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Which web technologies would you use?
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infrasound View Drop Down
Old Croc
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Joined: 13 May 2011
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    Posted: 11 December 2011 at 9:08pm
Hi everyone, looking to get a little advice on an upcoming project that I have coming up.

Currently moonlighting for a small Cricket company doing their graphic /  industrial design work. I have their website coming up to go live  1st Feb.

My current plan is to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop for the initial construction. With use of CSS, DW templates and PHP to form the structure. I hope to integrate the paypal webshop for the eshop side (javascript and PHP will probably become involved in that too).

However, I'm thinking of using a WCMS system (IE Joomla) to help with the backend 'heavy lifting'. Has anyone had experience with these? Or have any guidance? I would like to move on from the template based system - as it's feeling increasingly dated / clunky!

Thanks in advance Smile
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Heapy View Drop Down
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Points: 21 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Heapy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 December 2011 at 10:11pm
I can heartily recommed Joomla, especially if you can get a copy of Artisteer too to make templates. All the joy of a template, with the grunt of a proper CMS. I moved onto it from Dreamweaver/Frontpage a while ago and haven't looked back.

Plus, when you have a CMS it's easy for clients to log in and change the content themselves, without you having to worry about them buggering up any of the coding or graphics. Win/Win! :)
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JPP View Drop Down
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Joined: 14 August 2011
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Points: 10 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JPP Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 December 2011 at 10:09pm
I have found that Wordpress is very easy to use but it might not be suited to your needs since i've only really looked into using it in the blogging world...

I have also used Drupal, which I can highly recommend. I found that it takes a bit of getting used to but using a CMS is far easier and quicker than writing an entire complex site from scratch. If you wish, you can then use Dreamweaver/PS to design your own theme for Drupal or something :).
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infrasound View Drop Down
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Points: 2276 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote infrasound Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 December 2011 at 10:17pm
Wicked, thanks guys.

Glad to hear that these do make the difference they claim! The easier it is for my client the better Thumbs Up.

Seems like there is a bit of a split in the web dev world between drupal and joomla! - I'll give them both a go and see which I prefer.

Cheers!
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JPP View Drop Down
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Points: 10 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JPP Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 December 2011 at 10:18pm
No problem. Let us know what you discover!

I should try Joomla some time..it's apparently quite good.
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Chris LDN View Drop Down
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Points: 74 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Chris LDN Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 December 2011 at 8:51pm
I have tried them all - some more than others - as I have been looking for the best solution myself for a number of websites I'm developing, including an ecommerce website.

As with anything there are a number of variables that you should consider before you make your choice.

Type Of Hosting

Will you be using shared hosting, a VPS, or a dedicated server? In my experience Wordpress can be run straight out of the box on even the lowliest shared host, whereas Drupal (v7.x onwards) can be quite resource intensive. Check your specs now before you develop, as there is no point in creating a fantastic site for one technology in the comfort of ones home LAMP/MAMP stack, only to find it run like an old dog on deployment.

Programming Experience

Can you code in PHP? If so, you will do alright with Drupal. If not, I advise you to throw your copy of Drupal in the bin now. You will do nothing but lose your hair. Low or minimal knowledge of PHP will result in you being stuck with the default theme. It is not easy to take your well designed HTML and CSS and try to wedge it into Drupal.

Creating a Wordpress theme from your own design is easy. Wordpress is well documented, and all the knowledge you could need to create a custom theme is freely available at - http://codex.wordpress.org - codex.wordpress.org. There are great books available too.

Scope Of The End Product

What do you need? User editable static style pages; company blog - set up as "News"? Wordpress can do all. If you're looking to start selling stuff then it gets tricky. If you're sticking with Paypal links (the type that take you to the Paypal page to pay rather than all onsite), then you can just set up a static page for each item and copy and paste the Paypal payment button. Easy. If you want something more fully featured, look elsewhere. Even all the plugins in the world couldn't help Wordpress in the ecommerce stakes.

Drupal can do selling via http://www.ubercart.org - Ubercart, but if you're going this way I would advise you to move to something like the http://www.djangoproject.com - Django web framework, and build it yourself.

Django

I currently building all my sites in this web framework, and I can highly recommend it. You will need a VPS with root access to deploy though.

Sorry for the long rambling post.
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Happy Jack View Drop Down
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Points: 95 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Happy Jack Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 December 2011 at 12:06am
Originally posted by Chris LDN Chris LDN wrote:


Sorry for the long rambling post.
Please don't apologize. I, for one, appreciate the insight there.
londonivy.com
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Biggus View Drop Down
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Points: 1284 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Biggus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 December 2011 at 1:46pm
+1 on Joomla and Wordpress - Makes life eaiser and you can still customize it to suit your needs.
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infrasound View Drop Down
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Points: 2276 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote infrasound Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 January 2012 at 7:33pm
Just to let you guys know what I chose in the end:

Joomla+Hikashop+RT theme/Gantry framework.


Extremely powerful combination! I purchased the theme and framework from RT (Reflex) and it is proving perfect for my needs Thumbs Up
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infrasound View Drop Down
Old Croc
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Points: 2276 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote infrasound Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 January 2012 at 7:34pm
Ps. Thanks for the insight and advice from everyone Clap
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