Can anyone help me to get this answer with a small example as I have been trying to be cleared about this two things.
According to, and elaborating on the WordPress Codex:
Plugins
Plugins are ways to extend and add to the functionality that already exists in WordPress. The core of WordPress is designed to be lean and lightweight, to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat. Plugins then offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs.
So this should be thought of as a way of extending WP's underlying / core functionality. Remember, WP's Roots is that of a blogging CMS, but developers over the years have been hell bent on making it do anything and everything treating WP kind of like a framework, but not to be confused with one. For example, WordPress does not have a contact form built in for users, therefore I can plug in a 3rd party module which will permit the administrator to set up and use such functionality.
Widgets
WordPress Widgets add content and features to your Sidebars. Examples are the default widgets that come with WordPress; for post categories, tag clouds, navigation, search, etc. Plugins will often add their own widgets.
This is not as straight forward due to the concept being quite abstract. Think of a widget of extending the template dynamically by allowing a webmaster to deploy 3rd party plugins (as well as default plugins). Developers tend to use such functionality to display information that is not mission critical, non intrusive and easy to use / manipulate.
However, to clarify, you don't necessarily require widgets to use plugins. In the case you use Akismet, it will simply extend WP to prevent against spam without ever displaying anything to the user.
Related
I have been asked to create an eCommerce website for a client on a strict budget. I figured using WordPress would be my best bet in this case. I am new to both WordPress and developing an eCommerce/online store. I intended on designing and developing my own bespoke theme for the client, however their limited budget does not accommodate the fee I quoted for designing and developing a bespoke theme. Therefore, I thought that a free theme would be the most suitable option in working within the constraints of the budget.
My questions regarding using the free theme are:
What are the limitations to using a free pre-made theme in terms of its styling, look and layout (structure)? For example, could I easily move the logo or other elements and graphics to elsewhere on the same page if I wanted or I am stuck with having those items wherever they are originally placed? In other words, what flexibility do I get in changing the design?
How 'unique' could I expect it to look with some customization?
What are the limitations on features and functionality?
Would I get more design flexibility with a premium theme instead?
There are pretty much no limitations.
You can make a child theme out of the free theme, then you can customise the css and php files which make up that theme, as much as you like. That will allow you to do everything you mention in point 1. See http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes for details.
Wordpress provides a simple web interface that allows you to view and edit the files, or you can just edit them using your favourite code editor.
The idea with a child theme is that any file which you customize overrides the file in the original theme. This means if there are updates to that theme in the future, you can safely download them without wiping out the customisations you've made.
I would recommend you start with something like the twitter bootstrap theme for wordpress, which gives you a neutral design and quite a lot of useful javascript functions. That will help you with point 2 - ensuring uniqueness, as you don't start with something that already has a distinctive look and feel.
re: point 3 - that's the great thing with wordpress. Just add plugins and widgets (or even develop your own). There really are no limits.
To answer point 4: Premium themes typically provide more sophistication in terms of design features and add-ins like scrollers, slideshows and shortcodes. Sometimes they also provide customised interfaces that allow limited customisation such as colour schemes and page layout, but essentially the wordpress interface for customisation is the same, whether you've paid for the theme or not.
I am basically a Java/Oracle guy. I was told that it is possible to build any simple Web app with Wordpress.
I successfully installed Wordpress on my machine and am trying to create a text book app. For this purpose, it is an employee database, with fields Name, Address, Department, Designation. I need to have the usual create/edit/search/delete functionality.
The problem with Wordpress is, I really don't know where to start, or how to customize pages.
Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is Wordpress more for blogging/news style websites than for traditional database applications? If not, how do I customize Wordpress to create the application described above?
Thanking you in advance.
Viability
Wordpress is a great system for many different applications, not just blogging/news style websites.
