Web site software question

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tedh

tedh

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Joined
Mar 13, 2002
Posts
12,630
Loc
Eastern Ontario
Business
Canal Gallery
Years ago life was simple - Netscape Composer was easy to use, and gave fairly nice results for the era.

Then came the next wave of web experts that charged lots and delivered little.

Now I want to rebuild my web site myself, but I'm uncertain about which software package to use. I looked into taking courses on Dreamweaver, but not until February, and $1,500, which includes CSS and HTML. Screw that.

Looked into WordPress, Joomla, Serif Webplus, Xara. Discarded the first three, and I'm interested in Xara.

Has anyone out there got a recommendation for a web site builder that is easy to learn, easy to use, easy to update the site? I don't need a shopping cart, and I don't need a super jazzy site. It'll have lots of photos, maybe 20 pages.
 
depending who you are hosted with they may have free shopping carts available
If you have cpanel, then you will have access to shopping carts and most are easy to use.
 
I'm with a small-town hosting service.

My other web site is Joomla, but I want more, an more ease-of-use.
 
Has anyone out there got a recommendation for a web site builder that is easy to learn, easy to use, easy to update the site? I don't need a shopping cart, and I don't need a super jazzy site. It'll have lots of photos, maybe 20 pages.
Click to expand...

It's template driven but

yola.com is pretty user friendly and reasonably priced to use your custom domain name. It is webbased so you don't have to worry about ftp. I use it for my BILs website.

Website only. If you need domain based email, then yola won't work for you.

Joomla is powerful but the learning curve is steep.
 
Thanks, Rick. I'm checking it out now.
 
I'm not sure.

You would change the dns settings in your domain registration account to point to Yola instead of your current host.

Re: Email ==> You can manage a webhost in one place and email hosting in another. I've never done it but I believe it involves MX records (or something similar) @ your current domain registrar and making the arrangements for email service which might be @ your current host.

I'd recommend setting up a basic, free Yola account and look at the options.
 
Wow, John - that looks like a great product! And it is only software, right? So no worries about email and hosts and all of that - it is merely an editing tool and you pay for that and they do not try to sell you anything else!

Cool. Every time I try to think about editing my website with Frontpage again it makes my brain shrivel up and die a little...
 
Our websites were made and maintained with a free text editor. But our IT person (my daughter) is a CS/math major, and, like myself, very particular about exactly how things come out...
 
Framar said:
Wow, John - that looks like a great product! And it is only software, right? .
Click to expand...


Yep, just a software package, that is really easy to learn and use. Upload and host your website anywhere you want. I bought it after needing to redo my sites after MicroSoft Office Live took away our free websites for life. Wasn't going to be stuck again with a site that could only live one place.
 
One thing to remember is that all of these site packages just boil down to HTML, CSS and Javascript. As long as you are staying away from a shopping cart and database, that's all these site are. You pick out whatever template they are using and it generates the HTML, CSS and javascript for each page.

If you want to write your own and get a decent text editor (Notepad++ is a decent free one), that's the only tool you need. Find a site that offers decent free tutorials, setup a training site (using the same server as on your host) on your PC and have at it.

The draw of these site packages/templates is that you can put a site up without having to learn HTML, CSS and Javascript - at first. But if you want to maintain the site or make additions or changes to it, you need to learn that stuff anyway. Why note just learn it now and forget about the other stuff. Just write your site from scratch. You will be more knowledgeable and better off in the long run.

Some of the older (and probably newer) packages such as FrontPage and DreamWeaver carp up your code with a bunch of stuff that is of use only to the package.

If all you want it a straight forward ward informational site (no shopping cart or database), think about writing it yourself. It can be a lot of fun.
 
Larry Peterson said:
The draw of these site packages/templates is that you can put a site up without having to learn HTML, CSS and Javascript - at first. But if you want to maintain the site or make additions or changes to it, you need to learn that stuff anyway. Why note just learn it now and forget about the other stuff. Just write your site from scratch. You will be more knowledgeable and better off in the long run.
Click to expand...

With the program I am using, you can use templates or not. I use a blank page with tables as I want. You don't have to learn any code and you can update as you want. There are a lot of widgets to choose from for all of the fun stuff. Program searches for common mistakes and will make suggestions for you to make improvements. After you set up your webhost, it is just a click or two for you to upload. Update is just as simple.
 
We host our site through Startlogic, which has been fine. We chose them based on price, which at the time was about the lowest we could find. They've been reliable & support, when needed, has been very good. No complaints.

Our site content is based on the MovableType system, which is a templatized weblog product. It's very flexible and powerful, plus it's free. If you keep it simple, meaning that you just select an available theme (set of templates), adding content is all you need to worry about, which in normal cases involves nothing more than word processing. The rich text editor built into MovableType handles most basic content types - text, font settings, video, images, links, etc.

However, like just about any product that you'll find, anything more sophisticated will quickly require knowledge of HTML and CSS. If you decide to customize the templates, you will need to learn the MovableType HTML extensions, a set of tags that you can use to access blog content and settings. All very powerful, but you do need to learn the stuff.

