G'day.

The very nature of the websites of a wandering photographer, adventurer and writer is that they grow like Topsy.

I've found that once a website gets over about 50 pages, it gets just too big a job to edit every page, every time I add another category to the navigation. Bear in mind that each of those 50 pages may have between 10 and 20 image pages linking from the thumbnails. Even if I don't put a full nav on the image pages, it's still a big job. Suppose I go out photographing on the weekend. I come home, make a new page or two, edit every page on the site to accommodate the new pages' nav and upload. Going through the whole site: highlight, delete, paste, save, open next page, it just gets too much.

OK. So a blog is great as far as it goes. It's a CMS but it's chronological. I need a hierarchical CMS.

Well, I read what Gypsy had to say about Joomla. Couldn't get my head around it. Drupal. Extensive enough for the website of the Australian government and then some. PHPWCMS. Getting there slowly. Looks like I can master it eventually.

Surely there must be something out there that's a bit simpler, and more importantly, got a decent, comprehensive help file written in plain English.

And no, I don't need to be referred to SiteBuilder, thanks. I can manage the html and css. It's working out how to manage files in the programme that beats me. WP is so straight forward. I can't see why a hierarchical CMS should be so much more involved than a chronological CMS.

Any help to understand what I have or to find something made for a country lad would be appreciated. Oh! And the price needs to be right, too!

Thanks,
Laurie.

wordpress, free, easy to setup, expansible to work as a cms and hackable to your hearts content

Thanks mobtex.

But is it possible to get into the guts of WPs php and change the nav set up to being hierarchical rather than chronological?

In my area there would be maybe 50 or more separate national parks, forestry areas and recreation areas plus clubs and pubs and whatever else.

These national parks and things may have up to a couple of dozen separate spots each.

I need to set the site out logically, with at least two nav systems. Possibly a main nav, a secondary nav under each main catagory and then a further level of nav. I'm talking five hundred or a thousand pages, all typed up with these two fingers, and photos included. If it's possible to do this in WP, then the theme probably already exists. Any clues where to look?

Thanks,
Laurie.

Hi.

Just now having a look at Mambo. Among the features is: Supports creation of nested or flat content hierachies.

I guess that what I need is a nested hierarchy. That's a great new term to have learned today, huh?

Regards,
Laurie.

Well Laurie I am not familiar enough yet with WP but I will throw this out to you.

Have you looked at using includes.

You have your nav on a single page and then use an 'include' tag on each page.

You can have as many as you need.
One for the main navigation, one for the national parks, one for the local business's +++

laurie_m wrote:

Hi.

Just now having a look at Mambo. Among the features is: Supports creation of nested or flat content hierachies.

I guess that what I need is a nested hierarchy. That's a great new term to have learned today, huh?

Regards,
Laurie.

I'd walk right by mambo and pick up joomla - talk to dave about getting it set up nicely

laurie_m wrote:

Thanks mobtex.

But is it possible to get into the guts of WPs php and change the nav set up to being hierarchical rather than chronological?

In my area there would be maybe 50 or more separate national parks, forestry areas and recreation areas plus clubs and pubs and whatever else.

These national parks and things may have up to a couple of dozen separate spots each.

I need to set the site out logically, with at least two nav systems. Possibly a main nav, a secondary nav under each main catagory and then a further level of nav. I'm talking five hundred or a thousand pages, all typed up with these two fingers, and photos included. If it's possible to do this in WP, then the theme probably already exists. Any clues where to look?

Thanks,
Laurie.

Yes, rather than writing a post you write a page instead, you can then set page parents to build the hierarchy you need.

as for getting into the guts of it, hell yeah, i found wordpress much more fun to work with than mambo, my time with mambo put me off joomla even though there's no doubt that it's a powerful cms. i found it overly complicated though some would call it expandable.

click to see a wordpress site i run, i took a skin, hacked the hell out of it, modded templates and setup a nested page structure.

there's also drupal and typo3 which i keep hearing good things about, i know some folks who rave about drupal as much as some here rave about joomla.

a really great thing is most of them (if not all) have some kind of mobile module, wordpress does for sure so you can cash in on mobile cpc/cpm deals and reach right into people's pockets. you can even upload photos and create posts at the 'point of inspiration'

i'm also sure all have photo gallery modules or plugins, maybe even flickr image hosting with a pro account and their awesome api is worth considering along with whichever cms you go for.

Laurie
The include path would get you around the need to be changing dozens of navs on pages.

In fact if it is any html worth learning, it is includes - so easy even I could learn it an boy, does it save time!!

Erm…. This isn’t about that’s ‘easiest’…. Lazy people don’t generally win the race. It is about which is more usable from a developer, content addition and marketing stand points.

We have been working with CMS apps including Drupal since the days of Mambo/TTCMS and more… many, many years of working with CMS apps. Joomla is a free app so I don’t make anything from promoting it…. It is simply the best over-all app we have worked with over the years….

Using a BLOG app as a CMS is just silly…. Have you even looked at the myriad of add-ons that can extend the core CMS?? http://extensions.joomla.org/

Every application from a windows operating system to the latest Photoshop release takes learning. We do not choose tool on simplicity, while a consideration, it is not the main one. It should take no more than a month to get yer head around Joomla… then many years of happiness follows.

TheGypsy wrote:

Using a BLOG app as a CMS is just silly…. Have you even looked at the myriad of add-ons that can extend the core CMS?? http://extensions.joomla.org/

..on the other hand it´s KISS (keep it simple stupid) and that´s what many customers want.

what are ye on about Muppet??? Those are merely extensions to add value to the site for the end user and the admins.... what that has to do with the price of tea in China is beyond me....

