Website Designers who just use Joomla/Wordpress

ocallagh

NickNolte wrote: »

I don't like .NET myself. All I'm saying is that I know some s**t hot developers who happen to develop with .NET. For most intents and purposes, .NET's pretty good. I prefer Rails myself but each to their own. Silly argument.



WordPress isn't a framework.

I never said it was. You've made some fairly pointless comments in this thread tbh.. and ignored some logical arguments put to you.

NickNolte

ocallagh wrote: »

You've made some fairly pointless comments... and ignored some logical arguments put to you.

M'eh. This isn't After Hours. Best of luck in your Web dev career.

Tim M-U

Croga wrote: »

Hi, i've a few years experience with Wordpress and Joomla but im still relatively new to web designing (studying software programming in college). I want to get into the web designing business and make a few bucks out of it. Today i checked out the websites of other web designers who advertised in my local paper, to get a feel for the competition. Surprisingly i found all of them just use wordpress or joomla and slap on a free template with its original source removed. Some of these guys are charging 300+ for their services - to do something which only takes a half an hour. Is this normal? Are there any real web designers/coders out there who write their own code and make a website design from scratch?

The reason why I was put off setting up a website business for so long was because of my lack of skills in photoshop. I dont want to let a client down with a site that doesnt look good. Im just shocked to see that people are doing this and getting away with those kind of prices! If thats the case i could have been doing this a long time ago.

I would also like to hear what you guys make out of this? Is it right or wrong? Is this the norm these days? cheers

hi

no thats not normal to use joomla and ask for €300,

the freebees: joomla and wordpress, weebly ext.. are wysiwyg editors (what you see is what you get). Do not use a free host, because its not owned by you then, others might reconise it and give the business a bad review. the free software is not owned by you (joomla, wordpress), so why download it.

I use coffeecup site designer, (coffeecup.com ). Its great! theres a ftp loader too built in!.

most web designers (like me!) use coffeecup or adobe dreamweaver. dreamweaver is very expensive! (€300). coffeecup is like €30 quid. Or you can go and learn HTML and use notepad (free). I dont use HTML code from scratch for websites because I find it confusing, but I know loads of HTML!.

have a look at the website I made with coffeecup visiual site designer: www.kilfenoraclare.com .


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The way I look at those who use joomla is: cheap skates!. and from that I know they know NO html coding. there not web designers. and yes there are web designers that make websites from scratch.

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if you have any more questions to do with website making ect.. PM me!.

Tim.

Webmonkey

Tim M-U wrote: »

the free software is not owned by you (joomla, wordpress), so why download it.

I don't understand this. As a softare developer and web programmer, you are encouraged not to reinvent the wheel so using such software is advisible at times.

Tim M-U wrote:

Or you can go and learn HTML and use notepad (free). I dont use HTML code from scratch for websites because I find it confusing, but I know loads of HTML!.

If you know HTML, it shouldn't confuse you to be honest. I think it is much easier to develop from a text editor such as dreamweaver code view or another syntax highlighting editor as you have complete control and you don't end up with unneccessary getting embedded and such things as auto generated CSS that ends up as random names. That turns into a nightmare. Always use an external CSS file.

Tim M-U wrote: »

have a look at the website I made with coffeecup visiual site designer: www.kilfenoraclare.com .

It looks like one of those parking pages. Did you look at the source of that? - the CSS is all over the place, and it isn't HTML complient either.

To be honest, if you call yourself a web designer you shouldn't really even need to be using a wysiwyg designer.

A good text editor, good knowledge of HTML, good knowledge of CSS and Javascript and graphics using Photoshop and optimization with Image Ready and way you go

Scotty #

Tim M-U wrote: »

The way I look at those who use joomla is: cheap skates!. and from that I know they know NO html coding. there not web designers. and yes there are web designers that make websites from scratch.

The very same could be said of someone who uses a $30 WYSIWYG editor!

I have a good knowledge of HTML, CSS, and PHP and I still prefer using Joomla. And no, I'm not a cheapskate. Further more, anyone I know who uses Joomla (as web designers, and I know many!) has a very good knowledge of HTML.

There is absolutly nothing wrong with using a WYSIWYG editor and it makes no difference if that editor was free, $30, or $300. What's important is that the site looks good and works well (in all aspects) and your customer is happy. Joomla is a lot more than just a WYSIWYG editor by the way.

If a customer comes to you and says I want a forum on my site are you going to write it from scratch or are you going to install a system thats already available? Are you going to choose vBulletin over phpBB just because VB is not free?

