DTP


 
Lively discussions on the graphic arts and publishing — in print or on the web


Go Back   Desktop Publishing Forum > General Discussions > Web Site Building & Maintenance

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-17-2012, 04:34 PM   #1
Andrew B.
Staff
 
Andrew B.'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 4,353
Default Need advice on specific type of site

I want to make a website, and would prefer not to code my own web pages. And what I want to put on the site is articles I write. The first thing that comes to mind is "blogs," except they all seem to be linear, scrolling back in time. They all offer archives, which implies less immediacy to the older articles. I don't want this.

I want every article to have equal footing, except be able to control which one appears on the main page. The rest would be reached via an alphabetical list of titles, or by using a search mechanism. I'd also like people to be able to tweet or do whatever it is they do these days to spread the word about something.

Do you know of an automated site gizmo that might do this. I've already searched on my own and tried to see if blogs can do this, but it's all overwhelming.

   
__________________
fallberry.com

Last edited by Andrew B.; 10-17-2012 at 05:30 PM.
Andrew B. is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-18-2012, 06:52 AM   #2
Steve Rindsberg
Staff
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 7,714
Default

Have a look at http://www.pptfaq.com

If that's the kind of thing you're after, I can probably help.

It's created by a Windows program that's mostly focused on FAQ sites; it doesn't alphabetize the list on the main index page, but does allow you to insert new articles into the list wherever you'd like (and to rearrange them easily later).

You can dictate the html it creates for each article page, so if you've got some kind of "Tweet this" code, it'd be easy to have it automatically inserted into each article page.

   
__________________
Steve Rindsberg
====================
www.pptfaq.com
www.pptools.com
and stuff
Steve Rindsberg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-19-2012, 01:27 AM   #3
Kelvyn
Staff
 
Kelvyn's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: In the Heart of the English Lake District
Posts: 1,381
Default

You can use Wordpress for this by listing posts in alphabetical order. See http://codex.wordpress.org/Alphabetizing_Posts

I would use Joomla for what you describe, but it is more complex to use than WP although it has much greater flexibility.

   
__________________
Kelvyn

Web site design, hosting and marketing, Keswick in the UK Lake District

If you are planning a visit to Keswick then try Keswick Tourist Information website

Kelvyn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-19-2012, 09:38 AM   #4
LoisWakeman
Staff
 
LoisWakeman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Uplyme, Devon, England
Posts: 1,402
Default

I would suggest Wordpress too - using pages instead of posts to hold the articles. The posts are the bloggy bits and can be ignored.
LoisWakeman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-19-2012, 11:15 AM   #5
Andrew B.
Staff
 
Andrew B.'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 4,353
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by LoisWakeman View Post
I would suggest Wordpress too - using pages instead of posts to hold the articles. The posts are the bloggy bits and can be ignored.
Can it create a list of articles, not by date? Or better yet, give the user the a ability to use an alpha or date view.

   
__________________
fallberry.com
Andrew B. is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2012, 01:07 PM   #6
LoisWakeman
Staff
 
LoisWakeman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Uplyme, Devon, England
Posts: 1,402
Default

You can customise it pretty much any way you want - it would be fairly simple to set up a template to offer alpha or date lists. I am no PHP whiz (as Kelvyn will testify ), but have set up all sorts of things on a couple of sites I run. The Wordpress Codex tells you all you need to know and then some. There are probably plug-ins to do that too.
LoisWakeman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2012, 10:55 AM   #7
Andrew B.
Staff
 
Andrew B.'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 4,353
Default

I decided to make my life easier, and so I'm going with WordPress, and it will behave like a blog. I added a tag cloud widget, and this will have to do (for now) helping people find things. Tag cloud seemed better than categories because is more space-efficient.

Then I had to figure out how to get rid of all links and boxes for making comments. Simply turning off comments in the dashboard was not enough. But it all seemed so daunting. So I did something I've never done before, and thought I would never do. I edited the the PHP files by doing blind search and replace across all files. This is very reckless, to say the least. I'm not even sure which files I changed. But I could not muster the stamina to understand what each file does and check each change individually by previewing it on the screen. Not to mention that I don't understand PHP. But I figured if this didn't work I'd ask for help. And as far as I could tell, most of what I was editing was actually HTML (which I sort of understand).

As it turns out, I got lucky. I succeeded in making the changes I want. And maybe eventually I should check what I did.

   
__________________
fallberry.com

Last edited by Andrew B.; 11-02-2012 at 11:18 AM.
Andrew B. is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2012, 10:31 PM   #8
Andrew B.
Staff
 
Andrew B.'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 4,353
Default

I'm adding a note here. I found a WordPress plugin called Post Index that provides an alphabetized index of posts. I don't fully understand it, but managed set it up in a way where the index consists of the post titles instead of categories. And that is the kind of index I wanted.

And now I have to learn more about contact form plugins.

   
__________________
fallberry.com
Andrew B. is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Site-specific art John Spragens The Corner Pub 1 01-08-2012 02:51 AM
Reworked Site -- Advice Needed BobRoosth Web Design 15 11-30-2008 06:00 PM
Murdered a WordPress site. Advice? ktinkel Web Site Building & Maintenance 9 05-15-2008 12:40 PM
Interesting hosting advice site ktinkel Web Site Building & Maintenance 12 03-31-2008 06:23 AM
Dinc Type web site closing marlene Fonts & Typography 0 01-12-2006 11:52 AM


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 08:39 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Contents copyright 2004–2019 Desktop Publishing Forum and its members.