easel yet because they’re scared to. There’s always a fear to learning something new, but maybe we need to be forced to move to Comic Easel. For our own good. And I think knowing how easy it is to get in touch with you to ask questions is very comforting. Anyways, these are just my opinions. Hope this helps.
Tyler original created it, then John Bintz jumped in, then I took over developement after that. “all” of us agree that it’s lacking (now). At it’s prime it was the best thing to use, but now there is just so much more available with WordPress’s core coding. Ala, Comic Easel.
Yes, .. What I ‘probably’ should do is remove ComicPress from the WordPress repo completely and just let it die in peace, unfortunately there are still thousands of people using it.
Those thousands of people still need love .. and well, that’s where my thoughts are to.
Phil, I think one of the big issues right now is that Easel, while more advanced and streamlined has presented a problem for just about everyone I know converting to it who has hundreds of pages in their archive. There’s no “bulk” upload option, for example, to recover after a site crash, etc. Otherwise, I’d jump that ship in a heartbeat. The “Child Themes” thing was a novelty back when recoding ComicPress theme to fit an artists visual style was near impossible without help (i.e. Companion or making an entirely new “child” theme), but now it’s a hassle and hinderance (plus, guides for making one for novices simply do not exist in any meaningful fashion). Short version: I’m in favor of integrating what works from ComicPress into Easel and moving into the Future, especially if that means a bulk upload option for Easel, etc. Because I found just about everything ELSE about Easel to be vastly superior.
Then they’re doing it wrong, there is a migrator plugin that allows you to migrate from ComicPress to Comic Easel, it’s called CP2CE and it’s on the repo.
I disagree, if you don’t have a child theme then you will lose your changes on updates, and I do update.
Import/Bulk Upload is almost done, although it requires the ComicPress naming convention on files.
When I was first looking up what comic management system would work best, ComicPress seemed to be quite a daunting thing to maintain and use whereas Comic Easel is extremely easy and automated with the use of the custom post type and WordPress’ internal media manager.
I think you’d be better off moving Comic Press into Easel, allowing greater freedom for those who currently use it and focus more on getting new users to go with Comic Easel. And I assume it would mean not having another plugin to maintain.
Hey I’m going to copy my post into the Facebook thread just to generate more conversation. You may want to do the same?
Rather have the conversation here ;/ There are quite a few people who don’t use facebook that use ComicPress/Comic Easel
Or maybe putting it out there and asking if anybody else wants to take over the maintenance of ComicPress so that you can devote all of your time to Comic Easel.
Well that’s the thing, .. I “want” to make a new version of ComicPress (theme) but with Easel as the core backing of it. It’s a seriously great theme in the way of programming and slickness of it. If I hand it off to someone else, then I’m just saying “I’m not doing it anymore” .. but I can do it, and I have no problem doing it. .. but what is best for the end user? Comic Easel’s functionality is half of that of ComicPress but 200x better and more adaptable.
So why wouldn’t you incorporate the best elements of ComicPress into Comic Easel? I guess I’m just wondering what are the best elements of ComicPress that are missing from Comic Easel.
There are some things that a ‘specific theme’ control can do that a plugin can’t, since one can only inject into a theme, being a theme itself you can program specifics
Also, did you ever or would you ever ask people to fill out a survey on things people wished were improved upon or added to ComicPress and incorporate those into Comic Easel? Or maybe set up a suggestion box?
I have a feature request section on my forums.
Crap! Didn’t even think about the Forums. My bad.
Having used both extensively for many years now, can honestly say the *only* think I miss from ComicPress is the ability to mass upload comics, as in 30+ pages and post creation for those pages in one go. And while that it/was super important, ComicPress, and the ComicPress Manager, was so buggy and worked so backwards that I was more than happy to forgo the mass uploader for Comic Easel. Please, for the love that all that is holy, don’t make me go back to ComicPress’ old ways. My little web-monkey heart is all for Comic Easel.
