June 16, 201412 yr Hi, I am looking for a template for my new site. Since I am photographer it needs to be simple, have cms that even I can understand and I would like it to have slider bar at the bottom of te page for thumbnails. Here is sample of page i like : www.erikalmas.com I found something similar at www.foliowebsites, but they sell hosting - you can't just buy a template. Any idea where to look ? Since it's realy just a simple site I guess template shouldn't cost more than 50 quid, maybe even less... Also, I had a look at wix, and it's not an option... firsti, it looks childish, and second they also sell hosting... Cheers, Alan Edited June 16, 201412 yr by JackCarter
June 16, 201412 yr Well you could do it with WordPress - especially if you wanted a blog. You could probably even use a free theme using a slider plugin. Some of those are free although I think that to get thumbnails with meta slider ( http://wordpress.org/plugins/ml-slider/ ) you need the paid version. There are a whole load of WP themes available that are aimed at photographers, but if you get a non-free one then you have to pay before you can play with it of course. Btw, I am confused about whether you are called Alan or Jack.
June 16, 201412 yr What about Squarespace? It's a pay monthly deal, but the templates are gorgeous and the CMS looks pretty shiny too. http://squarespace.com/tour/photographers
June 16, 201412 yr Author Well you could do it with WordPress - especially if you wanted a blog. You could probably even use a free theme using a slider plugin. Some of those are free although I think that to get thumbnails with meta slider ( http://wordpress.org/plugins/ml-slider/ ) you need the paid version. There are a whole load of WP themes available that are aimed at photographers, but if you get a non-free one then you have to pay before you can play with it of course. Btw, I am confused about whether you are called Alan or Jack. Well you could do it with WordPress - especially if you wanted a blog. You could probably even use a free theme using a slider plugin. Some of those are free although I think that to get thumbnails with meta slider ( http://wordpress.org/plugins/ml-slider/ ) you need the paid version. There are a whole load of WP themes available that are aimed at photographers, but if you get a non-free one then you have to pay before you can play with it of course. Btw, I am confused about whether you are called Alan or Jack. Hi Jane, thanks for your reply, and the info... I have to admit - I really have no clue how to build the site ( I did build my first site way back in 1998 using html, but am not web designer ). Friend of mine built the last version of my site ( I did build my first site way back in 1998 using html, but am not web designer ). Friend of mine built the latest version ( www.alanmatuka.com ), but it nasn't got cms, it's written in flash and therefore absolutely useless if you want to look at it on android, tablet or mobile. WordPress could be an option, same guy would build the next version. Still, it would be nice to use some sort of a template for reveral reasons - it would be cheaper, templates come with all ' social network ' bits built in and they are easy to change and customize. I am surprised there's no template with built in slider bar - at least i haven't seen any. My name is Alan, Jack is my second name I use when creating profiles online.
June 16, 201412 yr Author Hi Jack, I heard of Squarespace and they have some nice templates. Still, since I already have great web hosting service that literally never goes off line and the price is great too - I'm not very keen on monthly deals. Company called folio websites also offer great sites, but they also charge some 200 dollars a year for hosting.
June 17, 201412 yr Hi Alan, WordPress could be as cheap as free. But you'd have to pick the right theme out of the thousands available. I'm sure there are some that have built in sliders. The example you linked to had the menu down the side, which seems to be less common - although TwentyFourteen is that way around. Graph Paper Press reckon their themes are aimed at photographers but I've never used them. I'll have a think. Obviously, I don't want to seem to be pushing you towards WP if another option suits your purpose better. Zenfolio is aimed at photographers (I have a site with them myself) but that is all inclusive with hosting, which you don't want. A lot of the photographers that I know like Prophoto WordPress themes - but they are not cheap. Hmm...
June 17, 201412 yr I have an account with Themify but I'm not 100% convinced by them yet. I've heard mixed things about them - ranging from good to "bloated code" (I think that was them). They do this theme: http://themify.me/themes/slide eta: just looking at the demo for that and not sure - but need to get the children ready for school now. edited again: This is what I'd seen re. Themify: http://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/27gagk/anyone_ever_used_themify/ Edited June 17, 201412 yr by Jane B
June 17, 201412 yr Also http://themify.me/themes/photobox Children, school, now.... eta: it doesn't seem to like that link so you may need to copy it. http://themify.me/themes/photobox ??? That one may work. Edited June 17, 201412 yr by Jane B
June 17, 201412 yr Author Hi Alan, WordPress could be as cheap as free. But you'd have to pick the right theme out of the thousands available. I'm sure there are some that have built in sliders. The example you linked to had the menu down the side, which seems to be less common - although TwentyFourteen is that way around. Graph Paper Press reckon their themes are aimed at photographers but I've never used them. I'll have a think. Obviously, I don't want to seem to be pushing you towards WP if another option suits your purpose better. Zenfolio is aimed at photographers (I have a site with them myself) but that is all inclusive with hosting, which you don't want. A lot of the photographers that I know like Prophoto WordPress themes - but they are not cheap. Hmm... Thank you, Jane :-) I'll have a look at Graph Paper and Prophoto... When I started looking for a template I thought it would be easy to find one. If I would be web designer who designs templates I would have a look at 100 photographer's sites, and would choose pick of the crop ( mostly top end advertising guys ), and design 10 templates that mirror designs I've seen. And most of the good sites have slider bar, they use gray to white skin and there's a menu either on the left, or at the bottom. How hard can it be ? Thank you once again... btw Since at the moment I don't have cms most of my recent work is here : www.flickr.com/photos/103462029@N08/sets Edited June 17, 201412 yr by JackCarter
June 17, 201412 yr Author Just had a look at Prophoto... for 200 dollars you get 14 starter designs... well, most of us only need one... I understand that you can change designs at any time, but in fact - you only need one...
