Wordpress CMS Tutorial?

[iii]

I would like to use wordpress as a CMS but I don't know where to start.. is there any tutorials anywhere? I've created themes before but this seems different

[Dan Grossman]

There's no difference between a blog and any website except in what you emphasize in the design. You might use pages more heavily than posts. There's no special code to write, no special way to use WordPress.

[iii]

How do I deal with the different templates for the different pages? Like for example the "Home" and the "Contact" page would have 2 different templates.. In other CMSs I've used I was able to choose which template I want for which page but in wordpress I'm unsure on how to do this

[kohoutek]

In WordPress the easiest method to implement static pages is by using pages instead of posts. Once you've created your pages, you can tell your pages which template to use. On the right side there's the option to use the default page template or a different one. If you want to use a different one, then you can manually create page templates and store them in your theme folder. So, if you wanted a different template for your contact form, create a contact.php page, store it in your themes folder, then go back to your pages, edit your contact page and choose the template you've just created.

[iii]

In WordPress the easiest method to implement static pages is by using pages instead of posts. Once you've created your pages, you can tell your pages which template to use. On the right side there's the option to use the default page template or a different one. If you want to use a different one, then you can manually create page templates and store them in your theme folder. So, if you wanted a different template for your contact form, create a contact.php page, store it in your themes folder, then go back to your pages, edit your contact page and choose the template you've just created.

In the theme folder index.php is the main file right? So I make a duplicate of that change what I need to and then name it to the page i want it to be? so if its the About page I would name it "about.php" and it would appear as a template where I am able to select it.. is this right? Also what about subpages? I'm going to have a Projects page (project.php) and I would want to be able to create subpages under that.. would those be Posts instead of Pages?

[kohoutek]

I would use page.php to duplicate your page templates to start off. I'd also have a look at WordPress' code index. They have a lot of good starting tutorials that allow you to determine which functionality you want to keep and which features you might want to leave out or erase from the default template.

Your logic, however, is completely correct. You could create one template for each, if the templates are in need of high variety. You can, however, just use one single template to display any information you want.

You can use pages or posts to serve as sub pages. There are a few plugins that help to ease the process, if you want to go the pages route.

Of course, I do not know what you intend to do. However, if you wanted to have a general page to give an overview (e.g. mywork), then you could create a corresponding category and have your mywork.php template display only the posts (not pages) of that category.

There are many ways of doing this...this is just one way.

[Ravedesigns]

In the theme folder index.php is the main file right? So I make a duplicate of that change what I need to and then name it to the page i want it to be? so if its the About page I would name it "about.php" and it would appear as a template where I am able to select it.. is this right? Also what about subpages? I'm going to have a Projects page (project.php) and I would want to be able to create subpages under that.. would those be Posts instead of Pages?

Unless you really need/want to have different layouts for these additional pages you're creating I think you're making more work for yourself than you need to.

I'd say the first step in using WP as a CMS is to create a page to use as your home page then go to Settings > Reading - and select that page to use as your home page and decide where you plan to put blog posts, if you want to use them at all.

Create a projects page if you want and create pages to place under that - just make a new page and select the projects page as the "parent" (You might find this plugin helpful when working with pages http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pagemash/ )

Oh, and you can find some video tutorials at http://wordpresscms.ithemes.com/reso...deo-tutorials/ and if you google "wordpress cms" or "wordpress as cms" you'll find plenty of great resources like http://www.noupe.com/wordpress/power...wordpress.html

HTH,

Steve