Building websites, using Web Applications.

[Mike Connor]

Your problem is not inexperience, but lack of a target. Unless you know what you are trying to achieve, then it it is quite impossible to achieve it.

What sort of website do you want? Are you wanting to offer people useful content? A family website? Or are you just playing around in order to learn how things work?

With all due respect to the previous posters, Joomla is not a good software packet for a beginner, and Wordpress is basically a publishing software with the emphasis on Blogging. You CAN use it for other things, but only if you have some idea of what you are doing, and what you actually want to achieve.

Ease of installing and operating these things varies considerably, and there are dozens ( probably actually hundreds if you count them all) of CMS and similar systems which all have various advantages and drawbacks.

They all have the same problem though, that unless you know what you want to do with them, they are largely useless.

If you are merely interested in discovering how these things work, then you have to install them and play around with them. This will however quickly become boring and frustrating unless you have some structure in your operations, and either a specific general target, or a set of targets.

Learning curves for various systems and targets vary a great deal, but without some specific targets you just waste a lot of time in aimless wandering and don't learn much either.

Another problem here, is failure to understand the terminology involved, which causes mistakes and misunderstandings. Many systems install themselves with scripts in some form of default configuration. You don' t actually have to do anything much at all,the script does it for you. You do need to know the basic parameters of the target system, ( The server where you are going to install it), and the parameters required by the software. If you don't understand a particular parameter, then of course you can ask.

Make a basic plan of what you want to do before you start trying any software at all. This also makes it far easier for people with knowledge on the matter to answer your questions without having to write very long explanatory articles about things.

[wdhpr]

Hi Mike

Thanks for the input.

Actually I already have a simple website and two blogs. One of the blogs is due to expire in a few months. The other is provided free with my host. I have my site and blog hosted by GoDaddy. The website cost $20.00 a year and they throw in the blog and webmail. Cant beat the price. My website is html based from which I can work with using Kompozer and my blog I can work with using windows live writer. Of course I can also use the hosting control panel.

I guess I would like to use my website as a place to express my views. A very tiny whisper amongst the howling winds of the internet. Its very basic and I thought about upgrading it to a dynamic site. I plan on keeping it for few more years or longer. Who knows A light bulb may go off in my head and I'll try to make some cash with it. Its going to have to be a bright light though.

From what I have read a dynamic site is much more versatile and I can have more bells and whistles.

So to answer your question I want to play around with it first. I have Xampp installed and running I also have Joomla and wordpress up and running on my local host. From what I can see wordpress is indeed designed for blogging it also has a large selection of templates to choose from. Joomla seems to be more suitable for website designing. Problem is Joomla is a bit difficult for this newbie. Ive been playing around with the two as time permits. At this point I am trying to figure out how take a website template and incorporate into joomla and then modify that to my personal taste. It seems I may have to do this one table at a time. Also this is the point where I am lost.....lol

I have been looking for a plain english how_to_guide for working with the joomla or perhaps easier software that is free.

The end game is to create a dynamic site and then figure out how to transfer the end product to my website. GoDaddy has MySQL and allows up to 10 databases which should be more than enough for my needs.

Cheers
Wdhpr

[Mike Connor]

I have not yet met anybody who managed to get Joomla up and running as they wanted it satisfactorily as a "beginner", and even many "profis" avoid it.

Yes, you can do "everything" with it (not true by the way!), but it might take you a week to do something simple.

If you want something which works out of the box, and has good understandable documentation and a lot of options, then try this;

http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/

also a learning curve involved, but a lot less time and effort involved than with Joomla.

You can also learn a great deal using this;

http://wikkawiki.org/HomePage

I would also advise you to use http://www.wampserver.com/en/

instead of xammp.

The database tables have nothing to do with the templates, except that systems using SQL databases and similar will of course store the data there.

Templates, and appearance are usually manipulated using CSS ( Cascading Style Sheets)

( Get free lessons here; http://www.html.net/tutorials/css/lesson1.asp ) but use defaults or "ready made" templates first, as this is one of the most difficult areas for a beginner.

Normally, the user/administrator of a dynamic CMS or similar system does not need to create any tables, the software does that, given the installation parameters. Any further tables required are also generated automatically. You merely have to ensure that your main server ( where the actual program files are) can communicate with the SQL server ( where the data is stored, often on the same physical machine).

You only need a single database to run a site. Having ten is no advantage. Depending on what you want to do, other parameters are of much greater importance. I think you are confusing a database ( a collection of tables) with a data table.

As for not being able to "beat the price", also not true;

http://www.bplaced.net/

just one of the reliable free hosters I recommend to various people. Also with instructions for installing various stuff. You need to look around the site. This is a German site but they also have an English forum with good support from other users. You might be better served with a free host in your own country.

Most CMS and similar systems will run on the Wampserver ( on your local machine ), given above.

"Localhost" is often the name of the server, but it can have other names, it DOES NOT mean a local computer. ( although it can if the webserver is on your local computer). Many webservers use the default name "Localhost", others dont. This is often a point of considerable confusion for beginners.

[wdhpr]

Hello Mike

I took your advice!

I changed to wamp and cmsmadesimple. Install was a snap, all I needed to do was install cmsmadesimple into my www directory and create a empty config.php file
Documentation walked me right thru it

Cmsmadesimple seems more user friendly but heck I was impressed with joomla when I first tried that...lol
Seriously cmsmadesimple does seem easier to use and the documentation is much easier to comprehend. So thanks for the info. I will carouse around and get a feel for it. I have also book marked the learning sites you suggested. I will keep you posted on my progress or lack there of ...lol

Cheers
Wdhpr

[debtboy]

Originally Posted by wdhpr

One of the blogs is due to expire in a few months.

Same here, I always seem to have a website,
which I in turn, neglect and let expire.
My current site will expire soon also.
http://rubyshack.com

I wanted to mess with Ruby on Rails (RoR).

And, for reference, RoR websites or CMS will not run on any
of the local web server setups mentioned on this thread.

[Mike Connor]

Originally Posted by debtboy

And, for reference, RoR websites or CMS will not run on any
of the local web server setups mentioned on this thread.

That is incorrect.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rub...L_enDE329DE330

[Mike Connor]

Originally Posted by wdhpr

Cmsmadesimple seems more user friendly but heck I was impressed with joomla when I first tried that...lol
Seriously cmsmadesimple does seem easier to use and the documentation is much easier to comprehend. So thanks for the info. I will carouse around and get a feel for it. I have also book marked the learning sites you suggested. I will keep you posted on my progress or lack there of ...lol

Cheers
Wdhpr

I think you will find it easier to use, you will learn a lot more, and faster.

Joomla is simply too much for most "casual" users without prior knowledge. I don't think it is a very good system for simple websites either. Even "simple" operations, ( When you know how!!!) are too complex and involved.

Once you have used CMSmadesimple for a little while, you can also use more or less any of the others, ( including Joomla if you want), but it's easier to learn with, and quite a few people I have recommended it to found various concepts easier to grasp.

Many of these systems work on the same basic principles, and once you can use one , you can use most of them. You have to be able to use at least one, in order to be able to decide what you want! If it does not do exactly what you want. or you need another add-on or option, then you look for a system that has such, or program your own, some systems are "easily" ( but once again, only when you can do it! ) extendable.