June 17, 201412 yr Prophoto is basically a WordPress theme with a lot of built in theme options so you can change the look without coding. I've never played with it because I don't want to spend the money just to be nosey, but a lot of the photographers I know online use it. I'm not necessarily recommending it, just saying it's popular with the particular crowd I hang out online with (I'm a moderator at ilovephotography.com - mainly children's portrait photographers). It might be worth a look at http://www.zenfolio.com/ if only to rule it out.
June 17, 201412 yr Also, it is very easy to add a slide show with to WP with a plugin. Edited June 17, 201412 yr by Jane B
June 17, 201412 yr There might be some suggestions here: http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/20-best-free-photography-wordpress-themes/ Once you start looking at themes it's very easy to get overwhelmed.
June 17, 201412 yr Author Just emailed Graph Paper and Zenfolio and asked them if they got somethin similar. Also, had a look at the samples... Will let you know what they say :-) In case you have time have a look at www.foilowebsites.com, it may be of use to you...
June 17, 201412 yr Author There might be some suggestions here: http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/20-best-free-photography-wordpress-themes/ Once you start looking at themes it's very easy to get overwhelmed. yes, there's lots of them... here is another sample of something useful... www.f12-photo.com/reportage/ $ 175 per year, and you have to trust them site will be online all the time... Edited June 17, 201412 yr by JackCarter
October 9, 201411 yr Author I finally installed MAMP and WP, and it seems I'll have to start from scratch... It seems youtube will be my best mate for a while, with all the tutorials... First have to learn gow to build drop down menus, and find galery slider with thumbnail images... Something slick, that changes rotation speed and has a on/off button... Jane B. Would you know how to build slider like one on this page ? erikalmas.com Thank you :-)
October 10, 201411 yr There are a whole load of WP slider plugins. I tend to use Meta Slider, but to get thumbnails on that you have to use the Pro version. This is the free one https://wordpress.org/plugins/ml-slider/ Here's a blog post reviewing some of the contenders: http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/the-best-wordpress-slider-plugins Drop down menus are very easy. There are some links to WP tutorials in a blog post I did for reference here: http://janeswebsitehelp.co.uk/online-wordpress-tutorials/
October 10, 201411 yr This is one of many possible free themes as a stating point https://wordpress.org/themes/editor Yet again, I find myself having to get children to school instead of just playing on the computer.
October 10, 201411 yr Just for your amusement, here's my own Zenfolio site (which I am not particularly proud of) http://jbrennecker.zenfolio.com/ and here's a WP site I set up for a friend with a TwentyTwelve child theme I think she enlarged the slideshow after I handed it over to her.
October 10, 201411 yr Author This is one of many possible free themes as a stating point https://wordpress.org/themes/editor Yet again, I find myself having to get children to school instead of just playing on the computer. Thank you for your quick reply :-) It seems it's worthed upgrading to Pro version... But first I'll have to learn the basics and grasp the concept... thanks for links :-)
October 10, 201411 yr and here's a WP site I set up for a friend with a TwentyTwelve child theme I think she enlarged the slideshow after I handed it over to her. For some reason that link is missing. Which annoys me so I will add it even though I don't think you'll want to use TwentyTwelve because you want a side menu. http://sarasmilephotos.com/ TwentyFourteen can have a side menu I believe, but I don't think it's the sort of look you are after.
October 12, 201411 yr If you're looking for great templates you'll find it on the Gavick website. They have very wide choice of free and premium templates.
