I've been around this loop before and not really got anywhere but still there's no harm in asking.
Is there anything as simple and straightforward as Wordpress for creating web sites that *isn't* a blogging platform? There are many much more heavyweight CMS/Portal systems such as Drupal and Joomla but there really doesn't seem to be a site creation application as simple to use as Wordpress.
I *can* use Wordpress to create a site which isn't fundamentally a blog by turning off loads of options and using its static 'pages' but it somehow seems silly to turn off so much of what it's intended to do.
I already have ways to create utilitarian web pages from restructured text and that's fine for 'own use' internal web pages but I'm looking for something just a bit more sophisticated between that and a full-blown CMS.
Chris G wrote:
I've been around this loop before and not really got anywhere but still there's no harm in asking.
Is there anything as simple and straightforward as Wordpress for creating web sites that *isn't* a blogging platform? There are many much more heavyweight CMS/Portal systems such as Drupal and Joomla but there really doesn't seem to be a site creation application as simple to use as Wordpress.
I'm not acquainted with Wordpress, so I can't compare. It depends on what you mean by 'simple and straightforward' - I use a text program, and there's nothing so simple and straightforward as that.
However, I guess you mean 'effortless' or WYSIWYG, the second of which I have not much experience of. The odd page I've made by conversion in Open Office has been acceptable, and if you have a windows box or emulator, Dreamweaver seems OK and doesn't make bloated pages - indeed, I think both Open Office and Dreamweaver render to XML.
I *can* use Wordpress to create a site which isn't fundamentally a blog by turning off loads of options and using its static 'pages' but it somehow seems silly to turn off so much of what it's intended to do.
I have to admit that I've never visited a blog, so have only a hazy idea of what one is, but if Wordpress will do what you want, there's no point in discarding it in favour of something less versatile on the grounds that you can't bear not to use all the available bells and whistles. You never know, you might want lo ring one one day, or have a brief blast. (Just so long as it's not on a vuvuwossname...)
I already have ways to create utilitarian web pages from restructured text and that's fine for 'own use' internal web pages but I'm looking for something just a bit more sophisticated between that and a full-blown CMS.
Sophisticated? You mean 'Oooh, *SHINY!* ? My experience is that it's content which matters, and while presentation is important, gizmos tend to be quickly forgotten - unless as often happens, they hooter-up the works.
My three pennorth.
On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 10:35:25AM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
Chris G wrote:
I've been around this loop before and not really got anywhere but still there's no harm in asking.
Is there anything as simple and straightforward as Wordpress for creating web sites that *isn't* a blogging platform? There are many much more heavyweight CMS/Portal systems such as Drupal and Joomla but there really doesn't seem to be a site creation application as simple to use as Wordpress.
I'm not acquainted with Wordpress, so I can't compare. It depends on what you mean by 'simple and straightforward' - I use a text program, and there's nothing so simple and straightforward as that.
Quite, I use my own reStructuredText to HTML utilities when I just want to get information onto a web page. It removes the burden of doing the HTML syntax and I can concentrate on the content. It doesn't however generate 'pretty' web pages.
However, I guess you mean 'effortless' or WYSIWYG, the second of which I have not much experience of. The odd page I've made by conversion in Open Office has been acceptable, and if you have a windows box or emulator, Dreamweaver seems OK and doesn't make bloated pages - indeed, I think both Open Office and Dreamweaver render to XML.
No, it's not the 'effortless' or WYSIWYG I want particularly, it's the availability of lots of ready made layouts and templates that I want so that I can type in some content and see a nicely laid out result with menus, tabs, whatever without having to do the underlying code to generate them.
Chris G wrote:
On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 10:35:25AM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
Chris G wrote:
I've been around this loop before and not really got anywhere but still there's no harm in asking.
Is there anything as simple and straightforward as Wordpress for creating web sites that *isn't* a blogging platform? There are many much more heavyweight CMS/Portal systems such as Drupal and Joomla but there really doesn't seem to be a site creation application as simple to use as Wordpress.
I'm not acquainted with Wordpress, so I can't compare. It depends on what you mean by 'simple and straightforward' - I use a text program, and there's nothing so simple and straightforward as that.
Quite, I use my own reStructuredText to HTML utilities when I just want to get information onto a web page. It removes the burden of doing the HTML syntax and I can concentrate on the content. It doesn't however generate 'pretty' web pages.
That's a bonus, then.
However, I guess you mean 'effortless' or WYSIWYG, the second of which I have not much experience of. The odd page I've made by conversion in Open Office has been acceptable, and if you have a windows box or emulator, Dreamweaver seems OK and doesn't make bloated pages - indeed, I think both Open Office and Dreamweaver render to XML.
