Web Site Help Wanted!
January 19, 2007
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Announcements, Technical Functions : Trackback,
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I'm interrupting the normal course of discussion here to put out a request for help.
My freelance commercial writing site has been languishing as I struggle with content management systems that are WAAAAY more than what I need. I've been trying to get a Joomla-based site up for a couple months now, but I've been lost trying to figure out what corresponds to what within Joomla. I'm literally altering things to see if they change my site appearance, but not everything works. Not only that, I can't seem to figure out how the containers are positioned within the template I've chosen. It's all hit or miss. Meanwhile, I'm wasting time and money.
I know Wordpress far better and it makes more sense to me, but Wordpress is terrible for static pages. It always acts like a blog and loves to put dates on things that I want undated. I've reviewed several sites that talk about modifying Wordpress to handle static pages (plus a few plugins can make this work), but I've been disappointed with the results.
Here's what I need:
* Three distinct, simple Web pages of static material that I can still easily edit.
* A simple blog page that would NOT be the home/index page.
* Some ability to add a cash register module in the future.
And that's about it. Since I'm a neophyte with CSS, a good pre-existing template/theme is a must. I can do whatever tweaks I need based on something existing (like I did with Cerulean Sanctum), but the core's got to be out of the box.
Any of you Web gurus out there have any suggestions? This is the kind of situation that begs for Apple Computer's absolutely intuitive software, but they have nothing like this. Plus, I've got to go open source since I can't afford a commercial CMS package. Besides, my needs are so meager that most of the commercial packages would be overkill and just confuse me in the process.
Thanks!
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If you want to try out some other CMSs, then visit http://www.opensourcecms.com which lets you try out a huge range of CMS and blog packages which are reinstalled every 30 minutes.
Hey Dan,
I have had some success with my “commercial” site at http://www.ncoutdoorlife.com It is built in Joomla but I have had to work for hours to get close to what I want.
I am by no means a CSS guru but I will think about what you need and see if I can come up with any decent solutions.
Gotta find out what kind of layout you’re looking for. I made the template for my site which is joomla but I followed and it’s a 3 column centered fluid. Once you have the basics of the columns, flowing the stuff in is pretty easy with joomla.
Hi, I tested and worked with several CMS’s many of which are open source. Some of which being CMSmadesimple, opensourceCMS,
Postnuke and now WordPress. Most people confuse WordPress with a simple Blogging tool. That is wordpress.com, I am talking of Wordpress.org the CMS. I noticed that in the footer of this page is credits to WordPress. Everything you have mentioned you want to do can easily be carried out with Wordpress. For a separate blog page, just create a page with the file named “Home.php” and place it in your webserver’s root directory. This will automatically become your domains index and you can customize it’s content via PHP inclusions of XHTML and you can further link to index.php or any other pages containing your blog. IE: http://www.yourdomainname.com/blog.
“Three distinct, simple Web pages of static material that I can still easily edit.”
I’m a little confused if you want three distinct pages defined by “design” or distinct by the content? For design you would have to have three different headers that you include into the index’s, each header would link to seperate style sheets. For content, Wordpress can easily create, edit and format the content on the pages you add.
“Some ability to add a cash register module in the future.”
I’m also confused with what you mean by a “Cash register” module? If you want a “shopping cart” feature there is a link below for a
WordPress Module.
http://www.instinct.co.nz/?p=16
If you want the ability to allow users to “register”, create a link to ../wp-login.php. You can style this page any way you want with CSS and can also add other features etc with further plugins/modules.
If you are just looking for a completely new CMS with more corporate type functionality, I suggest PostNuke, it’s open source and a LOT of highly respectable companies use it, like T-Mobile and numerous Poker sites.
Let me know if this helps at all, and visit my site
Lord Bless!
Hi Dan,
I am a web designer; however, I am afraid I still do it the old fashion way, from scratch via Dreamweaver and hand coding. I am not up on Joomla, so I can’t give you any specific help with that. A few suggestions, would Go Daddy’s WebSite Tonight and Quick Blog help you? https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/hosting/hosting_build_website.asp?se=%2B&ci=265
Seems like they also have a predefined templates that seem aimed at the person who might want to tackle a web site on their own.
Lastly, I don’t know what your ultimate plans are for your shopping cart, but I have found http://www.mals-e.com/ Mals Ecom to be the best free shopping cart on the web. However either you or someone with some experience may need to help code your items, but the code is very simple html, that from what I can see, you seem to have some level of understanding. I have found http://www.propay.com/ to be a great payment processor for web orders.
Mals Ecom does have a method to employ payment gateways right from the shopping cart. I have always ran it with my business’s where Mals Ecom sent me the shopping cart order, I logon to Mals secure server to get payment (credit card numbers) , and then I manually processed via a service like Propay. This works well if your orders are something you can manage on your own. You would not want to use this method if you were getting dozens of orders a day. But if your business did grow to that level, you would just need to make a change within your exsisting Mals shopping cart and set up a automatic payment gateway, instead of manual.
Let me know if I can help you out in any way.
{{{Candleman}}}
swr44@verizon.net
Dan,
You should consider popping this question into your LinkedIN Q&A box, and see what your network has to say.
Rich.
BlogRodent
Dan:
I would have to say that Wordpress is still the best solution for you. In reference to your questions:
Here’s what I need:
* Three distinct, simple Web pages of static material that I can still easily edit. In wordpress admin, go to
write -> write page
instead of writing post, this will give you some static pages that have the same altering capabilities as the posts. via:
manage -> manage pages
If you look on my blog at the top horizontal navigational bar, the “Contact” and the “Spurgeon’” links are done via the page formats.
* A simple blog page that would NOT be the home/index page. I installed my blog in a subdirectory under the root directory. My main page is http://availablelightonline.com but the blog is at http://availablelightonline.com/blog/
* Some ability to add a cash register module in the future.
http://www.instinct.co.nz/?p=16
Personally I like paypal for shopping carts and other merchant buttons. I am not exactly sure what you are looking for, but you can take a look at my portfolio and if I can be of any assistance, let me know.