I will note though the idea of making a “ComicPress Theme” with Comic Easel at it’s core might be a good 1/2 way stepping stone for those who haven’t changed over or as an “All in one” theme/plugin package. The down side of it might be the extra effort to support yet another plugin/theme on your already busy workload.
And that is why I have not moved all my sites to Comic Easel yet. Uploading multiple comics, it’s too easy to make mistakes.
I want to try Comic Easel, I just found the tutorial where you explain how to do it, so I’ll give it a try!
If you move comic press into easel, I would still like a nice, clean version without any comic references. I love the simplicity and know the structure so much better than some of the other themes. I like to use it as my base in lots of projects.
nope, not moving comicpress into Easel .., i’m basically updating the ComicPress theme with the Easel code.
Well that does make sense. When new webcomickers (or at least those looking to set up a site w/ a cms) will probably find Comicpress first. Branding-wise, it fits better.
Having recently launched my comic at http://mixedhistory.com … I tried using comicpress and coukd figure it out until I installed the easel plugin… Everything works very well now, though I’m not quite sure which is doing what…
Whatever comic management systems you desire to implement, I would think we’d all be happy to support and use. If I was told comicpress was being sent out to pasture and I needed to change what I’m using, then I change what I’m using.
I’d be happy if I could get someone to make a comic mgt system for Joomla! I must be one of the few guys asking for this, probably, but it’d be nice to have. Maybe make comic easel available on more than one CMS?
I’m a bit confused. If I’m just using the Easel theme why would I need to also use the Easel plug-in and or use the CP2CE plug-in to migrate the comics that are in the comicpress site?
the Easel theme is just a theme, Comic Easel is a plugin that can inject a comic into any theme, Easel happens to be a theme that you can use right off the bat without editing.
Hi – I’m joining this thread because our little strip (six years old now) has been happily running on CP2.8, but a recent problem with the host server (long story) is forcing an upgrade. I’m not sure what the status is, but it sounds like a redesign using Comic Easel is the way to go… if we can bulk upload the past six years of strips! What is the status of CP now? And Frumph, we’ve been very happy and comfy with it, thanks so much.
If you’re using ComicPress there’s a migrator plugin called CP2CE (can search for that on the wordpress plugins place) there are also a few videos at comiceasel.com that you can watch on migrating from comicpress to comic easel, CP is still being worked on there’s a github repository for the latest version just not up on wordpress yet
I switched over to comic easel from comic press and I have to say, easel is far more user friendly. It felt very organic to use and I had zero hiccups, other than having forgotten some coding, which is a -me- thing. I’m sure the familiarity had to do with aspects of it being so similar, but the whole config aspect just seems simpler.
I LOVE the fact I could wipe away date and titles. Since titles appear on my comic, the need to have them again below is redundant. The second thing I was thrilled about is no longer having the items on the site date marked. I wanted something where people could look at the content and not focus on when the last update occurred. Thirdly, the streamlined and clean look of the “high society” skin finally removes the one thing I hate about web sites in general… backgrounds. I like the bulk uploading of content, it was fast and easy and it worked without flaw.
If integrating CP w/ easel means the loss of anything I’ve mentioned, then I’d say just let CP die off. Easel is just as idiot proof and seamless as you can get.
The only thing I miss is the loss of having that hover rascal I had replaced with my own character to add a little extra dialogue to the comic. I may try and take that code from CP and see if it works in easel with the theme I’m using, but I have no idea if that could work based on how involved the coding was in CP beyond what I was aware of.
Dear Sir,
Theme companion plugin is not available to download and install . Please suggest the alternative or any other plugin which will not require messing up with style sheet coding and can easily modify theme .
Use the Jetpack (plugin); it has an Edit CSS in it that works well, or use a child theme.
I’m a little late to the party, but it would be better to allow the option of integrating ComicPress on the Easel theme and integrate it into any theme on the WordPress repository rather then just having it on the theme… At least users have the option and like Alex mentioned above, not alot of people have jumped onto the comicpress ship…yet.