If someone asks you to edit a photo, should you charge less because you edited it in Gimp rather than Photoshop?

People can make websites with Joomla and not be a designers. But designers can use Joomla and still be designers.

Joomla is a cheaper faster way of achieving the same end result. That does not make it wrong.

Tim M-U

Scotty # wrote: »

The very same could be said of someone who uses a $30 WYSIWYG editor!

I have a good knowledge of HTML, CSS, and PHP and I still prefer using Joomla. And no, I'm not a cheapskate. Further more, anyone I know who uses Joomla (as web designers, and I know many!) has a very good knowledge of HTML.

There is absolutly nothing wrong with using a WYSIWYG editor and it makes no difference if that editor was free, $30, or $300. What's important is that the site looks good and works well (in all aspects) and your customer is happy. Joomla is a lot more than just a WYSIWYG editor by the way.

If a customer comes to you and says I want a forum on my site are you going to write it from scratch or are you going to install a system thats already available? Are you going to choose vBulletin over phpBB just because VB is not free?

If someone asks you to edit a photo, should you charge less because you edited it in Gimp rather than Photoshop?

People can make websites with Joomla and not be a designers. But designers can use Joomla and still be designers.

Joomla is a cheaper faster way of achieving the same end result. That does not make it wrong.

Im just afraid that if a customer finds out im using a free joomla software, they might think of createing a website by themselves.

I can make a picture gallery with the software or just use flickr, the customer could upload it to their account and I would copy the embed code from their account.

when editing photos, I would use windows vista photo editor.

Its just my way of creating websites. plus, sometimes, sites created with joomla, have the joomla logo beside the address bar, and then people might think it was created with free joomla, and think the business like a cheapskate. (no affence)

Webmonkey

Tim M-U wrote: »

Im just afraid that if a customer finds out im using a free joomla software, they might think of createing a website by themselves.

Joomla is there to provide the customers with a content management system. It's them that will be using it.

Obviously if I develop my own custom CMS for the customer, I am going to charge a great deal more. However, if I include Joomla, then the cost is dramatically cheaper. You don't charge for Joomla so I don't see where the problem is.

No customer should be concerned with this if the cost of the web site is for the design and integration of joomla and what ever neccessary adjustments and administrative costs.

lucideer

NickNolte wrote: »

I don't like .NET myself. All I'm saying is that I know some s**t hot developers who happen to develop with .NET. For most intents and purposes, .NET's pretty good. I prefer Rails myself but each to their own. Silly argument.

It's not a subjective matter of "liking" or "disliking" .NET. .NET produces sub-standard code. If you, as a developer, choose to use a tool that develops sub-standard code, that's a sure a sign as I can think that you're just not a very good developer. If you can't tell bad code when you see it, you ain't "s**t hot", sorry.

If you disagree with me on this, I invite you to show me an example of any decent app produced by .NET - I've never seen one personally.

ocallagh wrote: »

I never said it was. You've made some fairly pointless comments in this thread tbh.. and ignored some logical arguments put to you.

Attack the argument, not the arguer.

Tim M-U wrote: »

most web designers (like me!) use coffeecup or adobe dreamweaver.

No. No most webdesigners don't. Honestly, they really really don't.

Tim M-U wrote: »

I dont use HTML code from scratch for websites because I find it confusing, but I know loads of HTML!.

Contradiction of terms?

Tim M-U wrote: »

have a look at the website I made with coffeecup visiual site designer: www.kilfenoraclare.com

The page is written in XHTML (XML empty elements), but has a HTML4 doctype.
It really bizarrely uses class attributes to unsuccessfully specify inline styles - (a) you really shouldn't use inline styles in the first place - (b) they won't work in class attributes.
Any class attributes that are used "properly" are done so with completely un-semantic consecutively numbered classnames. You should have a look at POSH.
It repeats style definition superflously, without any attempt to use cascading.
It ridiculously uses loads of tiny little tables for layout (I imagine). http://shouldiusetablesforlayout.com
Most significantly, it has 8.65kb of markup for 507 bytes of content. That's over 16 times the markup!

WYSIWYG programs like Dreamweaver and Coffeecup produce AWFUL code. Don't use them.

Tim M-U wrote: »

The way I look at those who use joomla is: cheap skates!. and from that I know they know NO html coding. there not web designers. and yes there are web designers that make websites from scratch.

