Dead Men Walking

dMw Chit Chat => The Beer Bar => Seriously though ... => Topic started by: Sn00ks on July 18, 2012, 01:14:16 PM

Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Sn00ks on July 18, 2012, 01:14:16 PM
My lovely partner has nominated me to take over the running and support of our riding club's website, deep joy. :ranting2:

I know nothing about web sites or stuff to do with web sites so I would like to know what, preferably free, software I need to be able to do things and how to do those things that I should be doing. :blink:

Any advice, related to web sites and not the 'problem', would also be appreciated. :flirty:

Currently I think it is a boring website and that it needs to be re-vamped a bit, penistoneridingclub.co.uk, but I was told that a riders wives section might not be in character.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: BrotherTobious on July 18, 2012, 01:25:02 PM
Wordpress is your kind of easy to use friend mate
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Gandalf on July 18, 2012, 01:51:43 PM
Indeed. I knocked our camera club website together using wordpress in a few hours. (shameless promotion) //www.ore-st-helens.co.uk

Free download, easy to use.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: DrunkenZombiee on July 18, 2012, 02:15:55 PM
Go for wordpress or one of the main free CMS (content management systems) as others have stated.

What are your requirements in terms of bulitin boards, picture and video integration, landing pages and news feeds. The more info the more help we can give.

DZ
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Sn00ks on July 18, 2012, 03:06:25 PM
It's just going to be a very basic web presence. Just telling people about the club, promoting forth-coming events, maybe a picture gallery etc etc.

So far I've been drawn to Kompozer. Seems to have all the bits I need included.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Jamin on July 18, 2012, 05:21:53 PM
Quote from: Sn00ks;354915It's just going to be a very basic web presence. Just telling people about the club, promoting forth-coming events, maybe a picture gallery etc etc.

So far I've been drawn to Kompozer. Seems to have all the bits I need included.

Kompozer was what I was going to suggest, it's portable so you can keep the software and site on a mem stick.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: smilodon on July 18, 2012, 05:39:01 PM
Wordpress requires an MySQL database to work, which might be a limiting factor for you. However it's the best option if you need to regularly update the content, post about news, current and past evens etc. Wordpress makes a dynamic web site a breeze to run.

Kompozer is great if you want to build a website that is mostly static with very occasional updates etc. It's not so good if you're looking to add additional content on a regular basis
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Sn00ks on July 18, 2012, 08:08:04 PM
Thanks for your feedback lads. I think there'll be updates every couple of weeks so I don't think I need the dynamisim of Wordpress. Kompozer it is then.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Dewey on July 19, 2012, 01:29:26 PM
Minor point but Wordpress is not a CMS - its a blogging tool. You can extend its functionality to try and replicate a CMS but its never going to have the feature set of something like Concrete 5, Squiz, Drupal etc.

Quote from: DrunkenZombiee;354913Go for wordpress or one of the main free CMS (content management systems) as others have stated.

What are your requirements in terms of bulitin boards, picture and video integration, landing pages and news feeds. The more info the more help we can give.

DZ
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: T-Bag on July 19, 2012, 02:02:22 PM
I've heard good things about Joomla and there's a free way of trying it out on their hosting (it's also open source so you can use it free with your own hosting too). A friend of mine knocked up a website using it for his parents holiday home. It had twitter integration etc and seems easy enough that they can run it themselves.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Benny on July 19, 2012, 04:26:18 PM
Opinions being like arseholes, you'll be surprised to hear mine is very different and a much tighter proposition.

Go Daddy do websites, get rid of the headache and put it up there. It's cheap and a doddle to configure and run. Easy to expand in future if you need to.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: smilodon on July 19, 2012, 05:55:59 PM
Go Daddy is an option. However you'd have to disable your moral compass first
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Daddy#Controversies

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Daddy#Controversies)I'm being a little pedantic but a hosted option is something that's well worth considering and a couple of friends have used Go Daddy. Controversies aside they do seem to offer a very robust and easy to use web authoring service.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Benny on July 19, 2012, 08:41:32 PM
How about 1&1?
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: smilodon on July 19, 2012, 10:36:31 PM
I can speak from personal experience (my web sites are currently with them) that if you never ever need to speak to anyone about anything then 1&1 are fine. Good web tools and solid service. Customer services and tech support though are effectively non existent.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Sn00ks on July 20, 2012, 11:55:34 AM
The site already exists and is hosted somewhere, not sure where though.
It is ongoing maintenance and updates that I've been volunteered for, and I think it needs re-vamping as it's boring.
A riders wives section maybe?
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: T-Bag on July 20, 2012, 01:03:58 PM
Quote from: Sn00ks;354998The site already exists and is hosted somewhere, not sure where though.
It is ongoing maintenance and updates that I've been volunteered for, and I think it needs re-vamping as it's boring.
A riders wives section maybe?

If you're just after a way of editing the website itself (but nothing substantial) you'll be able to do that with notepad or geany if you know what you're doing. Just change the text, upload it with some form of FTP uploading program and your site will change.
Adding new pages and layouts etc are more complicated this way but there are plenty of programs out there. Dreamweaver is one I've seen used and seems incredibly easy for anything basic (but can do very complicated things too), but is far from free.

As for the riders wives section, who knows, it could be popular...I'm thinking there are other sites on the internet far more appealing to your target audience.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Jamin on July 20, 2012, 05:46:39 PM
You want popular? put cats on there, my friend maintains (badly, using seamonkey) a site for a cat sanctuary his boss owns and gets millions of hits a week.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Penfold on November 09, 2012, 12:46:33 PM
Did you manage to progress this Sn00ks.

I need a couple of web thingy's done and am struggling.

1. Amends to existing Wordpress site - only one page
2. Duplication of existing Wordpress site - 5 pages need new text
3. Single page website

Anyone got any ideas of know of anyone happy and willing to earn some PIN money?
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Gandalf on November 09, 2012, 12:48:46 PM
Hi Pen,

If you're stuck then I can do 1,2 and 3 if you like. As long as all copy is supplied :)
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Penfold on November 13, 2012, 11:36:20 PM
Excellent. Emailed.
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Gandalf on November 16, 2012, 10:10:38 AM
And emailed back :)
Title: Web pagey stuff
Post by: Penfold on November 16, 2012, 10:48:56 AM
OK already ... it's on my to do list :flirty: