WordPressure
- Started
- Last post
- 36 Responses
- SteveJobs
I'm repaying a favor to someone by trying to figure out how to set up WordPress or Expression Engine or maybe another PHP-based CMS to offer editable content within a web page.
I know ZILCH about these things (CMS) - quite literally, and just managed to set up WP on my localhost to test it out, but It looks like it only provides blogging templates? I don't blog either, so I feel quite lost. And I'm not sure how mixing WP content with a PHP-driven page is possible.
Anyway, all these CMS packages seem to be marketed for end-users and I'm stuggling to find any advanced implementations or tips. If someone here can speak in terms a developer can understand or at least point me to a good site where I can get some quick tips, I'd be grateful.
- Continuity0
First time I ever did a WP site, this was my go-to for tutorials:
http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/0…
That said, it was written in 2007, so I don't know how much of this is obsolete by virtue of WP having gone through several updates.
Nonetheless, it's a good starting point.
- tredesigns0
the best wp tut I've found:
http://blog.themeforest.net/scre…I don't know what your needs are but you might want to try:
surrealcms.com
or
http://unify.unitinteractive.com…I've use surreal and its easy, thinking about unify.
good luck.
- detritus0
If you're comfortable with dicking around with basic PHP, may I suggest you have a gander at http://www.madebyfrog.com/ ?
I've only started tinkering with it today, but already I'm thinking it's the idiot-level CMS Ive been looking for for a while.
Personally, I find WP too convoluted and malformed for the sort of websites I make.
- < it's 'a bit like' Expression Engine... only not. And free.detritus
- 'course - I might be totally and utterly spouting drivel, so wait and see if anyone seconds my input!detritus
- You're not wrong about WP. I fucking hate it.Continuity
- It's just ... dense. Nothing wrong with it or difficult as such, it's just .. weird.detritus
- On of the things that bug me the most is its blog-centric nomenclature, when it's obvious many use it as a CMS.Continuity
- *OneContinuity
- SteveJobs0
Cost isn't really an issue. The most important things is good developer support (whatever that means for CMS - still learning), so can be advanced PHP - don't care.
What I'm lost with right now really is what I can do with these packages, but I'll take a look at those links. Thanks!
- If your mate or you are totally Hell-bent on using WP, Google 'wordpress as a CMS'Continuity
- SteveJobs0
monday morning bump
- moth0
A cup of tea balanced on your server is less of a liability than Word Press.
- if your knowledge of servers extends as far as fixing a cup of tea, then yes.acescence
- how so moth?forcetwelve
- mikotondria30
Actually, @detritus, frog got forked and is now undergoing dev as Wolf http://wolfmcs.org
Not much has changed yet, but the architecture is a little more refined and as this is what people will be writing plug ins etc, for, it's the one to get.
Simple, great to extend if you can follow the template blank plug ins..
Consists of 'views' into which content can be loaded, snippets - for reused code, like includes, and actual unique pages, which hold the content and can be assigned a 'view'. Native php will run in any category above, heirarchy easy to negotiate, all the manipulative ordering and sorting functions you need, plus of course, whatever php you want. It's simple easy and fast.
- SteveJobs0
this is just one persons perspective, but the more i learn about it (wordpress and other simlar cms software), it seems so backwards. it's catered to the person who doesn't know html, php, asp, jsp, etc, very well, and/or just wants to set up a site quickly and everything is theme-based... ugh. so basically your site development starts and ends in this editor. (could be wrong, but that's just what i've seen based on my evaluation)
- acescence0
they're designed to be useful to the average user, but most are extensible and have a plugin system that allows more control if you're a developer. i have more experience with wordpress than any other cms, so speaking specifically about that there aren't really any limits with what you're able to do, but there is a learning curve in discovering how it works under the hood. there's a whole hook action and filter system that lets you modify or override everything that it does at every stage of creating and serving data on the front and back ends, many other cms systems work the same way.
- SteveJobs0
sorry for bumping, but does anyone have Adobe Contribute experience? i'm playing around with it, and it looks like it could meet their needs for editing static content in a php page.
i'm just trying to figure out how to specify a div, or instance as editable or non-editable.
- SteveJobs0
^ price isn't an issue. flexibility is. how do you find expression compares with WP in terms of documentation?
one strike against expression is that you have to contact their team for a trial... ughh.. i just wanna spend a few mintues evaluating it. prolly won't go with them.
- sseo0
I started with expressionengine when the core version was free. If you already design with html/css/javascript etc. it's super flexible once you learn their tags. That being said, they're beginning to cater to high-end businesses as can be seen from the way they support third party developers. They just won't add some functionality that exists in the form of paid third party dev stuff.
From what little I've fooled around with in Wordpress, it seems like the learning curve is more based on hacking existing templates. I'm not much of a web developer and I don't know anything about php so it's harder for me. If price really isn't an issue, expressionengine is incredible at $500+ (including some 'necessary' add-ons.)
I guess if you can use the knowledge of messing around with ee for future clients who'll pay for the functionality, go for it. If you're not really looking into getting in the cms game, then stick with wordpress I guess.
- ukit0
I'd say neither is necessary more "template based" and you shouldn't really run into any actual design or layout roadblocks once you understand how they work. At their core, both more or less just give you their own proprietary set of tags which can be added to any PHP based template you create.
IMO, the real difference between the two is more that Wordpress straight out of the box anyway is very much geared towards blogging. Your content (data fields) will be structured in a blog post format (title, body, date, etc), which is going to be suitable for some sites but not all. You can escape this to a certain extent by adding custom fields and so on but it's a lot of work to escape it completely.
Expression Engine on the other hand doesn't assume you are designing a blog and the first thing you will do is create your own custom data fields. Using some of the plugins that are out there, you can also do things like create fields with a variable number of items - for instance, if you had an "music album" item you could add three tracks for one or ten for another - I never saw an easy way to do this with WP.
- ETM0
You mentioned "flexibility" yet said "editing static content in a php page." Is it a large site or a smaller one? Do they just want to update text/photos, or do they need multiple users, content approvals etc.?
If not too large a site and they just need to update text, look at something simpler like a content editor rather than a manager:
- ETM0
and if you need something more powerful with some developer/community support:
- SteveJobs0
section of a large corporate site, so probably some complex front-end, jquery, js, css, html and driven by php.
also support for localized text would be nice, though i'd personally set that up dynamically through php - then again, i'm new to cms, so maybe that's how some do it so they can hand the responsibility to the content editors?