The system is totally compatible with scripting languages, which you will need to know to some degree if you decide to add scripts or plugins. Perl is particularly worth knowing, since most MovableType plugins are written in it, as is MovableType itself.

I agree with Larry (in spirit) that learning some web site programming is a good idea; it's certainly necessary if you want to have total control over what your site has on it & if you can't afford to hire someone to do it for you. However, rolling your own makes little sense, IMO, except in the simplest case. Starting with a customizable product like MovableType gives you a solid base to work from, enabling the creation of sophisticated sites for little effort. It also gives you a significant source of knowledge on how this stuff works, which can only help your learning curve. So why reinvent the wheel?

In case you're about to ask why you would chose a weblog product when you don't want to start a blog, my answer is that you can customize the templates to easily mask the weblog metaphor, which we have done with our site. What we ended up with is a site that is not behaviorally a blog, but that takes advantage of the weblog editor for ease of content editing and creation. This has the benefit of making a lot of the changes that can be made accessible to Sherry, who has no inclination or interest in learning how to program.

FYI, here's a link to the MovableType site --> http://www.movabletype.com/
 
Steve Collins said:
... However, like just about any product that you'll find, anything more sophisticated will quickly require knowledge of HTML and CSS. If you decide to customize the templates, you will need to learn the MovableType HTML extensions, a set of tags that you can use to access blog content and settings. All very powerful, but you do need to learn the stuff...
Click to expand...

A short incomplete list of what we added to our site and that required basic to moderate level web programming capability:


  • All data entry forms for "Contact Us," student registration for our classes, etc, were written in HTML using tags not supported in the MovableType editor
  • We wanted all data entry forms to send data to our email address. I ended up going with a PHP script, FormToEmail Pro, that I customized (using output templates derived from the forms) to generate emails that look very much like the forms look on the web site. Need to know PHP to do this.
  • We added a RECAPTCHA script to all our data entry forms that cuts down on some (but not all) form based spam. RECAPTCHA is put out by Google and is available in PHP or Javascript; we went with PHP. --> http://www.collinsartworks.com/main/forms/ContactInfo.php
  • We used the Google Maps API to give an interactive map to our directions page; this required basic HTML coding, but nothing too substantial. --> http://www.collinsartworks.com/main/forms/Directions.html
  • We are in the early stages of setting up gallery pages for our artists; we went with JAlbum which is also template based, but fairly easy to use and very powerful. Currently, we set up Sherry and I's gallery pages, though there's still work to do. I haven't had to edit the JAlbum templates; the provided UI for template settings has been good enough so far. I did use HTML frame code to integrate the gallery pages into the main site. For example --> http://www.collinsartworks.com/main/StephenCollinsW.html
  • We added Google Analytics support, which involved adding Javascript to the top of all our pages. This required basic HTML programming in all the MovableType templates and any other pages on the site (there are a few that are outside MovableType)
  • We use a simple redirect to our site from the root to where the MovableType content lives. Again required basic HTML.
  • I added a forum to our site using MyBB, a free & fairly well-featured bulletin board product. I integrated the forum into our main site using HTML frames in the same way I handled the gallery pages --> http://www.collinsartworks.com/main/mybb/iforum.php
  • All MovableType templates were edited to suppress stuff like user comments, displayed time stamps, trackback pings, etc. I also added support for two types of index content for each area of our site. We setup our site to have separate main pages for each branch of the business - framing, printing, fine art, kids classes, etc. All content for each of those sections are maintained in the MovableType blog editor (mostly) and use category tags to assign them to the appropriate sections. In each case, we use a special category to assign certain content to always come out first, but without a heading, thus acting like introductory text for the section. All this required HTML, CSS and MovableType tags in the MovableType templates.

Anyway, the above is provided to give a sense of what's possible if you choose to go with this approach. I've done a bunch of other things, but there's always more to do. The point I want to make is that I have been able to do anything that we've needed to do to the site using a collection of mostly free tools, some programming expertise (including reading lots of product documentation), and time.
 
j Paul said:
I'm using this one
Click to expand...
This software looks very impressive. I worry about websites that have uncountabajillion testimonials! This company seems to put a huge effort into shoving testimonials all over the net. It's difficult to find a genuine review and when you do they aren't all positive!

Some of the user reviews on Cnet are a concern! It doesn't sound like you have much chance of getting your money back "no questions asked"!

I think I'll pass on this one!
 
Steve Collins said:
Click to expand...

Steve, have you tried something like this instead......

We started to implement RECAPTCHA and read that the algorhythm had been broken. Instead, we implemented a CSS/PHP script which has virtually eliminated 100% of the SPAM. Not a single SPAM via contact us form and Not a single bogus account created since adding that code.

The script creates a hidden input field, which is tested. Since the SPAMbots automatically insert an entry into all input fields, a simple test for input is used. If field is not blank, then input is from a SPAMbot and either redirect to homepage or redirect to "Success" page but actually ignore the submission.

