Thursday the 19th of June, 2008
Wordpress as more than a blog
Judging by the amount of people that have been asking me lately for help with their WordPress blogs and installations, I thought it might be helpful to write an information post for a change 
And before I start, let me just clarify that this is about self-hosted Wordpress, since I’m not entirely sure of the options available for WordPress.com blogs.
First of all, WordPress can be more than a blogging tool if you choose to make it that way. It can be used as a general website, a news site, or some other form of a very-light content management system. I’m going to be using both of my current installations (my site, and the RPWS site) as examples here for what you could do with your own installation.
Static Front Page
The ability to have a Wordpress page as the home of your website, is an option that I very seldom see being used, but it’s one of the most useful options available to you. With the static front page, you can make a custom template file to show whatever you wish on your front page. In my case, I use my front page to show a brief welcome message, followed by my latest blog posts and random gallery images.
Use query_posts() or a custom posts query to show what you want on your front page, or use it as a splash page before your visitors reach your blog. Just don’t forget to make a new page which becomes your new blog home page (and is affected by the home.php template file)!
Photo Gallery
WordPress 2.5 introduced increased support for photobloggers and galleries, but I still swear by the combination of WordPress and Gallery2 - and the plugin which merges them together: WPG2.
Using this plugin, you get all the features of Gallery2, along with the ability to easily add photos from your gallery to your WordPress posts or pages, as well as the gallery displaying inline in your WordPress site. My Stuff page is an example of WPG2 in action - the Gallery2 displays within the WordPress header and footer.
Website and Forums
Another possible option with WordPress is to use it as the main website for your bbPress powered forums. bbPress may seem very lightweight at first, but it’s infinitely extensible with a wide range of plugins available, allowing you to pick and choose which features you want.
The main advantage of this is that WordPress and bbPress integrate so well with each other. With the ability to use the same user info, the same database, and with the bbSync plugin, use the same WordPress posts and comments as bbPress topics and replies. This setup is currently in effect on the RPWS website.
In short, there are many things that WordPress can be used for, not just as a blogging platform. Think about the possibilities you can make using a combination of plugins, settings and other fancy options 
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Chris: You should install BBPress on your site. I would be really interested to see a demo of the BBSync plugin that you’re talking about. I feel like a forum for a blog (in the sense that the BBsync function would allow) would create a more cohesive community, which is always something I’m interested in. Let me know if you plan on getting a BBpress in the future (or if you already have it and I didn’t look hard enough).
The RPWS site has that plugin installed for integrating the news site and the forums.
http://rpws.thechrisd.com
http://rpws.thechrisd.com/forums
I don’t mean to get off-topic, but I haven’t seen Craig in a looooonnnnggg time….
Back on topic:
*Has nothing to say*
Yea, I haven’t seen him around in ages myself…
However, looking at my stats it seems he came back around here after getting a hit on his own blog from my links page.
Yeah. I saw that you linked to me Chris. The description was something like “Craig’s super-religious blog…” and Adjustant… you disappeared off of H3L. I tried contacting you. It’s all good though. PS My roommate is in AZ for a couple of weeks and he left his xbox at our house so I’m usually on BelovedSlayer (gt) somewheres between 3:30 and midnight CST. Shoot me a FR and tell Penny and Zeak. (I pry won’t accept lots of requests b/c it’s not my account).
I didn’t disappear….my internet got disconnected.:(
And now, after I had it connected again, I got Red Ring of Death…….again. So, yeah….