GUIDE: How to make a portfolio website (for noobs, too)

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haylicopter

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Hi photo talkers

I have written a little guide about how to make a portfolio website with the open source content management system Joomla:

How to make a portfolio website that rocks! (on squidoo.com)

I figured there are a lot of people who do great photos but don't know how to build a nice portfolio to present them in an appealing way. I believe it is not necessary to have advanced web design skills to build something of good quality. There are so many Joomla templates for ANY purpose and I think the installation is so easy that it can be done by somebody with limited knowledge, too.

I hope you guys prove me right ;)

I would appreciate feedback very much. If there is too little information on something for example, tell me! As a web developer, some things are "natural" while other people first need to learn about them..

Ok, have fun with my guide :cool:

Haylicopter
 
As a website developer, I find Joomla a tad to heavyweight for the average portfolio. On top of that, simply downloading a template doesn't give you the features you generally need as a photographer.

Unless you are going to bridge in a decent bit of portfolio software, Joomla is basically an empty shell. You can Bridge Coppermine and Gallery2 for example. f you are feeling brave you can use Jfusion to do the integration

At the moment there are not really any decent components or modules available for Joomla that can really deal with masses of images at once in a easy way

Dont get me wrong. Joomla is excellent for the bigger tasks it is good at, but if you want an easier ride (and dont upload 2000 images in one go) use word-press. If you need to upload 1000's of images at once (eventers, wedding togs etc..) then consider the use of Gallery 2 or StockboxPhoto

There are a few things to consider here

1. how big a learning curve do you want
2. how many photo's do you deal with daily/weekly
3. are you wanting a gallery that sells
4. Are you wanting a mass upload feature, where the gallery sorts the pricing and thumbnails for you
5. are you looking for a simple portfolio of say 50 images
6. Are you looking for a place to drop lightroom (or similar) slideshows
 
Hi Richard

Thanks a lot for taking the time and writing a feedback for my guide. I appreciate it a lot!

I must admit that I didn't really consider websites with thousands of images but rather portfolios that present a selection of photographs (like in your question number 5).

I personally like Joomla for any size of website, be it 5 pages or 500. As long as there is no heavy permission management involved it's a good choice. For a (photo) blog, WordPress is probably the better choice though.

I agree with you that Joomla itself is an "empty shell" but the templates I have looked at and installed test wise (Grid by Joomla Bamboo for example) come with some extensions that very well enable you to create a gallery.

Have a look at the Grid Showcase, this is basically how your website looks like when you install the template and the sample data (sample data is optional of course, but it's a good way to see how all this is built). PrettyBox Gallery, MiniMoo2 Gallery and Pretty Slider are nice extensions to present fotos. Of course it can't deal with 1000 images and handle thumbnails and pricing and ordering etc, but to build a website that can do all those things is not a task suitable for somebody with very limited knowledge in web development, or is it? If yes, we should write another guide on that ;)
 
I'll be reading this with interest. I started last October and in fits and starts have cobbled something together, partly as a need for something other than a photo storage site and partly to teach myself something new.

One of the things I did find useful was to install Xampp (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) and set up a standalone system. From here I installed Joomla and then had a complete test system to play with before I committed to a live system
 
Richard is spot on Joomla is okay if you are looking for a site that reviews hotels or something more intensive than that. Wordpress has a good selection of availbale themes out there with great gallery plugins to use for portfolio's.

At the same time the interface on wordpress can be less daunting than Joomla.
 
Byker28i said:
One of the things I did find useful was to install Xampp (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) and set up a standalone system. From here I installed Joomla and then had a complete test system to play with before I committed to a live system
Click to expand...

Thanks for the hint.

Installing an webserver on your computer is a very good option if you want to experiment a lot or if you want to develop something (like a design or a module). It requires a bit more knowledge of course than a one-click-installation with a joomla web hoster but once you got it together you have a lot more understanding for the whole thing.
 
find web designer, throw money at web designer (ensure he has taste and that it is compatable with yours before start) then provide images and Job Done :D
 
haylicopter said:
Thanks for the hint.

