Help - Web Building CSS

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on February 19, 2015 at 11:55

Can't you find a Wordpress theme that does the job closely enough? Find the right theme and bolt on a few widgets and if you're not a technophobe and you can give some time to learn little time, I'm sure you'd get close enough to you want. You don't have be a techie.

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Permalink Reply by Tullie on February 19, 2015 at 12:23

Yep. Go with WordPress. People can easily sign up and comment with you or anyone else having to faff around with MySQL & PHP. You want to drive a car, not have to learn how to be an auto mechanic.

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Permalink Reply by Mr Wodjacallim on February 19, 2015 at 14:00

Thanks for the replies.

I took a look at Wordpress and it is OK for part of what I want to do.  The design is fine for blogs and no more than that.

The aim of the site is to run several campaigns over police mismanagement resulting in poor resource usage and poor governance over the handling of complaints with links to specific cases.  

The vision of what I am trying to build is:

• A drop down menu at the top to navigate around key elements of the site ( About, Contact Us, Campaigns *, Cases *). Starred Items need the drop down.
• A sidebar menu on the right to navigate to useful links such as Wordpress Blogs, Twitter Sites etc
• A Page Layout like the Guardian web site with a series of heading and images linking to articles
• Once I have the layout right, I would like to introduce user registration and users adding comments to articles etc. (This is where I need PHP and SQL)

It is quite challenging to put together and I have never encountered anything more maddening than CSS!   It seems to have a mind of its own.

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Permalink Reply by Tullie on February 19, 2015 at 14:15

Most people use WordPress for blogs but it can also be used for a static webpage of the type you describe. Drop-down menus, side bars and all the rest of it are all certainly possible - it just depends on which theme you choose. (Are you looking at wordpress.com or wordpress.org? The latter will cost you a small amount of money for hosting but it is worth it, as it is a much more flexible way to use WordPress - more themes, ability to install plugins to do just about anything you want with your website.)

SquareSpace may also do the job you want, but I suspect is more expensive than a hosted WordPress site. And I've no idea how it manages user registrations.

But don't take my word for it - I just manage multiple websites, all of which have multiple users who can post, comment and write pages - just keep on being maddened by CSS ...

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Permalink Reply by Mr Wodjacallim on February 19, 2015 at 19:25

Hi Tullie

I am looking at wordpress.com, not .org. I can't say I am expert on it and can only act on what I see or find out.     Some of the themes I have seen are quite expensive and I cannot see enough to figure out if they really do what  I want. It is news to me .org has more functionality. 

A key factor could be whether either wordpress.com and .org capture email addresses. I see Change.Org another site I have been looking at does not do this.   Does WordPress allow you to capture email addresses of registered users? (I would like to campaign as much as blog, so mailshots is a possibility.)

When you say plug ins on wordpress do mean stuff like Media players or components that might permit user registration, voting etc? 

BTW, I experienced a bit of a victory here today, the drop down works perfectly. Can't say the same about the other bits of the page. So still a long way to go on the hard route !!

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on February 19, 2015 at 19:24

You're thinking old Wordpress, Patrick. You'll be amazed at how sophisticated new Wordpress themes can be. They don't look like old Wordpress - and the great thing about any Wordpress site is that even if you need help building it, you can be pretty sure that you can manage without any tech support it once it's up and running.

My last word.

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Permalink Reply by Mr Wodjacallim on February 25, 2015 at 14:59

The Wordpress, I am looking at is new. Perhaps I am not seeing the themes because I am on the freebie offer rather than a subscriber.  Please could you post a link to the themes/site you have in mind?

I am becoming increasingly convinced CSS defies the laws of logic and physics .... but I have almost got a horizontal popup menu to work with a sidebar with links.

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