The Main Reason for NOT going to WP as I see it

[Steve]

From the discussions in comment threads on DD1's diary, the biggest
reason seems to be that people like the 'page per day' format.

I'm fairly certain I could replicate that in WordPress with some
modifications to a template.

Are there any other main reasons?

[Yetzirah]

Other people may have their favorite thing about DD, but the one you
mention is on the top of my list.

If you can replicate that in WP, far out!

Next in line would be notification of updates. I don't know how many
people regularly use RSS feeds, but it's basically the same thing as a
notify, you just get it in your feed reader instead of an email.

How do we feel about that one??

Y.

[Steve]

WordPress comes automatically with RSS feeds so that aspect isn't an
issue. And I could also hook in to provide e-mail notifications as per
the current system. Indeed that would be a necessity I would think, I
like the notification emails, though there's room for some tweakage of
course :)

It seems I'd definitely need the 'friends' system in place, since the
notifications use the friends system - and other people have indicated
they couldn't do without the friends only diary option (which is fair
enough).

[Salamander]

It sounds stupid when I write it out, but I'm really proud of how I've
customized my diary to look. I probably spent weeks ten years ago
learning about how to make tiled backgrounds that matched themselves
perfectly, learning hexadecimal colors so I could adjust the
background colors and fonts to match exactly, and learning how to use
your customizer so that I could get things set up "just so". The
button graphics I'm using now were made after some major web searching
and graphic modification. I'm inordinately proud of my diary's looks,
and fear that moving to a new format means I'm going to lose the
"look" I worked so hard to achieve.

[Steve]

It doesn't sound stupid at all, particularly if you're one of the
people who clearly has spent considerable time getting their diaries
set up to look nice (there's plenty of hideous looking ones around,
the nice ones take work!)

It would be my intention to provide a WordPress theme that is selected
by default and imitates what we currently have with DearDiary. It's
true that I'd probably not be able to match everything there is
currently, in that the current layout uses tables and I'd prefer to
move to a CSS based layout scheme. But I'd aim to make it as similar
as possible. It's also true that there would be some pain involved
because I don't think I could automatically move the customizations -
they'd need to be manually re-done. But, most of your pain and
investment is in the finding and editing of images.

So, the default setup would provide essentially the same look as the
current DD (with better search engine optimization due to CSS instead
of tables) - but it would also provide the opportunity for other
templates to be installed if you preferred. There's heaps of WordPress
templates around (see www.reviewmacsoftware.com for just one ;)) that
could be fitted in.

So, my list of 'must haves' then at this point is;

* Friends System, with Friends Only Diaries
* E-mail Notification on updates
* RSS Feeds (already in WP so that's easy :))
* Day per page as per current DD
* Ability to use same custom graphics with similar layout to current
DD.

[FutureCat]

As well as the one page per day thing, the other thing I really like
about DD which I haven't seen replicated in any other blogging system
is that if you make multiple entries in a day, they read sequentially
down the page. I find it so annoying in Livejournal or Blogger or
just about anywhere else that to read entries in order you've got to
scroll down the page to the start of the first entry, then read down
it, then scroll back up to the start of the next entry, then read down
it, then scroll back up... It makes so much more sense to me to have
the first entry for the day at the top of the page, then the next and
so on, so I can start there and read downwards through the day without
all that stupid scrolling back and forth.

I think if you could get wordpress to do that, then I'd be willing to
put up with the other inconveniences. If not... well, it's not
totally a deal-breaker, but it's certainly a deal-wobbler.

The other main features of DD I'd really want carried over are friends-
only entries and email notifies (I have RSS feeds set up for a few
other sites I visit, and I keep forgetting to check my reader - it's
so much easier for it all to come through email). It would be a pity
to lose my customised buttons and things too - they're not as pretty
as some, but they amuse me :-)

On the plus side of moving to wp, threaded commenting would be so
nice! (Although I'll kind of miss seeing all those weird comments that
are one half of a conversation, with the other half taking place on
another diary somewhere ;-))

[Yetzirah]

I agree with you on the multiple entries ... One would like to keep
things logical!

"As the day wore on....."

[MissNibbles]

I agree with both of these comments, having things be in the order
that they are written, and being one day at a time are both things I
love about DD and feel generally unique to DD. I'm excited for the
change, though, I'm just a bit apprehensive something terrible will
happen, like getting locked out of my diary or having it be deleted.