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  • #34147
    Attila Hajzer
    Participant

    how do you start making a blog. I know that so many people ask this, but I would love for some advice from you guys what the best practices are.

    im re-designing my portfolio and having the main pages and then in the navigation a ‘Blog’ link, and it having a different layout. which i have going well but I was wondering how am i going to be able to create posts and publish posts and all. without using WordPress. I have a bit of knowledge of php. and unfortunately even less with SQL. I’ll be glad to do my own research on how things are done. But would appreciate guides.

    and the reason I haven’t gone out and tried a bunch of the stuff is because a lot of tutorials only do parts. Then when you look up the next part, they have conflicting directions / orders. You know what I mean?

    #86027
    TheDoc
    Member

    Is there a reason why you don’t want to use a ready-made blog system like WordPress?

    #86036
    TheDoc
    Member

    Writing your own CMS is a noble effort, just not one that I really see any need for.

    WordPress, to me, is what you’re going to want to learn (especially if you’re looking for jobs). I’m not a PHP expert by any means, but I’ve learned nearly everything I know about the language from dealing with WordPress. Don’t mean to shove it down your throat, but it really would be beneficial for you to learn in the long run.

    As far as writing your own goes, there are lots of tutorials out there that talk about creating a simple blog. If the free ones that you find aren’t doing it, you might just have to cough up some money for some better quality ones.

    #86202
    TheDoc
    Member

    Create a page in WordPress called ‘Home’. In Settings -> Reading, make the home page a static page and select ‘Home’.

    Then, in your theme’s directory, create front-page.php – your newly created page called ‘Home’ will use this template.

    #86209
    djpic
    Participant

    Personally, I am in the same boat. I don’t want to use any CMS out there currently. I much rather program my own. You can learn much more by doing it yourself instead of trying to do it with one that is already built. I can streamline it to my needs and not have a whole bunch of overhead. Plus when you program something with just yourself in mind, it is not that difficult.

    Another advantage is instead of learning ‘WordPress’ you can learn ‘PHP’ and ‘MySQL’ which I believe is much more valuable than learning ‘WordPress.’ Sure learning ‘WordPress’ will help you but you have to ask the question: would you rather rely on a program someone else built or would you prefer going into any situation and being able to do anything?

    That is my opinion.

    If you would like help building one, I would be happy to help.

    #86211
    TheDoc
    Member

    @djpic – it depends on what your goals are. I get my work from clients, not myself. What do clients want? An easy to use CMS. To me, that’s WordPress. I’ve made it my specialization and it’s how I get work.

    In my opinion, you should be learning how to develop WordPress themes and you should also be learning PHP, because at the end of the day they’ll go hand in hand.

    #86229
    djpic
    Participant

    I am not saying it is a bad idea to learn ‘WordPress.’ I installed it once but that was the extent as I had other projects to do. It is in my list to play with as it will make it easy to solve those “can you make a web site for me?” requests. But most of my work is web applications. Things like custom payroll systems that integrate into legacy system (IBM iSeries), point of sales systems, financial packages, inventory systems, etc. So I guess it depends on your goal. Either just be able to throw a site together and make a quick buck, or build something that will save a company millions? Without a full working knowledge of PHP (and the other languages), doing the latter would be impossible.

    lol, anyways, off my soapbox I guess you can call it. Like @TheDoc said, go for both. I am just trying to say, if you want to master PHP, the quickest path is to just jump into it and build your own CMS (which is how ‘WordPress’ got started anyways). It will take longer of course, but what you will gain in knowledge would be priceless.

    #93725
    Johnnyb
    Member

    There’s a course on lynda.com which will take you from the basics of PHP and mySQL right through to building your own Content Management System: http://www.lynda.com/PHP-tutorials/php-with-mysql-essential-training/435-2.html?srchtrk=index%3A7linktypeid%3A2q%3Aphppage%3A1s%3Arelevancesa%3Atrueproducttypeid%3A2

    It really is good and very thorough. Lynda.com costs about $25 a month to join, which is a bargain for the quality of information you can gain. I’d save yourself the time trawling through free tutorials and just pay for a quality video service like this and learn properly.

    John

    #93791
    PhotoWebMax
    Member

    Take a look at MODx. MODx is great CMS that gives you a totally blank content system to start. Its much easier to develop a site/blog from scratch if you really want something custom. WordPress is great but its a royal pain if you want to do your own thing…

    #93909
    Andy Howells
    Participant

    Perch is also a pretty sweet CMS – it’s not free, but it’s very light weight and gives you a lot of freedom over the design of your site, I use it on most of my clients sites too.

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