Any web designers, need some advice??

jcoutts

jcoutts

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Justin
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After creating a Website, not newbie but by no means an expert - The last site (Of Two) I did was in Dreamweaver and html based one of them used paypal integration and ecommerce, forms etc.. got that working from no knowledge!.

Here's the issue I'm after creating another site and theres so many options I don't know which way to go? :bang:

The site isn't photography related but just a few pages with Login/P/W incorporated, plus wanted to have some social networking incorporated, or a forum - Like this one :LOL:.

Don't know whether to do pages in traditional Dreamweaver, perhaps CSS this time and add bolt ons like Elgg..etc

Or, do I use a CMS like Joomla, Wordpress - Don't really want a blog which I thknk Wordpress seems to focus around.

Thing is I'm not sure CMS type tool will incorporate the social networking side of things? Or would that be seperate (Install on the server anyway).

Wish I understood them a bit better :shake:

Anyone got an ideas? PHP, Apache, SQL are a bit alien to me, not sure how it all works yet, but I'm sure I can crack it. With a little help from my friends. :clap:
 
I think there are plugins that wordpress can use to make it more community based. The other option is to use drupal which is more community orientated straight off but is more of a PITA to configure and get going. The Bitsy business to business forum uses wordpress I think and after using it it does seem quite good. Better than I expected. http://bitsythis.com
 
I'd use wordpress, but thats because i know the plugin and template architecture inside out. In my (biased) opinion wordpress is a great cms. If your not interested in the blog side use wordpress pages and make one your home page

There are forum plugins and if your not code inclined you can install them directly from the dashboard. Check out rs_discuss for a really minimal lightweight forum plugin. We're using it here: http://etf2l.org/forum

Regards social network integration, there are plugins to allow your users to login via facebook/twitter, as well as plugins to pull referrals of your site from twitter into trackbacks etc.
 
Been having a look at Drupal, seems to have a wide range of pre-configured options including the ones I'm interested in...?

Any users here.

Would it be able to service my needs? Basically I want to have a Facebook type affair on my site (Obviously nothing so vast) - Is there such a module, plug-in anywhere for this type of thing?

I also like the look of the help pages which seem to show you how to do everything. (y)

Think I may have found the answer - Buddypress.. question is can I bolt that onto a drupal site.. no problem with Wordpress as its developed by them.... (I Think)

Which is the easiest to use Drupal or Wordpress?
 
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My vote goes to Wordpress.

I am quite technically savvy and have created sites in HTML with Dreamweaver, but Wordpress makes it so easy.

I had a look at Drupal and found it a bit confusing.

I have about 30 sites on Wordpress which are a doddle to manage.
 
From what I've seen, Wordpress is the easiest to use. And because of it's popularity, probably has the most support in terms of plugins, etc, at the moment.

If you want a forum, I'd just use PHPBB, which is free. 90% of forums on the internet are either PHPBB, or VBulletin (i.e. Talk Photography). Both very good, very powerful, and easy to install and use.

What kind of social networking are you looking at? Pretty sure there's some packages out there that will allow you to install a full social networking site.
 
Thanks Urban,

What kind of social networking are you looking at? Pretty sure there's some packages out there that will allow you to install a full social networking site
Click to expand...

I won't give too much away just now, but I'm looking at just bringing people together with a common interest (Not photography). I want to network people so they can discuss common issues with each other and hopefully help each other with their problems going on past experiences and knowledge they have acquired through their struggle.

I'm not sure whether a forum or social networking is the best......?

Social networking is good but I don't want it to be too much in the public domain, but I want people to be able to communicate and help each other, so a forum might be a better way. (TP is a great example of this)

I can always link to/or create FB, Twitter..etc site to allow the communication/relationship to develop further I suppose.

opinions & advice are always very welcome.

I've had a look at Wordpress & Drupal.... Unfortunately, whether it was me.. I just don't like'em. I couldn't get the look I wanted.