No, it's not the 'effortless' or WYSIWYG I want particularly, it's the availability of lots of ready made layouts and templates that I want so that I can type in some content and see a nicely laid out result with menus, tabs, whatever without having to do the underlying code to generate them.
Hum. <whispers> What I do if I like a page somewhere is to download it and remove the unwanted matter.
TAAAW, try and understand how the code has generated the prettybits.
Usually, this just means editing small CSS pages.
On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:35:25 +0100 Anthony Anson tony.anson@girolle.co.uk allegedly wrote:
I have to admit that I've never visited a blog, so have only a hazy idea of what one is,
Never visited a blog? Hell, you need to get out less.....
Mick
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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
mick wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:35:25 +0100 Anthony Anson tony.anson@girolle.co.uk allegedly wrote:
I have to admit that I've never visited a blog, so have only a hazy idea of what one is,
Never visited a blog? Hell, you need to get out less.....
<G>
Got addicted to Usenet before the WWW came along innit. TAAAW, I've never tweeted, don't visit Farcebook and only allow cookies for 'the session'
My first browser was Mosaic, and I still have my first modem (not in use, I hasten to add) which plugged into the back of an Amstrad PCW 8256 and ambled at a note-in-a-forked-stick rate, and preceded my great leap into IBM-compatibles.
I think I still have my DOS 4 (5¼") floppies somewhere, and I do have my six Linux FT CDs...
On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 11:12:08PM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
mick wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:35:25 +0100 Anthony Anson tony.anson@girolle.co.uk allegedly wrote:
I have to admit that I've never visited a blog, so have only a hazy idea of what one is,
Never visited a blog? Hell, you need to get out less.....
<G>
Got addicted to Usenet before the WWW came along innit. TAAAW, I've never tweeted, don't visit Farcebook and only allow cookies for 'the session'
I'm completely with you on the text based front, I much prefer Usenet and E-Mail to any of the web based ways of talking.
My first browser was Mosaic, and I still have my first modem (not in use, I hasten to add) which plugged into the back of an Amstrad PCW 8256 and ambled at a note-in-a-forked-stick rate, and preceded my great leap into IBM-compatibles.
I think I still have my DOS 4 (5¼") floppies somewhere, and I do have my six Linux FT CDs...
I'm with you with most of that, I don't have my oldest modem but I do have my USR Courier one still. There are still some 5.25" disks around though they're mostly rotting in the garage now. I have a set of Elonex DOS 4 floppies.
However what I was asking for has nothing much at all to do with *interactive* sites. There are web sites out there that aren't forums/blogs/mySpace/facebook/twitter you know.
What I'm after is a way to create a (fairly) simple web presence for a small business that looks presentable but doesn't require me to code everything from scratch. I.e. a nice selection of tunable templates offering menus/sidebars etc. so that I can just concentrate on creating the content. There will be no selling over the web (it's a consultancy and training business in the main) so it's essentially a 'read only' web site.
Chris G wrote:
I'm with you with most of that, I don't have my oldest modem but I do have my USR Courier one still.
I still have a 58k8 internl in the big box and a ditto external, but haven't ued dial-up for yonks.
There are still some 5.25" disks around though they're mostly rotting in the garage now. I have a set of Elonex DOS 4 floppies.
However what I was asking for has nothing much at all to do with *interactive* sites.
Can't remember how we got on that subject...
There are web sites out there that aren't forums/blogs/mySpace/facebook/twitter you know.
I've met a few - to be fair, the reason I don't play with a lot of the more complicated stuff is the bandwidth required - unless I go (say) into Norwich my connection is restricted to three bars out of four of GPRS.
What I'm after is a way to create a (fairly) simple web presence for a small business that looks presentable but doesn't require me to code everything from scratch. I.e. a nice selection of tunable templates offering menus/sidebars etc. so that I can just concentrate on creating the content. There will be no selling over the web (it's a consultancy and training business in the main) so it's essentially a 'read only' web site.
I think I have something like what you want on the Win 2000 HDD - are you interested in someting not Penguin-flavoured?
On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:00:24AM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
What I'm after is a way to create a (fairly) simple web presence for a small business that looks presentable but doesn't require me to code everything from scratch. I.e. a nice selection of tunable templates offering menus/sidebars etc. so that I can just concentrate on creating the content. There will be no selling over the web (it's a consultancy and training business in the main) so it's essentially a 'read only' web site.
