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As my ZipPoster WordPress Plugin becomes more popular, I’ve started being asked what my thoughts are on automated WordPress installers, and whether I use any myself. In answer to the second question: I don’t currently use any automated installers for WP. In fact, I’ve never even tried one of the few I’ve heard about.

And the reason why kind of answers the first question… I don’t really feel the need for one yet. Or maybe I haven’t become curious enough about them to give any a try yet.

You see, there are two ways I install new WordPress blogs. One is just by using the WPMU system - WordPress Multi User for those of you who are unfamiliar with it - and one is by a home made system of sorts. Technically that system is just a method of organization I’ve built up over the years.

Now, I like WPMU a LOT. Using it I can simply set up one generic domain name, enable wildcard DNS for that domain, then create sites to my heart’s content. All of my primary WP themes and plugins are installed just once, and they’re usable by all the sub domains from the minute I create them. This makes site building super fast, particularly since I’m using my own ZipPoster or ADPS to populate the content.

My organization system is just that though. I have a fairly structured directory system setup on my local hard drive, and one of the folders in that system contains my default WordPress install. That default install already has the plugins and themes I want added to each site, and all customizations are already made.

So if I’m using a server which has CPanel on it, I simply use their built in two click install to setup WP, then I upload my themes and plugin folders. From there it takes just a couple of minutes to finish my setup and content population.

If I’m installing onto a server manually, I just upload my entire custom WP directory. And again it’s just a few minutes of final configuration and setup from there before the site is finished.

So using either system it takes me no more than about 5 minutes from start to finish usually. And when I’m finished I have anywhere from 1 month to 1 year’s worth of content all queued up to be published.

Can the automated installers do things even faster than that? Probably. But whether or not they make enough difference for me to invest in them remains to be seen, so I haven’t yet bothered. I may eventually just so I’ll have the full experience to talk about, but for now I’m very happy with the systems I have.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Tips & Techniques, WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.