October 13, 201411 yr Author I managed to find a perfect Template, nice and clean. It's called ' Just Landing ' - since it has just a landing page. Spent few hours trying to add sidebar menu, via widgets and menues, still didn't figure out how :-)
October 14, 201411 yr I'm not convinced by that one..... not sure that starting with a landing page is the way to go, but it's more of a gut feeling than me having anything really against the theme. I'm always happier when a theme has some good reviews. This is another option if you like minimal: https://wordpress.org/themes/graphy but it doesn't have the side menu you were keen on. Unless you do it as a custom menu in the sidebar, but then it'd be on the right, hmm.... Did you rule out the Editor one I mentioned above? Edited October 14, 201411 yr by Jane B
October 14, 201411 yr Or how about this? https://wordpress.org/themes/fukasawa or https://wordpress.org/themes/rams
October 14, 201411 yr Author I'm not convinced by that one..... not sure that starting with a landing page is the way to go, but it's more of a gut feeling than me having anything really against the theme. I'm always happier when a theme has some good reviews. This is another option if you like minimal: https://wordpress.org/themes/graphy but it doesn't have the side menu you were keen on. Unless you do it as a custom menu in the sidebar, but then it'd be on the right, hmm.... Did you rule out the Editor one I mentioned above? I know it may sound strange, my idea was to start with a blank page and simply add sidebar and pages with metaslider. Had a look at several tutorials, and it seems the only way to create a blank page is by changing code on the actual page. However simple ( just have to erase header, footer and the body ) playing with files, folders and codes is still beyond me. I imagined it would be easy as working on wix sites. Therefore, I thought landing page ( being blank ) might do the trick. I installed both Editor and Gridster-lite, and most of the time I use Editor. It seems great, just have to change colour of the body so that it merges with sidebar. It would then look like single ' entity ' :-) I'll also try two you suggested just now, thank you :-)
October 23, 201411 yr Author So, I tried out Editor, Gridster-lite, Fukasawa and Rams, and my favourites are... Editor and Fukasawa. It took me some time to figure out how, but I managed to create child theme for Editor, and that is my main playground for time being. One thing I can't work out is how to create a drop down menu ? It seems that subpages just sit in the menu together with parent pages...
October 24, 201411 yr Have you created a custom menu by going to Appearance, Menu ? You can make items drop down from a main menu item by dragging them so they are indented. You might be able to see in the screen shot here: http://easywpguide.com/wordpress-manual/appearance/updating-the-menu/
October 24, 201411 yr Author Have you created a custom menu by going to Appearance, Menu ? You can make items drop down from a main menu item by dragging them so they are indented. You might be able to see in the screen shot here: http://easywpguide.com/wordpress-manual/appearance/updating-the-menu/ Yes, I know... but id doesn't work in Editor. Well, it sort of works, but your subpages just get listed under their parent page, with some indent. There was a question about it on Editor support page, and they don't plan to change the theme so that it has a real drop down menu...
October 25, 201411 yr Oh dear. I just tested it and I see what you mean. Sorry - I think my suggestion of Editor was not the best one then
October 25, 201411 yr Sorry, the Rams and Fukasawa ones seem to do the same thing. I suppose that's the danger with me suggesting themes without really investigating them thoroughly. TwentyFourteen doesn't do that, it seems. If you use the secondary sidebar menu and you could hide the top menu. Hmm... Edited October 25, 201411 yr by Jane B
October 25, 201411 yr Author Jane, your suggestions are really invaluable :-) of course you can only suggest themes based on your experience, and it would be silly to expect that you've tested every one of them... For instance, you pointed out that I am very keen on the left side menu, and I decided not to cling on to specific design to much. As a result I tried Twenty twelve, and although it has a header based menu it looks very good :-) So, thank you very much for your help :-D
October 25, 201411 yr I like TwentyTwelve as a starting point. I've used it with a child theme to tweak the look quite a bit.
October 25, 201411 yr Author I like TwentyTwelve as a starting point. I've used it with a child theme to tweak the look quite a bit. Yes, I like it's design - clean, slick and minimalist... It didn't appeare so great at first sight, but it kind of grew on me :-) I also created a child theme, and am glad for that... I see what they mean about saving changes and updates... Next thing is to buy meta slider pro, I'm really looking forward to that :-) I had a small problem with creating slideshow with images of different hight ( meta slider buttons would ' jump ' according to hight of the image). I managed to solve the problem by placing images in the same size white frame ( it's simple, in photoshop all images are placed on the same size canvas ). Keep you posted :-) Edited October 25, 201411 yr by JackCarter
October 27, 201411 yr Author I just noticed two glitches in WP... or rather, in MAMP... - sometimes when I try to ad jpegs to meta slider it doesn't load them, same problem with loading to media folder - names file by some different name - Afl... any ideas ? also, I tried to shrink down a image size ( so that meta slider buttons would be visible at the bottom of the page ), and Twelve twenty doesn't reacts to that... in the other words, if I set in meta slider image size 300 x 300 image is still at full pagei, same as when it's set to 700 x 700
October 27, 201411 yr I had a quick look at one I'm using and I have the meta slider settings set to R.slides with a width and height in pixels. That seems to work for me. But I may have misunderstood the problem.
October 27, 201411 yr Author I had a quick look at one I'm using and I have the meta slider settings set to R.slides with a width and height in pixels. That seems to work for me. But I may have misunderstood the problem. problem is that the image is always same size, regardless of what is set as size in meta slider... in the other words, it seems there is an allocated space for an image, and it's always full page... I didn't try with other templates, just with 2012 Edited October 27, 201411 yr by JackCarter
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