As someone who makes websites from scratch, I recommend people use Drupal or a similar online CMS like Wordpress/Joomla (Drupal I'd recommend though). The reason I recommend these is that while people who USE them might not know HTML coding, the developers who WRITE Drupal DO know proper HTML coding and what they create will be a lot better than anything that will ever come out of a computer program like Coffeecup/Dreamweaver. If you know HTML, write from scratch. If you don't know HTML, use Drupal.

Tim M-U wrote: »

Im just afraid that if a customer finds out im using a free joomla software, they might think of createing a website by themselves.

Which is why you need to offer customers something "more" as a developer. If a customer can use free joomla/drupal software themselves, then they should and shouldn't be hiring me. If they hire me, they do so because they want something they can't do themselves - i.e. something more than joomla/drupal offers out of the box.

Tim M-U wrote: »

sometimes, sites created with joomla, have the joomla logo beside the address bar, and then people might think it was created with free joomla, and think the business like a cheapskate. (no affence)

You can remove the logo if you like. Even better would be to leave the logo and explain to your client exactly what you did for them beyond downloading and installing the CMS. Transparency with clients can occasionally get you places.

NickNolte

lucideer wrote: »

It's not a subjective matter of "liking" or "disliking" .NET. .NET produces sub-standard code. If you, as a developer, choose to use a tool that develops sub-standard code, that's a sure a sign as I can think that you're just not a very good developer. If you can't tell bad code when you see it, you ain't "s**t hot", sorry.

The way .NET butchers CSS can be easily remedied. Other than that it's a pretty solid framework. You're rabitting on like someone who really doesn't have the first clue what they're talking about. Have you ever even developed anything using .NET?

lucideer wrote: »

I invite you to show me an example of any decent app produced by .NET - I've never seen one personally.

You want the source code as well? :rolleyes:

noob

lucideer

@NickNolte
I've never developed a .NET, nor would the source-code be of use to me. What I have done is helped people developing .NET apps to debug .NET OUTPUT. It is the quality of outputted code I was referring to, not the ease of use of the framework server-side, which is why supplying me with a source code example would be irrelevant. I am talking about client-side code quality, which is abominable. CSS is only one aspect of it.

You still haven't provided me with an example of a well made .NET app (client-side example), so I can only assume one does not exist.

As for calling me a "noob", I'm not sure where I personally attempted at insulting you.. actually, now that I think about it, I didn't. Do you have any motivation for the attack?

NickNolte

I'm not even going to bother. You're talking through your hat. I'm embarassed to even be involved in this debate.

bSlick

lucideer wrote: »

It's not a subjective matter of "liking" or "disliking" .NET. .NET produces sub-standard code. If you, as a developer, choose to use a tool that develops sub-standard code, that's a sure a sign as I can think that you're just not a very good developer. If you can't tell bad code when you see it, you ain't "s**t hot", sorry.

Maybe the reason they use it is because it is their job and they make money using it.

tomED

Tim M-U wrote: »

no thats not normal to use joomla and ask for €300

What defines normal? I've seen plenty of people do this.

Tim M-U wrote: »

the freebees: joomla and wordpress, weebly ext.. are wysiwyg editors (what you see is what you get).

Not they are not.... They are web publishing tools.

Tim M-U wrote: »

the free software is not owned by you (joomla, wordpress), so why download it.

It's open source - free to use and free to change.
Unlike your coffee cup software which needs a license to use - you never own it.

Reasons for downloading and using are quite simple - you don't have to go and revelop a system for your clients that is freely available. It would take you months/years to build a system that is as robust and developed as these systems.

Tim M-U wrote: »

most web designers (like me!) use coffeecup or adobe dreamweaver.

No they most certainly don't.....

Tim M-U wrote: »

have a look at the website I made with coffeecup visiual site designer: www.kilfenoraclare.com .

But your website is only a few pages with HTML - what about functionality?? You haven't got any!

Tim M-U wrote: »

The way I look at those who use joomla is: cheap skates!. and from that I know they know NO html coding. there not web designers. and yes there are web designers that make websites from scratch.

What a ridiculous comment to make - you obviously don't know much about how Joomla or other similar systems work.

Tim M-U wrote: »

if you have any more questions to do with website making ect.. PM me!

No offence Tim - but you don't even know how free open source CMS's work so how can you possible offer anyone advice as to what their best route is when developing a website??

Ronan_

lucideer wrote: »

@NickNolte
I've never developed a .NET, nor would the source-code be of use to me. What I have done is helped people developing .NET apps to debug .NET OUTPUT. It is the quality of outputted code I was referring to, not the ease of use of the framework server-side, which is why supplying me with a source code example would be irrelevant. I am talking about client-side code quality, which is abominable. CSS is only one aspect of it.

