MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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hello.
my other half has asked me if i could create a website for her part time/soon to be launched vegan cupcakes/patisserie/catering type business. it's been quite some time since i had any involvement in website creation, but i know some HTML, PHP and a bit of javascript.
i don't really want to use a fixed template type thing or some kind of commercial program in place of writing code myself as i think it'd do me good to learn/bring my knowledge up to date, but where's good to start? should i maybe learn about HTML5 first, or should i maybe build something around, say, a wordpress template? obviously because the site will be product based and will probably be getting updated fairly regularly, it could do with a pretty intuitive CMS so i can leave it to her to maintain content.
what should i be looking at?
maybe build something around, say, a wordpress template?
Yes
Shopify?
The thing is, the wheel has pretty much been invented now. I think we're coming from around the same place; back when I was doing webdev, I did most of my development in Notepad.
These days there are a lot of good, free alternatives to hand-crufting. Even if you only use it as a starting point and then tweak the code manually, there's little reason to start with a blank sheet and type "<HTML>".
Wordpress is surprisingly feature rich these days. Joomla is a well-regarded CMS, and there's another one whose name escapes me but is Joomla's main competitor with a number of strengths and weaknesses.
I think we're coming from around the same place; back when I was doing webdev, I did most of my development in Notepad
yeah, i did the same. tried to muck about with dreamweaver but i just didn't get on with it.
Joomla was what i was actually looking at too, but i may well just go with wordpress for now anyway as all she really needs is a sort of blog based thing, nothing more elaborate than that.
YOu have to decide if you want a static shop front or a dynamic ecommerce site, whilst keeping an eye on how the business will grow.
There are plenty of off the shelf ecommerce sites for example OSCommerce (php). If it's just a shop front then you will need more graphics design skills then programming skills and these 2 rarely go hand in hand.
Look at MagentoGo - scalable ecomms and you can use templates. When the business takes off you can port it all to full Magento and have custom design done too.
Joomla was what i was actually looking at too, but i may well just go with wordpress for now anyway as all she really needs is a sort of blog based thing, nothing more elaborate than that.
Sounds like as a solution to the problem, WP is what you want. If you want to "update your skills" you could do worse than learning Joomla as a project though, it's quite de rigeur at the moment.
it'll be a static front i'd say; more of a marketing/advertising thing since there'll be no online sales through the site. i'm semi-proficient in food photography these days and in terms of graphic design we can call in a favour or two from a mate in the business so that's covered.
. Joomla is a well-regarded CMS, and there's another one whose name escapes me but is Joomla's main competitor with a number of strengths and weaknesses.
Drupal, very good for complex websites, maybe a bit of overkill for a small website
Speaking as a web designer I'd say go down the Wordpress route as you say you can find a template that mainly suits your needs and then get your hands dirty tweaking it until its the ideal template. Also a very easy to use CMS for your misses and you can plugin lots of useful apps like secure contact forms, SEO and other gubbins!
The other alternative would be to make a simple site using CSS and some tool kit such as mootools to make it more interesting but for time / scalability I'd go with WP in your case.