Hi

 

I am a noob studying Dreamweaver and FLASH but can already see that I will need to know a CMS package inside out. I am fairly competent with the likes of Wix and Weebly and have dabbled with Wordpress. I am on a 30 trial with Joomla, have heard about Drupal, but which should I really concentrate on for now? I am sure all have pros and cons over others depending on what you are looking to do, but based on my 'freshman' skill set and that I will probably only be using it for the basics for now what would you advise?

 

Cheers

I am a noob studying Dreamweaver and FLASH

Mistake number 1 and 2.

 

but can already see that I will need to know a CMS package inside out. I am fairly competent with the likes of Wix and Weebly and have dabbled with Wordpress. I am on a 30 trial with Joomla, have heard about Drupal, but which should I really concentrate on for now? I am sure all have pros and cons over others depending on what you are looking to do, but based on my 'freshman' skill set and that I will probably only be using it for the basics for now what would you advise?

For a 'noob', as you put it, I would suggest Wordpress. It's certainly the most basic of the common 3 (Drupal, Joomla & WP), but can be manipulated to be as advanced as heavily modified Drupal sites.

Edited February 18, 201115 yr by andyl

I really hate these do all CMS's like Drupal and Joomla. They are over complicated for both the developer and client. They are fine for large sites but for small or medium sites they are overkill. Learn a CMS that fits the need of most of your clients. Most of my client's needs actually fit Expression Engine, so thats what I learned, and I love it! It's not one of those do all CMS's but it can easily be extended to be that and can fit almost any size site. However there is a very strong learning curve so I wouldn't suggest that for your first. It is also not free.

 

I second Wordpress (although I really hate Wordpress). Also, take a look at ModX. I haven't really used it past a few minutes, but it might be worth trying.

Mistake number 1 and 2.

 

 

 

 

But why is that ^^^^^ andyl? I have been following your posts for a while so value your opinion. please explain.

 

Good advice by all though. Thanks, this just what I am after. My head is exploding with the learning curve and I need some direction.

 

oh, and I assume its wordpress.org installed not .com that you recommend?

Edited February 18, 201115 yr by ghop99

Oh, almost forgot to recommend Concrete 5. Pretty solid CMS (sorry for the pun).

 

With wordpress, the .org is the one you install on your own server, the .com is the one that you just signup and they host it. You want the .org.

Oh, almost forgot to recommend Concrete 5. Pretty solid CMS (sorry for the pun).

 

With wordpress, the .org is the one you install on your own server, the .com is the one that you just sign up and they host it. You want the .org.

 

Thanks cibgraphics. I have been messing around with .com but think I will go a host and jump on the .org over the weekend to get a proper feel for it.

 

I have been looking at the code behind templates and plugins/widgets to try and get up to speed but find my creative mind often cannot keep up with my web design skills and find myself designing around my skills rather than what I want to see on the page. I realize I have a long road ahead, and wish I had jumped in properly ten years ago when I started playing around. Patience and practice hey!

 

Hats off to you guys in the long haul seats though, you reap what you sow and all that.

Thanks cibgraphics. I have been messing around with .com but think I will go a host and jump on the .org over the weekend to get a proper feel for it.

 

I have been looking at the code behind templates and plugins/widgets to try and get up to speed but find my creative mind often cannot keep up with my web design skills and find myself designing around my skills rather than what I want to see on the page. I realize I have a long road ahead, and wish I had jumped in properly ten years ago when I started playing around. Patience and practice hey!

 

Hats off to you guys in the long haul seats though, you reap what you sow and all that.

 

Have you got a local server like xammp set up on your pc, if you have, have a play around with wordpress that way and many of the others mentioned

Have you got a local server like xammp set up on your pc, if you have, have a play around with wordpress that way and many of the others mentioned

 

No, not heard of that, I was going to go with on of those 'one click install hosts' but I seem to be chucking 10 quid here and 10 quid there for everything at the moment, hence my initial question. I am a spammers dream at the moment! I'll check that out though - Thanks for your help.

