I’m creating another website and I seem stuck between two worlds on it.
I’ve done a blog in Blogger and I have a site in Wordpress, so I have some limited experience in design and setup. Neither seems right for this site, because what I want is to have lots of individual pages organized into sections and subsections. That means I want a lot of flexibility in creating differing designs for the various sections and Wordpress seems to lock you into a style.
Somebody here recommended WiX as a website builder. It’s nice and it allows for differing styles and the fact that it incorporates Javascript makes for slideshows and other cool effects. But it has incomprehensible limitations. You can’t wrap text around an image. Think about that. You can do that in Word. It doesn’t allow subpages for subpages. It’s builder seems buggy. A slideshow didn’t show up at all until I went back the next day, e.g. Their help files are poor, too.
There are zillions of builders out there, but most of them seem aimed at businesses. I’m not pushing product, I don’t need commerce apps. One that looked good turned out to have a 20 page maximum. I need lots more. It doesn’t have to be free - the monthly cost for most basic plans is around $9-15 including a domain name and that would be fine, as long as the things I needed were not limited. Amazingly, some don’t bother to tell you what you get before you sign up.
Any recommendations for a builder that seems to meet these needs? Drag and drop is good, WYSIWYG is helpful, the ability to create lots of text blocks with images, a variety of page styles inside a template, lots of help and handholding. Some ability for comments would be nice. Basically the features of Wordpress but a slicker interface and more design control.
Are you looking for unlimited flexibility in terms of what can appear on a page, or can your requirements be condensed into a finite number of templated layouts?
The purpose of those questions was just to try to get a feel for how coherent/consistent a site you’re wanting to develop, or whether you had something really organic and non-website-y in mind.
Forgive me for not answering your question directly, but have you considered learning HTML, CSS and maybe a bit of Javascript and constructing your site “by hand”?
That would free you from the restrictions imposed by any given site builder, and you might find it ultimately more rewarding.
Of course if you don’t have the time to go through the learning curve then it’s understandable that you want a site builder.
Even the most builder-dependent web creator really should be able to review the code and make small edits that go beyond the builder’s limits. Even tools as powerful and polished as Dreamweaver muck things up (still! the reason I erased HoTMetaL years ago!) and need little review and patch sessions.
I’d suggest three routes:
Stay with WordPress and learn to exploit the customizable themes, plugins and CSS code tweakage features. You can do a LOT beyond the box with those.
Get a decent web tool like an older copy of Dreamweaver (off eBay, maybe?) and master web pages from the drag, drop, visual level down to code munging.
Learn web coding from the ground up - HTML 5 and CSS are easier than ever to use and manage and a week spent with a simple text editor on one side, a good tutorial/reference on the other and a browser in the middle will teach you quite a bit.
That’s one that shows up on all the website builder review pages. I’ll check it out.
By know I know what I’m good at and what I’m not. I’m not a coder or designer. Besides I expect that just writing content will take up all my time.
That’s another thing I was stunned to find you cannot do with WiX. I’m just not happy with WordPress, though. It might be workable but I’ve got to think that better stuff is out there.
It doesn’t have to be free. I assume that free brings too many limitations. Besides, in every case I’ve seen so far free means using their domain name and I want my own.
There’s nothing stopping you redirecting your own domain name to whatever domain name the free service gives you. You can even do this so that your original domain name shows up in the address bar. The control panel that your domain name registrar gives you should have an option for this.
That’s understandable. I have to tell you though, I reckon writing good content is a hell of a lot more difficult than coding… perhaps we should get together
Then, writing from immense experience on both the communication and the tech end, stay with WordPress. You simply can’t do better at getting content onto the web without a lot of mucking around with technicalities, and there are fewer and fewer limitations with every release. Dig deeper into the configurable themes and the vast array of plugins to help get around any stumbling blocks you might be encountering… and do learn that little bit of code-tweaking for the final glosses.
You are not going to find a web-builder that is (1) any degree more flexible, just different; (2) as well-supported by a community; (3) open for individual users and hosts; and (4) that can take you as far.
Sometimes you have to relax your thinking and do it a way the tool does it more easily, rather than abso-fraggin-lutely insist that, say, images have to float 10 pixels from the right edge.
WordPress
Customizable theme that allows child themes.
The right plugins.
Basic HTML/CSS editing. (Changing things like heading sizes and colors - easy.)
Any tool or builder or process you use is at best going to come up to WP’s standards, and probably cost you in limitations or hard cash.
I am, BTW, spending today tweaking and customizing a WP site, and I am using WP for this site because once up it’s all about the ease of writing and editing content. My commercial sites are all CSS, because I prefer the micro-micro control instead. When clients want a fixed site, I build it; when they want content, I use WP.
YMMV. I think you’re shortchanging WP by not looking far enough into theme and customization capabilities.
I also say stick with WordPress. You said you want pages in sections and subsections–it has categories, tags, and static pages all built in. You can easily get your content in there, and then spend a bit more time learning how to get the content to look the right way once it’s there. Function over form.
I’ve tried Joomla and Wiki-builders. I used to hand-code. I’m pretty sure I’ll never use anything besides WordPress again.
You might try Joomla or Drupal - there’s some family linkage between the two but I’m not sure what it is. I think Joomla is a simplified version while Drupal extends up into corporately-supported versions. I’ve used it a few times and came away feeling like you’re apparently feeling about WordPress… it feels like a toy for easily-pleased amateurs to me.
There’s also TikiWiki, which is the biggest “builder” tool I know of - it’s massive to install, but it has every single feature of every single online tool in lego-block builder form. Blog, wiki, forum, gallery, database… I can’t begin to list everything. Hundreds of native “pieces” and more in plugin form, and uses themes to skin and configure it so there are install-and-go options. I built one site using it and it works well, but I’d say it’s even more vanilla out of the box than WP and a bit harder to really customize than WP.
I’d say everything else falls into one of those categories - WP clone or wannabes; Joomla and clones for the less techie, less demanding crowd; TikiWiki equivalents for the more skilled and feature-demanding.
Drupal can do what you want (http://www.drupalgardens.com/ for a hosted example). A little harder to use that wordpress, a little more flexible (though you lose some of that flexibility if you don’t host your own).
