How to publish a post in the future, but with a post date in the past

Here’s a good plugin where users can sign up to follow your blog and get emails of new posts. It’s based on the module in Jetpack that does the same think. However, you might consider using Jetpack since the module in it is more light weight and you get all the additional features Jetpack offers.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/follow/

As to the other issue, I can’t think of a way to do this, with out at least coding up a custom template file (but that would be just to display a different date). But let me ask this – Is the actual date of the adventure really that important? My question isn’t a tech support answer because I’m thinking more about your blogging style and method instead. Maybe a solution lies there. Could we see a link to your blog?

The reason I ask, is because I’m wondering if the adventure is more important to your readers than the date it occurred. Maybe you could leave out references to a specific date and just ensure that your posts are published sequentially. Maybe use a naming convention of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

You are already using scheduled posts so your readers are already getting a delay about your travels to begin with, does it matter what day the adventure occurred?

I’m certainly not dismissing your idea and will happy to explore it more with you, but sometimes, when it comes to blogging, maybe rethinking our perceptions about it make it easier to do.

To say that your blog is anything less than amazing would be an understatement. The way you’ve integrated the map with the posts in incredible and I am very impressed by it.

Now, to your concerns. There is no built in way to backdate the posts (while at the same time using scheduled posts to publish them in the future).

The only thing I can think of is to setup a cosmetic fix to display the dates a different way. Here me out on this one, but it will require some programming.

First, if you are not already using a child theme. You will need to do so.

Then, in the child theme you would need to create a new template file for single.php. Just copy the one from your theme into your child theme and modify it. The modification you would make would be to display somewhere, the custom field you are using to note the correct date for the post. Then, you could use CSS within the child theme to hide (or, reduce the prominence of) the built in published date. Maybe remove the little box it is in, display it on a line behind the German version of “Published on:” Now, since the actual date of adventure is being displayed on the post, you would then use CSS to give it prominence on the page.

However, as you so rightly noted in your original post, this all causes confusion because it isn’t going to be in line with how the archive page is setup. So you would need to fix that too. Not to worry, you would then create an archive.php in your child theme. Again, you can copy over the original file from your theme folder and modify it. This one is going to be harder, but your are going to have to spend some time in the WordPress Codex to learn how archive pages work http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_an_Archive_Index It is not going to be straight forward because you will need to do custom coding to force it to sort by the date used in the custom field you’ve created. There will be additionally issues because you will need to figure how to format the date in the custom field itself so that your code knows how to read it.

In short, I can’t think of anyway to do what you want without getting your hands dirty, coding up custom template files in a child theme. Even then I suspect you may have some issues coding up the archive file to sort correctly. This method, as a solution, is pretty advanced and is require to require knowledge of php, WordPress hooks and filters and the loop.

Unless someone comes along with a simpler idea that I can’t think, doing these cosmetic modifications might be your solution.

What about just changing the URL scheme. You are already naming the post using the Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 naming convention. Perhaps just change the permalinks to a more user friendly-format (maybe just the postnames only) will help clean up the user experience. I tend to think that the date permalink is a little technical and not very user friendly (to be honest, it has always struck me as a little anal-retentive!). It might be good for general publishing, like a magazine website, but in your use case, it presents a data and visual disconnect to your readers.

The question then becomes, does having the date in the URL really enhance or make a difference to the readers, especially since you already are using a chronological naming convention in the post titles themselves? By having both in the URL, you are doubling up the data. Might it not be an user enticement to see Day 324 and then go to the site to see what day that occurred on?

Elegant yes, but a lot of dirty work too. You can fake and mask the elegance in by sending weekly digests of your blog posts to your users. The short option, of course, is simply to publish daily on the days you reference whenever possible (though I know you mentioned that is tough because net access isn’t always there). I think you’ve already done a fine job in masking the publishing by displaying the correct date in the post calender box. That alone is an elegant solution, I think changing the permalink structure gives it a little more polish (and you save yourself a ton of work, giving you more time to enjoy your travels with your wife!)

Sometimes, I’ve found that in working with WordPress, it helps to rethink our perspectives about what we are trying to do. It helps sometimes to look at it from the average user’s experience as it actually is occurring, instead of how we are trying to make it occur.