WP - Initially wanted to use this because it has the "Buddypress" option, but I just couldn't seem to get it to drop the Blogging type aspect of the software no matter how hard I tried! I wanted a normal website - Home, About Us, Contact...blah blah, with the added functionality of the Social Networking (Buddypress) bolted on. I didn't look like I could achieve it? :shrug:

Drupal - Much the same I couldn't get it to look like a normal website. Again it could just be me.

So I might have to do it from scratch in Dreamweaver after all - Was trying to avoid the work.
 
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If you want discussion, I'm not sure social networking is the right way to go - they never seem to inspire intellectual thought! They can kinda work though...I know of one built on this. Might be worth checking out. Either way, building a community will always take a bit of patience and time.

As above, Wordpress is very powerful. It's still something I'm yet top look into properly so I can't comment on the ins and outs of it (though I'm sure there's loads of people here that can do just that), but it's certainly capable.

Yes, you can do the Dreamweaver route...but unless you're a capable developer, I'd steer away. You'll get better results if you do a bit of research into the off the shelf packages like Wordpress.
 
TheTyke said:
jcoutts

I think you've not fully understood what Wordpress can do.

This is one of my sites that has been created on Wordpress.

http://www.online-turf.co.uk

It has a blog function but also pages.

I think you'd be taking the wrong decision to go the Dreamweaver route.
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Absolutely - There are some massive sites built on Wordpress, when you leverage all it has to offer you can create some very impressive stuff :)

Making Wordpress "look" like a normal website (whatever that is) is pretty easy. Build the website in HTML & CSS, learn the structure of the Wordpress files for themes (there are loads of "blank" themes out there for free that you can plug your code into if you need one, then use the Wordpress functions to make it appear exactly how you want. A decent Dev could convert a theme to Wordpress in a couple of hours, assuming the code base of the static/html site is OK to start with and you don't want any crazy functions adding!)
 
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jcoutts said:
Thanks Urban,



I won't give too much away just now, but I'm looking at just bringing people together with a common interest (Not photography). I want to network people so they can discuss common issues with each other and hopefully help each other with their problems going on past experiences and knowledge they have acquired through their struggle.

I'm not sure whether a forum or social networking is the best......?

Social networking is good but I don't want it to be too much in the public domain, but I want people to be able to communicate and help each other, so a forum might be a better way. (TP is a great example of this)

I can always link to/or create FB, Twitter..etc site to allow the communication/relationship to develop further I suppose.

opinions & advice are always very welcome.

I've had a look at Wordpress & Drupal.... Unfortunately, whether it was me.. I just don't like'em. I couldn't get the look I wanted.

WP - Initially wanted to use this because it has the "Buddypress" option, but I just couldn't seem to get it to drop the Blogging type aspect of the software no matter how hard I tried! I wanted a normal website - Home, About Us, Contact...blah blah, with the added functionality of the Social Networking (Buddypress) bolted on. I didn't look like I could achieve it? :shrug:

Drupal - Much the same I couldn't get it to look like a normal website. Again it could just be me.

So I might have to do it from scratch in Dreamweaver after all - Was trying to avoid the work.
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From what you say in the post it sounds like a forum might be the best bet, then you can have a Facebook fanpage/twitter account that go with it and maybe a few static pages or even a blog.

For a forum PHPBB3 is the main free one.
 
Oh dear!

I think you've not fully understood what Wordpress can do.

This is one of my sites that has been created on Wordpress.

http://www.online-turf.co.uk

It has a blog function but also pages.

I think you'd be taking the wrong decision to go the Dreamweaver route.
Click to expand...

Think your right, perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chance. All I know is I played around with it for a few hours, well quite a few hours! and didn't seem to be getting the look I wanted and as I said originally I couldn't seem to get rid of the blog look which is clearly possible by your example.

Ironically that is exactly what I was talking about... a normal website. Doesn't look like a blog at all.

I might give it another go, before I write it off! - Thanks
 
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