Customised Wordpress sites

Author
Discussion

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
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It's it a bad idea to take on the admin role of a customised Wordpress site? Just seems like more of an effort than managing one I've set up myself!

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
quotequote all
Any thoughts from web developers?

miniman

24,827 posts

261 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
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Define "custom"?

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
quotequote all
Either a bought one or one for which the previous admin has installed extra plugins etc.

miniman

24,827 posts

261 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
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Hmmm... that's pretty much every WordPress site then. It wouldn't worry me hugely - there might be some unpicking to do but I would reckon that would be more straightforward than starting from scratch. Or, at least, more cost effective.

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
quotequote all
miniman said:
Hmmm... that's pretty much every WordPress site then. It wouldn't worry me hugely - there might be some unpicking to do but I would reckon that would be more straightforward than starting from scratch. Or, at least, more cost effective.
I have found I end up spending a lot of time scratching my head over why something doesn't work or works in an unexpected way.

Altrezia

8,517 posts

210 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
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That's just wordpress. I have no idea why people like it.

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Altrezia said:
That's just wordpress. I have no idea why people like it.
Easy to set up and looks "nice".

I think the problem is that it's very easy to load up a plugin/widget that is a bit dodgy (not a scam but just badly written) and if you have a manager who wants something done that a widget boasts it can do then you can end up with problems.

For my own sites, I'll have an idea but will scrap if if the widget proves to not work when tested properly. Plus I'll also read the reviews. I am guessing that on the sites I've "adopted", testing was minimal.

"KISS" seems to be really relevant here.

lestag

4,614 posts

275 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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KISS and testing
@30 quid/pa to set up a separate domain, to play in, its a cheap way to do testing

Craikeybaby

10,369 posts

224 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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lestag said:
KISS and testing
@30 quid/pa to set up a separate domain, to play in, its a cheap way to do testing
Or MAMP/WAMP running locally for free wink

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
Problem is that it's other developers (unknown skill levels) setting things up and then not bothering to provide support for whatever reason. So a dodgy widget is used on a live site. Then muggins here tries to fix problems or use said widgets with limited success.

Tonsko

6,299 posts

214 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Wordpress have finally included an 'upgrade' button to update the framework to at least give you a fighting chance of keeping the skiddies out. It's the plugins that really open it up to attack though. Tread carefully!

miniman

24,827 posts

261 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Tonsko said:
Wordpress have finally included an 'upgrade' button to update the framework to at least give you a fighting chance of keeping the skiddies out. It's the plugins that really open it up to attack though. Tread carefully!
How do you mean, "finally"? It's had core upgrade for years, it now does it completely autonomously if you want it to.

Tonsko

6,299 posts

214 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Oh, I've only seen it in recent versions; I put the complete uselessness of wordpress down to it never being upgraded because it wasn't easy. Maybe admins were just super lazy :P

Edit: speling mistaik

Edited by Tonsko on Thursday 31st July 10:36

budfox

1,510 posts

128 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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I also don't see why people rave about Wordpress. I hate it with a vengeance having just been tasked with migrating my employer's site.

I'm a Joomla lover, built plenty of simple sites with it, and it absolutely rinses Wordpress in every way.

Want an example? Wordpress blog layouts. Out of the box, posts appear in the order they we created. Newest first. End of.

Joomla offers oldest first, newest first, alphabetical A to Z and z to a, most hits first, least hits first and custom.

With Joomla you can pretty much do what you want with any page. With Worspress it seems to all be hard coded. Want your front page to feature three main articles and then a few more as links? No problem, set it up in the parameters. Wordpress? Nope, you get what the developer set up, and that's it.

Don't even get me started on the Wordpress media manager. It has one folder. One. Every single piece of medi lives there. Can you imagine how crap that is on a big site? Sure the are plugins, but this should be core functionality, just like in...well you guessed.

And then there's the editor. An abomination that doesn't even show line breaks. It won't allow tables to be inserted, and it sure as hell won't let you do most of the things that JCE will do for Joomla.

I Hate Wordpress, and you should too.

NorthDave

2,355 posts

231 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
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budfox said:
I also don't see why people rave about Wordpress. I hate it with a vengeance having just been tasked with migrating my employer's site.

I'm a Joomla lover, built plenty of simple sites with it, and it absolutely rinses Wordpress in every way.

Want an example? Wordpress blog layouts. Out of the box, posts appear in the order they we created. Newest first. End of.

Joomla offers oldest first, newest first, alphabetical A to Z and z to a, most hits first, least hits first and custom.

With Joomla you can pretty much do what you want with any page. With Worspress it seems to all be hard coded. Want your front page to feature three main articles and then a few more as links? No problem, set it up in the parameters. Wordpress? Nope, you get what the developer set up, and that's it.

Don't even get me started on the Wordpress media manager. It has one folder. One. Every single piece of medi lives there. Can you imagine how crap that is on a big site? Sure the are plugins, but this should be core functionality, just like in...well you guessed.

And then there's the editor. An abomination that doesn't even show line breaks. It won't allow tables to be inserted, and it sure as hell won't let you do most of the things that JCE will do for Joomla.

I Hate Wordpress, and you should too.
Have you got something you might recommend instead of Wordpress? :-)

budfox

1,510 posts

128 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
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Joomla, though i do like my typo that almost refers to the son of the antichrist as "Worsepress"

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Joomla looks like it requires more technical knowledge eg programming than Wordpress. With Wordpress you don't need to know any HTML let alone OOP which I saw mentioned on their website.

miniman

24,827 posts

261 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Hoofy said:
Joomla looks like it requires more technical knowledge eg programming than Wordpress. With Wordpress you don't need to know any HTML let alone OOP which I saw mentioned on their website.
Yep, IMHO Joomla is in another space to WordPress - it's a framework rather than a CMS.

Hoofy

Original Poster:

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
miniman said:
Yep, IMHO Joomla is in another space to WordPress - it's a framework rather than a CMS.
Ah, yes, I got that impression from their site.