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Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 3:34 pm
by chloe.gray
Hi,
I'm about to start a site for a client. I have edited other sites that were built in PHP, but I have never built a site from scratch in PHP. I'm considering using PHP for this new site because I want to integrate a wordpress blog into the site. However, I'm trying to determine if this is too advanced for someone with nominal experience with PHP. I am also pretty new to design in general, but have a solid handle over HTML and CSS.
Would it be acceptable and/or appropriate for me to use .php file extensions on my pages but use mostly html coding so that I can later seamlessly integrate the blog? Will this work?
My other option is to simply use html and css and then have the blog be an external link, but this is not ideal.
I would appreciate any advice. Thanks!
Re: Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 4:58 pm
by Jammerious
You might want to examine Wordpress a little closer to see whether the plan you have aside from having a blog could be realized with Wordpress extensions.
Maybe you could check out other CMS if any fits your purpose?
You can safely set .php extensions for html files, I don't know of any downsides of doing so.
Re: Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:15 pm
by chloe.gray
Thanks for your response.
Here are two tutorials that I've found on integrating a WP blog into a site.
http://jonathanwold.com/tutorials/wordp ... tegration/
http://moshublog.com/2005/07/05/integrate/2/
Could you tell me if these look reliable? I'm basing my assumption that I can actually do this well (seamlessly integrate a blog into my site) and I want to make sure that I'm not looking at unreliable sources!
When you say Wordpress extensions, do you mean customizable themes? And could you tell me what type of CMS might be helpful? Sorry, I really am a newbie!
Thanks!
Re: Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:28 pm
by Skara
chloe.gray wrote:When you say Wordpress extensions, do you mean customizable themes? And could you tell me what type of CMS might be helpful? Sorry, I really am a newbie!
http://wordpress.org/extend/, specifically plugins. You can fairly easily code your own plugins for your own specific needs.
If the website will simply have a few extra pages to it, WP already offers this. With just a little bit of work, you can make the blog part of WP exist more in the background and have the "extra" pages as the main part of the site. It's all about design.
What kind of website are you creating?
Re: Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:52 pm
by joeynovak
Tottaly, just use wordpress. You can extend it to do anything. I did a job a few months ago and made this with a half dozen wordpress extensions:
http://www.rottweilerworld.com/
It is so so so so easy to create a wordpress extension. You just register your hook, and then filter the text of the page / post and stuff your generated content into the page. It's easy.
Joey
Re: Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:07 pm
by chloe.gray
Thanks so much for all your responses.
I'm building a site for an arts organization. Some of the more complex parts of the site will include individual pages for various artists with an image gallery of the work. I want to use Lightbox for this. There will also be a page with an interactive, rollover map of Central Asia, and a page that links to various downloadable PDF's of interviews and texts. Does Wordpress support these types of things? I suppose my biggest fear is diving into the site with Wordpress and then realizing that it isn't flexible enough to accommodate some of the more complex areas of the site.
Thanks!
Re: Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:15 pm
by chloe.gray
P.S.
I will need to make image galleries, and there will be A LOT of pages within this site. For example, a main Artists page will then have links to pages of about ten different artists, which includes info on the artists and an image gallery. Is this possible with WP?
Basically this is a very robust site and there can be no limit on how many pages I need to have. Do you still think that WP is the way to go?
Thanks!!
Re: Using php simply for a blog - beginner question
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:17 pm
by chloe.gray
Oh, and one more thing: is it possible to create a testing directory for Wordpress, so that I can test changes and updates before uploading them to the live site? I've tried to do this before with a smaller site I built using WP to no avail.
Thanks!