There are many articles out there that go in to great depth on this, but here is a good one right of: http://torquemag.io/app-dev/
Getting Started
As with any project, there clearly is more than one way to skin this cat, but right off, here are some basics I'd recommend you check out about customizing your Wordpress install:
How to create a child theme: http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes
How to create a page template: http://codex.wordpress.org/Page_Templates
How to develop a plugin: http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin
Plugins
In addition to this, i'd highly recommend a few plugins, which will help make things easy for you:
Advanced Custom Fields
•Makes it really easy to add Custom Fields, to allow you to store custom information, associated with a post, page, taxonomy, user etc. really easy to use, has great documentation and support, as well as a really nice UI. I'd also recommend paying the 25 bucks for the repeater field, which is really useful.
Custom Post Type UI
•Easy way to add custom post types to your wordpress instal, the default post types are: posts, links, pages. With this plugin you can add custom post types for things like say, employees.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I don't think you're barking up the wrong tree, I think that wordpress can be a simple elegant solution for a web application, and can easily be molded into almost anything you can come up with.
For developed such kinds of application you need to develop a wordpress plugins. You can handle any kinds of database operation there. You can add create/edit/search/delete functionality
This is a serious question, specifically relating to the many frameworks out there for Wordpress and Joomla - Warp, T3, Gantry etc. What I dont understand is how they are different to a starter template and what exactly you are supposed to do with them - simply child theme them or is it a whole other codex to learn? I mean, all of the native codex is there with Joomla and WP anyway to construct a theme simple enough so what good does a whole proprietary app do between your design and the CMS? Are they faster to develop with?
What confuses me is that people seem to love them and claim that they make life easier but I dont get how adding another technology to learn can make things easier. Like I say, it is a serious question, not one for effect to make a point.
Can anybody define the difference between a framework and a starter template? I ask in part because I am one of those anxious developers who always feels like I am somehow missing a trick or doing things the "wrong" way - what am I missing?
This is definitely mostly an issue of definition, and I can guarantee that some cases will not follow what I outline below. Obviously, anyone is free to call the template/framework by whatever they want.
Generally though, a template is comprised of basic HTML and CSS that works with the platform (Wordpress, Joomla, etc) that is used to build the output to the page. In Wordpress, this contains the loop and other constructs to get all the content for the page. In Joomla, it outlines all the module positions available and such.
Typically when you purchase a higher end theme, you will have significant choices on the backend to customize the theme without having to actually code. These parameters let you typically change colors and such.
Some of the theme developers and others have taken this parameter settings system to the next level and made it into a framework. In all the cases that I've seen, "framework" is really the basis for the template parameter system. In this way, you can have consistency between different themes and expect the same settings and features between different themes. This is why they use a different word, because it really isn't a "theme" any more. It really is like a "theme engine" in that it is a backend system for changing things in the theme.
Yes, many platforms offer some basic options for editing the theme out of the box, so in most cases, the framework is really an improvement on the base platform's theme engine.
It's been my experience that a theme will be a visual style along with a set of theme options available in the admin (in addition to Customize if it's supported).
Theme Frameworks on the other hand, like Thesis, are installed just like a theme but have a very vanilla visual style that you build your theme on top of. Usually the framework provides many added features that aren't available in WP core.
tl;dr - Themes frameworks aren't installed and used right away, they are installed and built upon to deliver a site.
First of all i don't have any experience on wordpress.. So please forgive my ignorance.. I've found a theme on themeforest. Unfortunately it's a wordpress theme. I want to develop my own admin panel. I don't want to use wordress. Is it possible?
Anything is possible, however this is a gum in hair scenario. Ask the theme author if there is an HTML version which is common on ThemeForest. If you do try to "extract" the layout:
Begin with the stylesheet and match up the styles with each page template's markup.
Also, why not use WordPress? The Redux theme options framework is very easy to use.
Since a wordpress theme is just a bunch of html/css/js/php files, yes, it is possible. Depending on what language/framework will used backend side, the easiest way would be to extract the html/css/js parts of the theme and than add your own "content-placeholders" which will be used by your own backend.
