Anybody else out there trying to get into this - the website building side of it? I have just started having decided that conventional website building is going to be too much more to learn - as I left off a couple years ago - and not really knowing that much then. This LOOKS good and I'm sure once you get the hang of it it'll be fantastic.

I find it interesting that there are these Content management communities out there - Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress. Now I see that for R350 you can got to a Wordpress conference her in Cape Town http://2013.capetown.wordcamp.org/
Soo nerdy. On the Meetup forums there are computer language meetups ... ???

Also the whole open source thing is quite amazing as well. I mean these days you can learn and do so much if you just now how to tap into all this.

Wordpress isn't much easier. I prefer Joomla. The newer versions have easy to use interfaces and the knowledge out there is a great resource.

Will check Joomla I see Lynda.com has a Joomla module ... it's a jungle out there. You are lucky you mastered Joomla when you did! New users coming on board have a tough decision to make on which route to take - and you have to try everything out a bit to see if it works for you - and this takes time. Dreamweaver is apparently now under licence - you can't own it. And you have to pay monthly subscriptions to Adobe. Skip a month and you're out. I speak under correction as I am busy trying to absorb so much info ...Couldn't find templates for Notepad plus plus that made any sense .... would've preferred to use it. Feels like a quest this ...

I've used Drupal and WordPress and developed for both. I'd say WP is, by far, the more user-friendly one and has the larger user-base and selection of free and paid plugins.

WordPress is used by 20% of ALL websites and out of all websites that actually use a CMS, it's used by more than 50%!
http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all

Can't comment on Joomla except to say that it sucked back in the day but then they ALL did.

Another interesting one:

WordPress completely dominates top 100 blogs:
http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/04/11/wordpress-completely-dominates-top-100-blogs/

+1 on WP. I love that I can set up a website for someone that all but the most cyberphobic can update themselves without messing up completely. And if someone wants a feature, chances are someone has already written a plugin to do it. ?

If you are the builder, it still doesn't completely free you from all code and having to learn some stuff, but it does take a load off.

Thanks for the info - I shall soldier on!

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: +1 on WP. I love that I can set up a website for someone that all but the most cyberphobic can update themselves without messing up completely. And if someone wants a feature, chances are someone has already written a plugin to do it. ?

If you are the builder, it still doesn't completely free you from all code and having to learn some stuff, but it does take a load off.

The only problem is when said someone runs a WP update and it breaks stuff... people regularly gets hold of me cos XYZ stopped working when they updated something... then I am like why did you run the update if it was working?! "Cos it said I could?"...lol

Just sad that there are people that want to mess up other peoples' sites. Peculiar. I am trying to set up an Art Gallery - am just going to start with 2013 - cause I'm assuming it's solid. So much to wade thro' - think I'll just start here.

For a gallery use WP and the NextGen Gallery plugin and you're 90% of the way there. Find a nice configurable theme (like Atahualpa) - avoid the paid for "Gallery" themes as most are a total waste of time.

@Lindsmuse, run EVERY update you get. Not running updates is how sites get hacked. Updates fix security holes. If an update breaks something in your WP site, one of 2 things has happened:

1. Someone modified your site in an unsustainable way. Their fault.
2. Someone tricked your WP installation to download an unofficial update - EXTREMELY rare and tricky to do. (DNS spoofing, etc.)

Run friggin updates!

Thnak you Alan - will do - and Norio - i shall do so.Do you guys always create child themes to start? Is it a must?

lindsmuse wrote: Thnak you Alan - will do - and Norio - i shall do so.Do you guys always create child themes to start? Is it a must?

It's preferred as, that way, you can update the parent theme without breaking anything. If you just edit the parent theme, when there's an update you can either NOT take advantage of it or redo all your work. Creating a child-theme takes 1 minute, worth it!

Thanks for that Noria. Busy trying out Alan's suggestions. This is saving me soooo much trouble - great stuff!

Updating immediately (as Norio mentioned) is very important. Some hosts allow for you set up automatic updates on the back-end automatically as they are released, which saves you some hassles of trying to keep up. Just be careful of all the free plugins. Id advise to check the up-loaders ratings, as well as how many people are using the plugin first, before installing. The WP rating system is a bit weird, because it may have a 5 star rating, but when you check it out, it shows that it has a 5 star rating from only 2 people. (more than likely from the plugins coder using 2 different accounts).

One thing that I would advise is to avoid theme's that use Timthumb. From personal experience Ive found it to be extremely problematic, and constantly needs to be updated, due to it being a security risk.

Goodluck ?

Good tips from Thomas. +1

As a rule of thumb, read some of the reviews, especially the 4-star ones. They'll tell you more than the overall rating. And it's also worthwhile checking how recently a plugin was updated. Stay away from plugins that haven't seen action in more than 2-3 months. An active project is a safer project.

Almost there. Almost tore my hair out as well - some of the stuff that should work and should be so simple - in the beginning - took forever to sort out. My site is so simple - front page / gallery of artists and contact sheet, just to get started. The people on the forums are so helpful. I took the simplest road I could find and hope that its going to be okay! Twenty Twelve and a few plugins. Hopefully with my next site I can get cleverer.Really don't want to fiddle with the templates just yet. Thanks again for the advice. Shall now keep an eye out for updates. ?

Good to hear. Yeah, it's a lot of work - and it's only just begun if you have built your site. Loading all the content (and keeping it updated) is where the real work comes in (and where most people fall down).