It minimizes customer frustration caused by fuzzy CAPTCHA characters.
 
Rick Bergeron - CPF said:
[/LIST]

Steve, have you tried something like this instead......

We started to implement RECAPTCHA and read that the algorhythm had been broken. Instead, we implemented a CSS/PHP script which has virtually eliminated 100% of the SPAM. Not a single SPAM via contact us form and Not a single bogus account created since adding that code.

The script creates a hidden input field, which is tested. Since the SPAMbots automatically insert an entry into all input fields, a simple test for input is used. If field is not blank, then input is from a SPAMbot and either redirect to homepage or redirect to "Success" page but actually ignore the submission.

It minimizes customer frustration caused by fuzzy CAPTCHA characters.
Click to expand...

FormToEmail Pro supports a number of checks that I do use (checks for gibberish, check for a cookie, blocked words check, etc.), but nothing specifically related to checking a hidden field, which I had never thought of before and that now seems obvious. Sounds like another good thing to add to the list. Thanks!
 
Rick Bergeron - CPF said:
[/LIST]


The script creates a hidden input field, which is tested. Since the SPAMbots automatically insert an entry into all input fields, a simple test for input is used. If field is not blank, then input is from a SPAMbot and either redirect to homepage or redirect to "Success" page but actually ignore the submission.

It minimizes customer frustration caused by fuzzy CAPTCHA characters.
Click to expand...

Great idea. We haven't had any spam since implementing RECAPTCHA, but I know from personal experience that it can be a real pain to users. Will have my "IT person" suss it out.

Thanks,
 
Rick Bergeron - CPF said:
[/LIST]

The script creates a hidden input field, which is tested. Since the SPAMbots automatically insert an entry into all input fields, a simple test for input is used. If field is not blank, then input is from a SPAMbot and either redirect to homepage or redirect to "Success" page but actually ignore the submission.

It minimizes customer frustration caused by fuzzy CAPTCHA characters.
Click to expand...

Actually that sounds like a pretty dumb spambot.

If I was writing a spambot it would be simple matter to check for
Code: 
[COLOR=#800000][FONT=Courier New]<[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#0000FF][FONT=Courier New]input[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT=Courier New] type[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#800000][FONT=Courier New]=[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#008040][FONT=Courier New]'HIDDEN'  .......>[/FONT][/COLOR]


and not fill those fields. I don't know if there is a forum called theSpamBotters or not but if there was, I am sure they would be sharing spammy techniques and this would be one to add. I would be hesitant to rely on this technique.

I use the one from http://www.phpcaptcha.org. It does the job for me. You can see it in action on my site at http://thepaperframer.com/ContactMe.php. I do not like the really fuzzy ones that are hard to read.

 
Great comments. I'm going to look into the suggestions and get on with it. Will let you know how it turns out.
 
After a quick look at both 'Xara' and 'Web Plus' the site structure/site manager in Web Plus is prominent and appears to be very easy to use, whereas in Xara, it's less obvious and not as comprehensive. Xara has less controls visible on the main page.

Web Plus appears to be much more intuitive and IMO it appears to be much easier to use!
 
Larry Peterson said:
If I was writing a spambot it would be simple matter to check for
Code: 
[COLOR=#800000][FONT=Courier New]<[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#0000FF][FONT=Courier New]input[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT=Courier New] type[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#800000][FONT=Courier New]=[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#008040][FONT=Courier New]'HIDDEN'  .......>[/FONT][/COLOR]


and not fill those fields.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't have to be of a hidden type. Just don't label it, make it the color that matches the background and put it someplace obscure (?). For that matter, I guess you could label it, just make the text the same color as the BG too, or have it say "Don't fill in this box, it's to ensure you're not a bot".
 
David N Waldmann said:
It wouldn't have to be of a hidden type. Just don't label it, make it the color that matches the background and put it someplace obscure (?). For that matter, I guess you could label it, just make the text the same color as the BG too, or have it say "Don't fill in this box, it's to ensure you're not a bot".
Click to expand...

That would work. You just need to make sure that it's not in the tab order though. (tabindex='-1').
 
osgood said:
After a quick look at both 'Xara' and 'Web Plus' the site structure/site manager in Web Plus is prominent and appears to be very easy to use, whereas in Xara, it's less obvious and not as comprehensive. Xara has less controls visible on the main page.

Web Plus appears to be much more intuitive and IMO it appears to be much easier to use!
Click to expand...

Is this the Web Plus of which you speak? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebPlus

Since I killed my website, I mean, why go back to front Page anyways???
 
I went with "Shopify". Really easy to use, very good tech support, scalable, and a fair price.
 
It was the easiest image-handling package I could find. I wanted to dump 2,000 pieces of dead paper onto the local market, and I'd like to do more when I have the time. Lots of potential, verrrrrry easy to modify. Takes a lot of time, but in the long run, it should work.

My first objective is to take a single theme and load up to 500 images. I thought I'd be farther ahead, but framing and paperwork has been heavier than anticipated.
 
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