I think I have something like what you want on the Win 2000 HDD - are you interested in someting not Penguin-flavoured?
Depends how it works. It has to be hosted on a LAMP server running apache but if it's something that 'generates' a set of HTML pages that can simply be copied to the server then that's fine.
Most of the stuff I'm looking at actually runs wholly on the server and you use a web interface to change things. E.g. Wordpress is a whole pile of PHP with the content stored in a database.
What about google sites? Its a quick and easy way of knocking up a website, templates, wizards and such. Its not really a CMS or a blog so might be worth considering
HTH
James Elsey
On 23 June 2010 13:03, Chris G cl@isbd.net wrote:
On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:00:24AM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
What I'm after is a way to create a (fairly) simple web presence for a small business that looks presentable but doesn't require me to code everything from scratch. I.e. a nice selection of tunable templates offering menus/sidebars etc. so that I can just concentrate on creating the content. There will be no selling over the web (it's a consultancy and training business in the main) so it's essentially a 'read only' web site.
I think I have something like what you want on the Win 2000 HDD - are you interested in someting not Penguin-flavoured?
Depends how it works. It has to be hosted on a LAMP server running apache but if it's something that 'generates' a set of HTML pages that can simply be copied to the server then that's fine.
Most of the stuff I'm looking at actually runs wholly on the server and you use a web interface to change things. E.g. Wordpress is a whole pile of PHP with the content stored in a database.
-- Chris Green
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
Chris G wrote:
On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:00:24AM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
What I'm after is a way to create a (fairly) simple web presence for a small business that looks presentable but doesn't require me to code everything from scratch. I.e. a nice selection of tunable templates offering menus/sidebars etc. so that I can just concentrate on creating the content. There will be no selling over the web (it's a consultancy and training business in the main) so it's essentially a 'read only' web site.
I think I have something like what you want on the Win 2000 HDD - are you interested in someting not Penguin-flavoured?
Depends how it works. It has to be hosted on a LAMP server running apache but if it's something that 'generates' a set of HTML pages that can simply be copied to the server then that's fine.
Most of the stuff I'm looking at actually runs wholly on the server and you use a web interface to change things. E.g. Wordpress is a whole pile of PHP with the content stored in a database.
I'll stick the HDD in the USB external wossname and locate it. It does just build pages. I can probably then find it on the coversisc it came off.
Watch this space...
Anthony Anson wrote:
Chris G wrote:
On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:00:24AM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
What I'm after is a way to create a (fairly) simple web presence for a small business that looks presentable but doesn't require me to code everything from scratch. I.e. a nice selection of tunable templates offering menus/sidebars etc. so that I can just concentrate on creating the content. There will be no selling over the web (it's a consultancy and training business in the main) so it's essentially a 'read only' web site.
I think I have something like what you want on the Win 2000 HDD - are you interested in someting not Penguin-flavoured?
Depends how it works. It has to be hosted on a LAMP server running apache but if it's something that 'generates' a set of HTML pages that can simply be copied to the server then that's fine.
Most of the stuff I'm looking at actually runs wholly on the server and you use a web interface to change things. E.g. Wordpress is a whole pile of PHP with the content stored in a database.
I'll stick the HDD in the USB external wossname and locate it. It does just build pages. I can probably then find it on the coversisc it came off.
Watch this space...
Have a look at Xara 3 Webstyle - I can send you the exec if you want to try it.
what about google sites?
Its easy to use like WP but not essentially a blogging platform
Check it out
James Elsey
On 21 June 2010 20:36, Chris G cl@isbd.net wrote:
I've been around this loop before and not really got anywhere but still there's no harm in asking.
Is there anything as simple and straightforward as Wordpress for creating web sites that *isn't* a blogging platform? There are many much more heavyweight CMS/Portal systems such as Drupal and Joomla but there really doesn't seem to be a site creation application as simple to use as Wordpress.
I *can* use Wordpress to create a site which isn't fundamentally a blog by turning off loads of options and using its static 'pages' but it somehow seems silly to turn off so much of what it's intended to do.
I already have ways to create utilitarian web pages from restructured text and that's fine for 'own use' internal web pages but I'm looking for something just a bit more sophisticated between that and a full-blown CMS.
-- Chris Green
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
James Elsey wrote:
what about google sites?
Its easy to use like WP but not essentially a blogging platform
It's also not something you can run on your GNU/Linux server (which is the list topic) and it gives all your data to Google under some (nasty IMO) terms.
Regards,
-
Anthony Anson -
Chris G -
James Elsey -
mick -
MJ Ray