Yes, install a local server on your machine. Either Xammp or Wamp (I use Mamp.. OSX). Its free

 

EDIT: Also do some research on named virtual hosts. You'll want to learn that too if you want to try out different CMS's

Edited February 18, 201115 yr by cibgraphics

But why is that ^^^^^ andyl? I have been following your posts for a while so value your opinion. please explain.

I should have elaborated, I'm sorry. Do not use Dreamweaver's 'Design View'. Use it as a code editor. I found (over 5 years ago now) that it was tempting to just switch to design view and have done with it. I strongly suggest you use a code editor to create your websites so you learn HTML and CSS thoroughly and keep your code tight.

 

Some very respectable code editors include:

 

Coda for Macs - by far the best web-dev code editor I've ever come across.

Komodo Edit for Mac/Win - also very good.

 

As for Flash - Flash content is extremely tough for search engine spiders to crawl. It's often said to be invisible to search engines, so a full flash website is next to pointless if you care for search engine ranking. Yes, Flash is 'flashy', but you can do most of the effects you see with some jQuery whilst massively increasing the accessibility of your site.

 

Flash is ok for banners, or games. But I absolutely despise it for use on websites. It also kills mobile devices which run Flash, and is banned by Apple on their iDevices so that's pretty much your whole tablet, and a serious portion of your smartphone, audience out of the window too.

Edited February 18, 201115 yr by andyl

The CMS you should get use to is the CMS that you will need to be used to later on for work. Personally I think you should have a go with all the free ones just to see how they work. It is great for your CV to have a broad understanding of software.

Hi

 

I am a noob studying Dreamweaver and FLASH but can already see that I will need to know a CMS package inside out. I am fairly competent with the likes of Wix and Weebly and have dabbled with Wordpress. I am on a 30 trial with Joomla, have heard about Drupal, but which should I really concentrate on for now? I am sure all have pros and cons over others depending on what you are looking to do, but based on my 'freshman' skill set and that I will probably only be using it for the basics for now what would you advise?

 

Cheers

 

Hi,

Choose Php based CMS some of the

cms are magento,drupal,joommla ,zen cart,wordpress

etc try any one of your choice CMS are having wide scope in webdesigning industry

I would definately advise you to use Wordpress as it is the easiest to use, crazy amounts of plugins to suit anything, free and you can download basic stripped themes and put your own design into them... you cant go wrong with Wordpress!

Hi

 

I am a noob studying Dreamweaver and FLASH but can already see that I will need to know a CMS package inside out. I am fairly competent with the likes of Wix and Weebly and have dabbled with Wordpress. I am on a 30 trial with Joomla, have heard about Drupal, but which should I really concentrate on for now? I am sure all have pros and cons over others depending on what you are looking to do, but based on my 'freshman' skill set and that I will probably only be using it for the basics for now what would you advise?

 

Cheers

 

Try Magento. They also provide a training for merchants to use their CMS, and the service is available free for basic usage.

 

I am on a 30 trial with Joomla,

 

What do you mean by 30 days trial with Joomla? I thought Joomla was free and open source.. I've spent quite a bit of time with Joomla but it is complicated indeed and you need very good PHP skills to be able to tweak the pages your way. It takes a LONG time to build a small/medium web page using Joomla it is faster to hand code! Joomla is only good if the website you want to do is BIG

 

I know nothing of Wordpress and now I feel like I want try it after all that has been said about it

What do you mean by 30 days trial with Joomla? I thought Joomla was free and open source.. I've spent quite a bit of time with Joomla but it is complicated indeed and you need very good PHP skills to be able to tweak the pages your way. It takes a LONG time to build a small/medium web page using Joomla it is faster to hand code! Joomla is only good if the website you want to do is BIG

 

I know nothing of Wordpress and now I feel like I want try it after all that has been said about it

 

I built eh below news site with joomla without hardly touching the php, in fact i only changed some of the php because the template I got was a problem. The problem I have with Joomla is with the community, a lot of the add ons which were free now come at a charge this as caused me a feel problems with updates..

 

For something smaller I would say go with WordPress.