Which tool to use for building a website

luckylucky

I have some experience of web design but it's not my profession and I'm not an expert. i.e I know some html but am very rusty . Also have used Dreamweaver in the past. My main website www.firbolg.com was designed by a contractor in movable type. Unfortunately I think this was a big mistake as I have never got comfortable with using this and since it was done this way I have sort of lost interest in updating the website. It was so much easier for me when I did myself in Dreamweaver. Hence my google page rank has dropped from 4 to 2 .

So I wish to stop using Movable Type and move to something easier to use.

Basically what I would like is to be able to use a content management system which is very user friendly but also very customisable once you get up to speed with what you are doing. I realise Movable Type is a great tool if you know how to use it but I really don't have the time or patience to spend getting to know this tool.

Any recommendations for a better alternative. Any help greatly appreciated.

kleefarr

Coffee Cup ???

luckylucky

kleefarr wrote: »

Coffee Cup ???

looks interesting. I was thinking more along the lines of a content management system tool though, then again I'm not 100% sure what is ideal. I know Movable Type isn't and though I liked Dreamweaver I had issues with that too, can't remember exactly what they were at this stage , maybe it had something to do with it getting unwieldy when I started having more and more pages.

Bob the Builder

Well if it's a CMS you are looking for, you'll find endless amounts of them, but personally, after trying out many many CMSystems, and comparing it to your current needs, I would say Joomla 1.5 would suit you perfecto. It's got plenty of modules and extensions. It's an "interesting" piece of software, in that it's got a learning curve, but it's very useful. More complicated than wordpress, yet more functional.

Otherwise, there's Drupal, but I personally dont like it from experience, and TYPO3 is alright, but it is supposed to be Search Engine friendly, so it may fetch you a higher page rank, but may not be as functional.

Have a look at www.opensourcecms.com. It should help you in the search for a better CMS

Good luck,
NevF

luckylucky

nevf wrote: »

Well if it's a CMS you are looking for, you'll find endless amounts of them, but personally, after trying out many many CMSystems, and comparing it to your current needs, I would say Joomla 1.5 would suit you perfecto. It's got plenty of modules and extensions. It's an "interesting" piece of software, in that it's got a learning curve, but it's very useful. More complicated than wordpress, yet more functional.

Otherwise, there's Drupal, but I personally dont like it from experience, and TYPO3 is alright, but it is supposed to be Search Engine friendly, so it may fetch you a higher page rank, but may not be as functional.

Have a look at www.opensourcecms.com. It should help you in the search for a better CMS

Good luck,
NevF

Cheers for this. There are so many different CMS's out there it gets mind boggling tbh. I think I'll just dive in and give this Joomla a go. I'll try it out on a brand new site first before I apply it to my existing one.

luckylucky

nevf wrote: »

I would say Joomla 1.5 would suit you perfecto.
NevF

I managed to install this last nite on a new site of mine. Wasn't too difficult either. I'm far happier now that I have done this myself instead of it being out of my hands like with the firbolg site. Early days, just started looking at Joomla's control panel this morning but so far it seems very user friendly. Anyway have a feeling that I'm going to get to like this, so thanks a lot for this.

XJR

I used to use Dreamweaver but it used to be quite cumberrsome so gave it up. I only do webistes now as a side thing so I don't spend money on the software and I use Frontpage. I know it's MS and all that so many people will scoff but in terms of ease of use I think it's great.

Webmonkey

XJR wrote: »

I used to use Dreamweaver but it used to be quite cumberrsome so gave it up. I only do webistes now as a side thing so I don't spend money on the software and I use Frontpage. I know it's MS and all that so many people will scoff but in terms of ease of use I think it's great.

Don't give up on Dreamweaver so easily - it is an amazing piece of software especially the way it works with CSS.
Its got really cool features like built in FTP clients etc -
I must say I find the Dreamweaver CS3 much better than Dreamweaver MX. - What version were you using because before MX, dreamweaver was horrible!

EKRIUQ

Webmonkey wrote: »

I must say I find the Dreamweaver CS3 much better than Dreamweaver MX. - What version were you using because before MX, dreamweaver was horrible!

What are the main differances? as I'm on MX but maybe thinkg of an upgrade if it was worth it.

AARRRGH

vi all the way

Bob the Builder

I use dreamweaver, it's quite handy, but i only have MX and 8, I might persuade my cousin to give me a free copy of CS3 though

As for layout programs, I've started to use Quark Express 7. I find it quite powerful, yet really hard to get used of.

dublindude wrote: »

vi all the way

Your joking?

AARRRGH

nevf wrote: »

Your joking?

Sadly, no! I really need to give one of the GUI editors a chance.

mccafferty

have you looked at Expression Engine, Textpattern or Wordpress?

After having a quick scan of your site I would imagine that any of these would suit your site.

Bob the Builder

dublindude wrote: »

Sadly, no! I really need to give one of the GUI editors a chance.

It's a good skill to have. The laziness of using a GUI like Dreamweaver as a crutch for putting in code is not a good thing...

luckylucky

mccafferty wrote: »

have you looked at Expression Engine, Textpattern or Wordpress?

After having a quick scan of your site I would imagine that any of these would suit your site.

I've heard wordpress mentioned a fair few times and I probably would have gone with that if Joomla hadn't been mntioned earlier. I've installed Joomla on another site now and so far am very pleased with it. So I'll see how it goes on that site. If after another few weeks when I hopefully understand joomla better, hopefully I'll know whether it meets the need of the firbolg site or not then.