And if we're talking customers... they like a great deal of things to be honest... the bare bones site don't cut it in the modern world.... there are certain technological and interactivity with the end user that matters... even eBay, the king of sites and always reasonable simple, is in the Social Media game... yup... eBay is playing in the social space ....

You keep thinking KISS and so will the visitors... 'Man this is a basic site... can I trust it?' ..... the ability for a site to grow and incorporate additional features is HUGE... your users appreciate it... Using a CMS such as Joomla over a freakin BLog app.. is a no brainer....I haven't even touched on the admin time saved over HTML sites or limited Blog apps pretending to be a CMS.

It is about $$$... saving it and making it. That's what a business does. It does not operate from euphemisms and inexperience....

but dave you're a joomla genius, thus joomla is going to be as easy to you as mobile sites are to me! you know it better than most so you can make it jump through the hoops you and your clients want.

i tried mambo, found it hard work and a steep learning curve, too steep for me to be able to get the desired results in the time frame i wanted, less than a month! then there was a load of security issues with it, i fell behind and got compromised on that now discarded server, I found it hard work and left it behind to go for something simpler to manage, yet more workable for me.

i don't give two tits about what ebay do, or any other site for that matter, i only care if i can use it without having to think. it doesn't matter what powers it if it does the job and the end user can work with it. waveshoppe proves that by making a truck load of $$ with a frontpage site. i've pretty much stfu about frontpage since he enlightened me about how it works for him.

yeah, bare bones sites suck, your site needs to do stuff to succeed, depending on what you want it to do, and how long you're prepared taking to learn how to do it a simpler approach may be better.

for me wp is a base framework i've modified to my advantage in a couple of sites or projects, if it can't do what i want i'll write something that can. the cms i use the most now is one i wrote myself which is powering a load of sites!

Sure if folks can write em great... my point is more about 21st century and as always... making $$$$. Don't care what folks do... just be ready to be fluid. Change as required with the most scale-ability and least effort/cost.

It's all a pile of garbage without $$$$.... even a non-profit needs to generate revenue and attempt to minimize cost. But using WordPress for a CMS or old school, hand edited HTML just don't cut it today in most but the smallest markets.

I don't care what folks use or in the end what they do. I just keep living in the reality that is the land where I play. I have been watching web businesses go tits-up for nearly 10 years now.... just calls em how I see em....

The point about eBay is that so many people are looking towards new elements... creating an in-felxable site makes no sense....

As fer mobile, as you know I am digging in there ... just have to get past the 'user performance metric' stuff and mobile is the next unknown territory round here.... ton of research... no time... he he

http://www.generalicenter.at This is for example a wordpress cms and it is good enough for a big shopping-center.

aknet47 wrote:

http://www.generalicenter.at This is for example a wordpress cms and it is good enough for a big shopping-center.

Hmmmm.... uh huh... Making my points for me. Just because it CAN be done doesn't mean it should Some one like that should have a custom solution in place not a Blog format... I could kick the crap outta that man.... no user experience to it at all.....

It is certainly no excuse for a cart app. I would have hooked up each of the stores in an online element.. more $$ for all..... bla bla bla... many ways to increase the end user experience... they enjoy the online one, they are more apt to come to the mall..... a Blog don't cut it.

Screams CHEAP Mall owner to me.. bwaaa ha ha haha ha

...but it makes me thinking

I'm in agreement with CE on this, all you really need is to set up an include file.  Just the most basic PHP, to set up functions that output the common parts of your web pages (Header, navigation, and footer).  Take those parts out of your individual files, and add the include line in the top and a function call for each of the parts.  After that, you just change the code in that include file to update all your pages.  It's really easy to do.

how can you not be impressed?

I'm right in saying you can, Dave's right in saying there's better tools for the job, and yes it's easy enough to sort it out with a bit of hand coding.

Dave, how does Joomla for e-commerce compare with a product like ModernBill  and counterparts?

I know you're a fan of Joomla and OSC but if you wanted a kick-ass-mofo-beast of a billing system, carts, products, inventory control, account provisioning and domain reg what would you bank on?

Bank on?? TOTAL custom app really.... when we do larger sites... you are always SAFEST with in-house as you would know... I don't care for an 'open source' answer for anything... in a pinch they do though.

I like the CMS (Joomla) to do that only and carts/processors do their own jobs... I am not a fan of many of the ecom stuff for Joomla at this point.....

ModernBill is only the processing though ain't it? Or they have a cart these days? Same gig, carts also have a place.... I just like folks that are dedicated to an offering... now make a Good CMS with a kick ass cart... and a great processor... yer in business.

In the end, I would BANK ON a custom created app... if ya don't have 5-10k then work with open source till U do... he he

TheGypsy wrote:

ModernBill is only the processing though ain't it? Or they have a cart these days? Same gig, carts also have a place.... I just like folks that are dedicated to an offering... now make a Good CMS with a kick ass cart... and a great processor... yer in business.

In the end, I would BANK ON a custom created app... if ya don't have 5-10k then work with open source till U do... he he

I'm working on it!

ModernBill does account provisioning on servers, realtime domain registration, hooks into several payment processors, manages recurring billing, invoicing and more. Mainly aimed at hosting companies but has an API to open up the possibilities. More billing for services than shippable products though.

Oh I've got the funds thanks, like you I'm always thinking of those lovely $$$$$$'s and we all know custom costs!