ComicPress: The Technical Guide (Part 1 of 3)

ComicPress: The Technical Guide

Now that ComicPress Manager has reached a fairly stable point at 1.1.2, I have a bit of time to write about some of the more technical aspects of using WordPress + ComicPress to publish your Webcomics. This series of posts quickly walks you through what it takes to make WordPress + ComicPress work, and is in no way meant to be a comprehensive guide to setting up a WordPress + ComicPress site.  These entries are mostly geared toward the slightly above average WordPress user, someone who is comfortable editing the PHP templates necessary to make their site work, and who has a basic knowledge of WordPress, PHP, HTML, and CSS. A lot of this information is here because of the questions that have been asked on the Lunchbox Funnies ComicPress forum, and so this guide is sort of an attempt to keep those questions from needing to be asked again.

Be warned that some of the material in here is of a much more technical nature than simply editing templates, and that you’d need a background in PHP, WordPress, and other server technologies to get a lot out of these tips. If you’re a total newb, I highly recommend starting with the WordPress template primer, Stepping Into Templates and the PHP simple tutorial.

First, to subsequently ask and then answer some questions about ComicPress and ComicPress Manager…

Why use the ComicPress theme?

Because it’s a straightforward way to publish Webcomics on your own server, and it provides all of the advantages (and disadvantages) of using WordPress as the backend. At its most basic, the work required to create a Webcomic site and post comics is extremely simple.

Why not use Webcomics Nation, Drunk Duck, or any other the other Webcomics hosting services?

Hosting your own comic gives you unparalleled flexibility, but at the price of dealing with the added complexity of maintaining your own server software (WordPress + plugins) and, potentially, bandwidth bills if you become popular, which have hit, and destroyed, numerous Webcomic artists over the years.

Why not use static HTML pages?

To save time and to make the inevitable site redesigns go much more smoothly. It’s 2008, and your server supports some sort of Web scripting language, be it PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python, VB.Net, or C#.Net – it’s time to start using it.

Why not roll my own content management system (CMS)?

While WordPress is not perfect, you do get the advantages that one gets when using a popular CMS: prompt security fixes, a large, experienced user base, and a large number of plugins that provide functionality that you don’t have to write yourself. Trust me, I’ve re-invented the CMS wheel many times, and I got sick of having to maintain most of that code myself. Moving to WordPress has let me concentrate on the important parts of managing a site – the usability, the design, the content.

WordPress is big and slow!

…and there are techniques you can use to greatly improve WordPress’s speed and reduce bandwidth, both optimizations being important not only for desktop machines but for mobile phones, which will only get more popular in the coming years.

What about other blogging solutions like Movable Type?

Why not? I know a few people who use Movable Type for their Webcomics, and they like it a lot. And I’ll be the first to say that the WordPress API really needs a good ole’ redesign (honestly, get_adjacent_post() should be able to return an adjacent post, no matter what type of page you’re looking at).  But these entries are about ComicPress, therefore we talk about WordPress here, warts and all. 

Basic Requirements for WordPress + ComicPress

A webhost with support for the following:

• WordPress (standalone install, not an account at WordPress.com)
  • MySQL server version 4 or higher
  • PHP version 4.4.8, but version 5.2 or higher is highly recommended
  • If your host installs WordPress for you, you need to be able to use and modify custom themes and, ideally, install & customize plugins.  Some hosts who pre-install WordPress do not allow this.
• FTP/SFTP access with the ability to chmod/chown files & directories

Optional PHP extensions/external programs for enhanced functionality:

• ImageMagick or GD installed for processing images using ComicPress Manager
• Zip extension installed for uploading Zip files of comic images in ComicPress Manager
• Alternative PHP Cache (APC) installed and configured for caching compiled PHP opcode and (optionally) storing cached data in memory
• Xdebug installed and configured for improved error reporting, better var_dump() output, and the ability to profile PHP code using KCacheGrind/WinCacheGrind

PHP 5

It’s highly recommended that you find a host that uses PHP 5. PHP 4 was discontinued at the end of 2007 and there are many performance and security benefits that PHP 5 provides.

Getting Started, or, Webcomics Fame in 5 Minutes

• Install WordPress on your hosting account, or have someone help you install it.
• If you choose, you can move the WordPress root so that your site is delivered from http://mycoolsite.cool.wow/ instead of http://mycoolsite.cool.wow/WordPress/.
• Be sure to secure your WordPress installation before going any further.
• Install ComicPress in your wp-content/themes folder and ComicPress Manager in your wp-content/plugins folder.
• Create your comics folder at the root of your WordPress install (wherever the index.php file lives) and make it writable by your Webserver.
• Make your themes folder writable by your Webserver.
• Log in to your WordPress site.
• Set up your blog information.
• Activate ComicPress Manager.
• Set up ComicPress using the ComicPress Manager Config screen, adding categories as necessary.
• Upload comics using ComicPress Manager.
• Webcomics Fame!

That’s the end of Part 1. Come back next week for Part 2, which covers Site Performance, Basics of ComicPress, and ComicPress Manager!

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