So I downloaded a copy of WordPress MU, and installed stripShow on it, wondering what kinds of changes I’ll have to make to the latest (development) version of stripShow to get it to work… I’d laid out a block of time to explore and figure things out. Much to my surprise…

… it works fine.

I’m still exploring, but from where I’m sitting, there have yet to be any issues. I’m very impressed with the transparency that WordPress MU seems to afford. It works just like WordPress, but keeps your blogs and the settings for them separate. No changes to my code seem to be necessary. I’ve got a test site up with multiple comic blogs and they all seem to work OK.

More on this as testing continues.

Oh, and yeah, I know right now it’s kind of ugly. Trying to integrate phpBB and WordPress isn’t all that simple. I’ll have it worked out soon.

UPDATE: OK, about the whole keeping-the-existing-posts thing? Uh… well, not so much. The phpBB system I installed had some wonky weirdnesses with WordPress that I didn’t feel like dealing with, so I installed Simple:Press instead. So if you want to post in the forums, you’ll need to register. Sorry.

• The random_comic_link template tag now works. Previously, it was documented, but did nothing.
• The URLs in the storyline dropdown are now base64-encoded. One user reported that the unencoded URLs were causing an issue with his web host.
• The structure of the package has changed. No longer do you unzip it into your WordPress root. Instead, it’s a folder called “stripshow” which goes in wp-content/plugins. The example theme is now located in a folder, inside the plugin folder, called “example-themes.” This is for compatibility with the WordPress Plugin Directory.
• stripShow is now available in the WordPress Plugin Directory! This allows users to update the plugin automatically from within WordPress. It’s still available as a ZIP file from the download page.

But I’m back, and ready to get this release out the door. One of the things I’ve been doing is ensuring that stripShow 2.0 works with WordPress 2.7… and it does. But I’m starting to realize that my original idea — to file stripShow’s menus semantically among WordPress’s own rather than lumping everything under a “stripShow” menu — might not be the best method, at least if I don’t want to go insane documenting how to use the software and taking into account all the various menus in the various versions of WordPress. So I’m exploring how best to lay out the admin menus without having to provide three sets of instructions.

If you use stripShow, I would love to hear about your site. Please send an email to bhawkins@monkeylaw.org with the following information:

• Site name
• URL
• Your name
• Your email (will be private)
• A brief description of what your site/comic is about

I already know about some sS sites, but I’d like to see what’s out there. Looking forward to hearing from you!