But: Think twice about doing this. First, there could be a conflict with the license of the theme (depending on what type of license is used by the author of the theme). And more important, second, you should think twice about building your own backend.
For the case this isn't an experiment and you're building a productive website, building you're own backend is a lot of work. Unless you need some special functionalities (or you would like to keep it very slim and basic), I would suggest using a ready made CMS for this - like wordpress.
My opinion: 95% of self-made backends for basic cms features I've seen (and was forced to work with) are very messy and far beyond available open source cms. It seems like many people don't balance the pros and cons of building an own CMS-backend and undervalue the effort to build a state-of-the-art CMS.
I want to use WordPress for my personal website, but it isn't going to be structured like a blog. Can someone help me with a few concerns I have before I get too deep into it?
I want it to have a main page, and a hierarchy of content pages. Can I make the default page be a home page, and not a big chronological listing of posts?
I see that the DotNetNuke CMS has built-in support for auto generating your menus based on the pages you create. Does WordPress have anything like this?
Can I make the blog post section come up in a sub-directory like mysite.com/blogposts?
Is there anything about WordPress that makes it an obvious bad choice for a general purpose website? Does it have extensibility for thinks like shopping carts or whatever in case I want to add them in the future? I just want to make sure I am not doing something stupid by choosing a blogging software for a general purpose website with future requirements that aren't yet known.
Yes, current versions of Wordpress support designating a content page as the home page.
Yes, Wordpress will generate a set of nested lists that represent your content pages; it would be the job of the theme to style this into an appropriate menu (and most themes do not).
You can set up your permalink structure to do this, yes.
Wordpress is a good choice up to a point for many kinds of web sites, but if you want to integrate with a shopping cart or other complex application, I'd suggest looking at Drupal instead. Wordpress's developer ecosystem is mostly set up around extending its existing capabilities (blogging and content management) not on adding other unrelated functionality. Drupal is much more of a general-purpose framework for any kind of application or site.
I've set up Wordpress for several non-blog sites without issue.
Yes, you can create a static Page in Wordpress and set it as the default page. Read more about Wordpress Pages here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages
Yes, you can generate menus of Pages, both flat and hierarchal. Most themes will include a Page sidebar that will show Pages you have created. You can of course code and style your own to your liking. For example, this bit of php will pull out the top level Pages in your hierarchy and generate html for a series of <li> elements:
wp_list_pages('meta_key=page_title&depth=1&sort_column=menu_order');
Yes, you can have the blog section come up as a subdirectory.
Wordpress is a fine choice for a general purpose personal or even small business website. It only takes a little effort to convert your own custom layout into a Wordpress Theme, or you can choose from thousands of ready made Themes. You can do a lot with the base install, and its always being updated. Plugins and Widgets allow you to add all sorts of new functionality to Wordpress with ease. If all else fails, you can always write your additions own with a little effort.
That said, Wordpress is primarily blogging software. It has some decent CMS features, but its not the core focus. If you aren't going to do any actual blogging, Drupal is a solid option.
I'm not a heavy user of WordPress but my feeling for it is that it is primarily a blogging tool. It sounds like you want a full CMS. I'd have a look at Drupal (as PSU_Kardi suggests) or Joomla. Both have built-in support for or add-ons for blogs, e-Commerce, ...
2: Multi-level navigation plugin: http://pixopoint.com/multi-level-navigation/
4: Some e-commerce plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=e-commerce
Yes, available by default, configurable via control panel
Yes, it's usually on by default on modern templates (unless you're using something extremely exotic)
Yes, you can do pretty much everything with permalinks
I really don't see a reason why wouldn't you choose wordpress... many plugins available for this platform can do almost everything - even more than standard cms solutions. There are SEO plugins, e-commerce plugins, security plugins, forum plugins, modern anti-spam protection, design enhancements, advanced templates with easy to use control panels...