I’m a little confused how everything works with wordpress, since the only thing I’m familiar with is HTML and CSS.
I just don’t get whether I should make the whole site in dreamweaver and leave space in dreamweaver (a div tag) for the things I later wanna add from Wordpress, for example, A image gallery.
The thing is that my clients never wanna be able to have a full site that everything’s updateable, mostly a client just wanna be able to have a image gallery to insert their own pictures, or maybe just a news box to write some news.
I just wanna know where to start off now, should I make the site in dreamweaver and leave space for Wordpress plugins (such as a div tag)?
Well REALLY what I wanna be able to do really in the end is to make a site that the clients can update everything, and the design should be exactly as the client describes how he wants and I wanna learn not to use any themes. So where should I go from now?
Unless you are intending on using Dreamweaver to manage a WordPress site then you may have the wrong idea about how WordPress works.
Think of Wordpress like the a modifiable car. You start with a basic model, off the shelf components. Nothing wrong with that it will do everything you need to get from A to B. Self contained it doesn’t need anything (like DW) to work. However with a little love or some specific requirements you can take that basic car and modify it so it looks awesome, or it goes faster, or it drifts well, or it can race in a rally, or drag race.
The plugins that you add are like upgrade components. They might tweak what is already there or they may replace it, or add something new.
Themes are like the paint job, but some themes come with optional extras (bonus plugins cause the theme maker likes you).
You can use Dreamweaver to help manage a WP install but personally I’ve never done it, I haven’t needed to. Wordpress is modular so it is easy to add plugins and themes, you install them from the WordPress admin, then turn them on. That’s it. Some require a setting or two to be changed but at the back end those new features are available as soon as you activate the plugin.
Plugin vary HUGELY in what they do. Most are highly specific. Most also take existing features (like cool javascripts or jquery) and make it easy to integrate into your existing WordPress install. Behind the scenes they are integrating the code and then providing an interface through the WordPress admin panel which means you don’t have to mess around with code. You do, but you do it by way of the options in a plugins settings.
Most themes are also modifiable. So you install them, then create a child version (essentially just a custom folder that allows you to overwrite the themes defaults without changing the CSS or php files directly) and you can modify the CSS or add your own functions easily. If the theme gets updated, you can update knowing that none of your customisations will be lost.
Hope that helps a little. It is a different way of working than a straight HTML/CSS. My workflow has been one of trying to use or get as close to a final product using WordPress tools, then tweaking the CSS to make the website unique or tweak the areas that don’t quite work. This is easily possible with WP and not a lot of work.
Thanks for your answer. I appriciate it so much.
You said, start with a basic model. Do you mean with a free template for example?
This is my website for my client. http://www.kwpwebdesign.se/Åkarpträdgårdsservice/index.html
My client only wants to be able to insert her own pictures in a image gallery in the menu called “Galleri”, its blank for now but the menu and the brown thing on the upper should stay, then a image gallery under the menu.
Lets say I get a new client, she tells me she want a website that looks exactly like mine, what should I do?