pippin62

OK that's great 👍. Thanks for your help!

Yep, it turns out that link was overkill. I've since found what is probably the correct way to do it. Here: https://buckleupstudios.com/add-a-new-widget-area-to-a-wordpress-theme/. But if anyone knows any different, please reply!

OK thanks. Widgets don't seem to be appearing, is this because I'm building a theme from scratch, and it's not set-up to support widgets? I found this link on how to code your own widget, but this seems like overkill for providing a way for an administrator to change address details? https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/create-custom-wordpress-widget/

Can anyone tell me what the standard practice is to create a custom post type for site-wide content? Say I want to make the address details in the footer editable, do I just create a custom post type and use that? And limit it to one page in the post type?

Hi, can anyone recommend project management software? I'm looking for a system that handles projects, contacts, estimates, invoices etc. So far I've looked at Streamline, Wrike and Dubsado in detail. So far Streamline seems to be the most suitable for my needs, but the interface is a bit quirky. Is there anything else targeted to creatives? Thanks for your input!

Cheers, that's what I thought

I've been given form code for posting to a CRM to process, but the client wants reCAPTCHA included. Am I right in thinking that the reCAPTCHA form validation needs to be handled at the server side processing end? It can't be validated separately end then sent to process can it?

I would say the low entry point to web development (mentioned above) is also one of the drawbacks to finding employment. As there is no formally recognised qualification, employers have a less effective way to judge applicants. This means that it’s a case of comparing applicants experience and/or raw knowledge - and as it’s very difficult to assess the quality of coding it comes down to knowledge of processes. As you’ve pointed out, the processes used in web development are constantly shifting - there isn’t an industry standard as such. There is also a competitive arms race amongst developers, who enjoy listing the most arcane or faddish development methods in their tool kit - and then expecting a new employee to fit in with this convoluted approach. As in any walk of life finding a job is often being in the right place at the right time and having a face that fits. The IT sector isn’t renowned for social skills, but it will still go a long way. A business owner once told me that he wouldn’t employ a dedicated developer as he didn’t want a nerd in the office. (His words not mine!) Lastly having enthusiasm for the work is pretty vital. If you’re just in it for the money (and with anything internet based there’s always a gold rush mentality), then forget it. Go and be an electrician.

I don't normally frequent these boards that much, but I felt compelled to share my recent CMS experiences. For over a decade I've been using ExpressionEngine for all my work - from version 1x to 3x. In all that time it's been a pretty reliable system. I work for a design company so our work flow starts with a visual design, then HTML mockups which are then converted to templates to integrate with the CMS. EE suits that work flow perfectly well as the content part of the HTML is just replaced with the EE tags. The functionality of the system can be extended with a range of addons of course. EE is still a great system, but as noted above, in over a decade it has only gone from version 1 to version 3. More worryingly the number of developers supporting the platform seems to be falling. Crucial addons have been transferred to other developers. Support requests go unanswered. Clients are sceptical about wether EE is right for them. Sadly it looks like EE is on the wane. So I thought maybe it's time to go with the herd and move to Wordpress. I have used Wordpress for smaller sites where EE seemed like overkill. I thought that maybe it was time to gear up to offer Wordpress for bigger sites. My only fear was how easy a WP site is hacked. But I thought that could be dealt with. So I started by building an installation before the design was put in place. That way I could tailor the design to the WP output. Days of work ensued trying to 'clean-up' the templates after the plugins were installed to make them suitable to integrate with a design. And I had to tell the client that features he wanted wasn't supported by the plugin we were using. After a lot of head scratching I gave up. I went back to the client and convinced him to use EE after all. But the issues with EE sadly remain. So, with a deep breath I started a Craft tutorial. I've been following the progress of Craft from when it was called Blocks. Even at launch it looked a bit basic for client use, but now it's a different story altogether. Craft suits our workflow and there are two killer features in Craft that, for me, make it stand head and shoulders above both EE and Wordpress. The first is the Matrix field. This isn't the same as the EE Matrix field developed by Pixel and Tonic, or the repeater field in ACF for Wordpress (both of which are addons). The built-in Craft Matrix field allows you to add rows of completely different content and so not restricted to adding rows of the same content. This is just fantastic. The one thing clients always ask for, is to embed video at any point within a main content section. This is a breeze with the Matrix field. The second is the preview. It doesn't use a different template like EE (which is a complete ball ache), and unlike WP it retains the editing pane - so that you can continue editing with the preview alongside. And the preview updates as you work! The only downside to Craft is the slightly esoteric Twig tags it uses. The EE tag system is far simpler to understand. But Twig is still way easier to understand than WP tags. After using Craft for a bit and then needing to go back to EE for a job, EE seemed very frustrating to use. So if you're in the same position I was in then I recommend giving Craft a try.

Cheers, thanks for your response that answers my question.

Hi, I've have a client who has been paying someone to 'administer' the company domain name. We now need to get the domain transferred to the client, but the administering party will not play ball. Is there anything I can do?

Wow - cheers!

Guess not then!

Anyone here with experience of using SAP anywhere e-commerce? I'm trying to find out about the templating system.

I would agree with the fact that Advanced Custom Fields is pretty much essential to turn Wordpress into a proper CMS. You can then start creating template pages with more than one block of content - a main text article and a sidebar for example. The bit of code needed to pull in a custom field is quite straight-forward (by Wordpress standards). The Pro version is about £12, and includes the repeatable content field. For me, this is an essential field type as it allows you to create anything from slideshows to a table of contact details. You can create a custom field group and then link it to a template or templates. This means that when an administrator chooses a template when creating a new page, the basic text field changes to the custom one linked to the template. I think the main confusion with Wordpress is the theme and plugin culture that has grown up around the system - aimed at letting non-coders create a website. (I once tried to build a blog with a theme based on Genesis. I lost count of the number of plugins I needed to use to get basic functionality.) So when some people are discussing Wordpress, they are actually referring to this type of development process rather than what I would call a proper CMS.