Installing an webserver on your computer is a very good option if you want to experiment a lot or if you want to develop something (like a design or a module). It requires a bit more knowledge of course than a one-click-installation with a joomla web hoster but once you got it together you have a lot more understanding for the whole thing.
Click to expand...

You are having a giraffe

On the one hand you are offering basic advice, and on the other you are talking about developing modules in Joomla
 
haylicopter said:
Thanks for the hint.

Installing an webserver on your computer is a very good option if you want to experiment a lot or if you want to develop something (like a design or a module). It requires a bit more knowledge of course than a one-click-installation with a joomla web hoster but once you got it together you have a lot more understanding for the whole thing.
Click to expand...

Really quite easy

Use Xampp 1.7.1
1. Install Xampp to c:\xampp c:\ it adds the xampp)
dos install starts after extraction. Accept defaults

start control panel - 1
then exit - x
on the control panel, make sure services started

2. open browser to localhost
3. select phpMyAdmin, create new database joomla15
4.Privileges tab, add new user (username), grant all privileges check all global
5. Open joomla download, extract to c:\xampp\xampp\htdocs\joomla (create new folder joomla)
6. open browser to localhost/joomla
7. select english, click next to the check and licence

8, Database config
database type - mysql
hostname - localhost
username - the one just created i.e. (username)
database name - joomla15


9. ftp config
no to ftp as it's windows

10 Main config
enter site name
email & password

Install sample data, click next

11. Delete instalation folder
C:\xampp\xampp\htdocs\joomla\installation

12. log into website
http://localhost/joomla/
http://localhost/joomla/administrator/

TaDa! - Done.
Now you have a local install to mess up/experiment with rather than a live system.
 
Byker28i said:
Really quite easy

Use Xampp 1.7.1

7. select english, click next to the check and licence

TaDa! - Done.
Now you have a local install to mess up/experiment with rather than a live system.
Click to expand...


I particularly like this point as I didn't understand the previous points on the list :thinking: :lol:
 
if you want a local webserver to test things on, I recommend WAMP over Xampp.

http://www.wampserver.com/en/

Just install it, it sits unobtrusively in your statusbar (left-click for options is a bit o.0, but that aside).

When it's installed simply open a browser and go to localhost to access the server.

The www folder it creates is where you store your pages, and they're accessed via localhost in a browser.

Much easier+quicker to set up than Xampp imho.


As for Joomla et all, there is another alternative...

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=246675

:p
 
personally, I use usbwebserver.

I've found it easier than Xamp or Wamp to use, simply copy files over and run. simplez!

As for Joomla, I've tried it a couple of times and I know I need to learn it really however I just end up going back to Wordpress time and time again.
 
Harvey_nikon said:
personally, I use usbwebserver.

I've found it easier than Xamp or Wamp to use, simply copy files over and run. simplez!

As for Joomla, I've tried it a couple of times and I know I need to learn it really however I just end up going back to Wordpress time and time again.
Click to expand...

Annoyingly, wordpress is -very- good.

The number of times people have looked at my development ideas over the last few days and gone 'why don't you just write it as a wordpress addon?'

They are, of course, right. But the best way to understand the wheel is to build one, hmm?

Forgot to say, that is a good guide haylicopter, thanks for sharing :)
 
Mikebert4 said:
Annoyingly, wordpress is -very- good.

The number of times people have looked at my development ideas over the last few days and gone 'why don't you just write it as a wordpress addon?'

They are, of course, right. But the best way to understand the wheel is to build one, hmm?

Forgot to say, that is a good guide haylicopter, thanks for sharing :)
Click to expand...

I agree, that's why I am currently learning PHP. After reading about making templates etc I did just think, surely it's better to just design and build my own instead of trying to implement something in to someone elses code.
 
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