I am sorry to ask this but I have always avoided a CMS system as they do not meet my needs, the size of the install and I like to be in control
Now a local builder wants me to build him a website so he can upload before and after photos with some text and a contact form.
He is not very computer literate and I do not want to have the job of updating his site every time he completes a project. I am wondering if a blogging type site would be best?
Anyway I need a main page, about, contact form and the ability for the user to upload photos and text; also free would be best as he is just starting out.
One thing I have noticed with some of the CMS sites I have looked at is it is hard to find the price and if you have to pay or you can use it for free on your own server.
Also a lot of them do not give you any links to sample sites created with their product!
Anyway any insights would be useful - I remember somebody recomending a Ruby? CMS before; but from what I remember it was a static site that had to be modified, compiled and then uploaded?
WordPress would be ideal for a situation like this. The learning curve for the site owner is not too steep, it does everything you list here and it is free. It also wonât take long for you to set it up, but it is highly customizable.
It is funny looking through the links:
Most do not have a âshowcaseâ
One the link to the demo does not work.
One other seems to be stagnent
Another the demo does not work.
One you have to install a template engine as well.
Does not inspire me with confidence and I suppose that is why the big well known CMS are so popular.
Actually, @oddz, that is not true. I also develop in Drupal (overkill for the purposes of the OPâs requirements) and have used Joomla and I build applications and websites without using either of these. But if WordPress is appropriate for a job, I will recommend it.
And I am sure you will find a wide range of technologies that people use who frequent this forum, not just WordPress.
If you want to respond to this thread, could you please respond with something that will be helpful to the OP. What CMS do you recommend for @Rubble to use?
I suggest you show the local builder a WordPress ACP to see if it is indeed âfriendlyâ as far as he is concerned.
I recently had a friend that found WordPress too confusing.
(sheâs a real estate agent, and not tech savvy)
She wanted a WYSIWYG drag-drop interface and neither knew about nor cared a whit about âHTMLâ semantic, well-formed or otherwise.
This is along the lines I was thinking. I like the option to drag and drop photos into the page and have a simple text editor that needs no html knowledge. I know he is a Facebook user and from what I understand - not having tried it - that is the way it works. I have not tried the web builder programs but assume that is what they work?
As suggested I will get him to try the Wordpress demo and see what he thinks. Looks like no html knowledge required as it is like a word processor.
Years ago I looked into writing a plugin that would remove ânon-devâ components from the ACP with the idea that some might be confused by them, or worse, try them without knowing what effect they might have.
Then WordPress merged multisite into the Core, life got in the way, and Iâve not gone back to it.
But I think it is still an idea worth looking into.
Whether the CMS is free or not, there still will be a cost in hiring youâand the cost of the CMS pales into insignificance compared with that. Most CMSs offer what youâre talking about. You, as the site creator, need to mess with some code, but the client wonât have to. I could make a list here of up to a hundred popular CMSs, both free and commercial. But those lists get boring. There are some CMSs that are fresh, new and popular, thoughâsuch as Grav, an interesting flat-file CMS.
WordPress is a somewhat bloated blogging CMS imho, and there are better, simpler, cleaner options that make templating much easier etc.
But then there are also hosted solutions that are worth considering, too. Something like Squarespace offers a great option, where the client pays monthly for an account, chooses a nice template, and everything is ready to goâalthough you can help the client with that and customize the layout too. Pretty compelling these days for a simple site. The monthly fee (roughly $10) is much cheaper than getting oneâs own hosting and paying a developer to set up the site.
@Mittineague I am thinking I could create a page that the user copied every time they wanted a new page. They would just fill in the blanks; although it would get more complicated with the photos.
@ralphm On investigation a lot of the new CMSâs do not fill me with confidence that they will be around long.
You could take a look at the http://demo.b2evolution.net/ demo site. Thatâs been around for a long time (as long as WP almost to the day), and is under continual development.
Some, Like Expression Engine, have been around a long time, and donât look like disappearing soon. Anyhow, it doesnât really matter all that much, as once youâve downloaded the CMS code, it will last forever. The only problem would be things like PHP advancing to a point where the CMS code is badly out of date, although youâve probably got at least ten years ⌠which is a long time for a website to last anyhow.
True enough - support is your only real concern, but that depends to some extent on your own/clientsâ skill set, and whether you can work out problems on your own.
Just a thought, but do your builderâs needs justify standing up their own hosted solution? Would it be easier to go down the Blogger or Wordpress[.]com route?