You still haven't provided me with an example of a well made .NET app (client-side example), so I can only assume one does not exist.

As for calling me a "noob", I'm not sure where I personally attempted at insulting you.. actually, now that I think about it, I didn't. Do you have any motivation for the attack?

I have read through your posts in this thread. You haven't a clue what you're talking about.

DeadParrot

Tim M-U wrote: »

Im just afraid that if a customer finds out im using a free joomla software, they might think of createing a website by themselves.

I can make a picture gallery with the software or just use flickr, the customer could upload it to their account and I would copy the embed code from their account.

when editing photos, I would use windows vista photo editor.

Its just my way of creating websites. plus, sometimes, sites created with joomla, have the joomla logo beside the address bar, and then people might think it was created with free joomla, and think the business like a cheapskate. (no affence)

I've only started using Joomla in the last 2 weeks (check my retarded post history ) and even I know that the above is idiotic. If you cant change the favicon.ico, well, web development might not be for you.

Enjoying this thread, it shows me how much I have to learn, just finishing off my 1st Joomla site and I thought I was sh1t hot

ocallagh

This forum needs either a beginners forum or an advanced forum. The two types of developer cannot contribute to the one thread without it turning into a mess. If we had an intermediate/advanced forum it might encourage users with some good experience to actually post more often

Scotty #

I agree. Or a prefix system like...

• [Beginner] Thread title here
• [Advanced] Thread title here
• [Solved] Thread title here

There are a few available for VB. Or should they just write their own?

Ronan_

Yes but there will always be a misguided beginner who will post in the wrong forum and it will all just start again..

Fr Martin

Ronan_ wrote: »

Yes but there will always be a misguided beginner who will post in the wrong forum and it will all just start again..

Beginner in what though, web devolpment covers a broad area - I'm a **** hot Actionscript coder (I really am :pac:) - but my knowledge in other area's may be limited - it also covers graphic design too which I think people sometimes ignore.

I think if you can make a site that looks good and functions no matter by what means your ok - theres a lot of bias though on what you use but its mainly amongst other developers as opposed to the clients, who in my experience don't give a **** how its made as long as the above points are true.

I'v used wordpress and charged clients €400 for the the job, But that covers the overall design, and the content and usually some flash, I never really use templates(themes) and If I do, its edited enough so it looks nothing much like the original (maybe keep just the menu bar or such). And I am satisfied that if I had to I could make the finished product from scratch if I had to, but now I have a stable backend which allows me to edit anything convientely.

Installing wordpress, selecting a theme and putting in some text is not worth that though because you havnt really designed anything, in answear to the the long forgotten OP.

charybdis

Looking through the last five pages or so of threads I can't see anything I wouldn't class as "Beginner", with the possible exception of the thread about the decision to abandon XHTML 2 which has no replies.

A better way to divide the forum would probably be "Beginner" and "Inane".

I'm genuinely having trouble identifying any sort of discussion that isn't a product of groupthink or help vampires. The only recent thread that contained any sort of meaningful discussion relevant to the field was locked without resolution or agreement at the request of one of the arguing parties. If people who actually have information worth imparting and are generous enough with their time to do so, only to have their efforts truncated because someone of differing opinion decides they've had enough of an argument and doesn't feel like letting it continue without them, they're not going to be encouraged to offer assistance to others.

NickNolte wrote: »

The way .NET butchers CSS can be easily remedied. Other than that it's a pretty solid framework. You're rabitting on like someone who really doesn't have the first clue what they're talking about. Have you ever even developed anything using .NET?



You want the source code as well? :rolleyes:

noob

NickNolte wrote: »

I'm not even going to bother. You're talking through your hat. I'm embarassed to even be involved in this debate.

Ronan_ wrote: »

I have read through your posts in this thread. You haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Furthermore, this "I'm going to post purely to flatly dismiss what someone else has said without expounding my reasons for doing so" is pretty damn retarded. Apart from being disrespectful to others, it demonstrates your own deficits in argument and understanding.

tomED

charybdis wrote: »

Looking through the last five pages or so of threads I can't see anything I wouldn't class as "Beginner", with the possible exception of the thread about the decision to abandon XHTML 2 which has no replies.

A better way to divide the forum would probably be "Beginner" and "Inane".

I'm genuinely having trouble identifying any sort of discussion that isn't a product of groupthink or help vampires. The only recent thread that contained any sort of meaningful discussion relevant to the field was locked without resolution or agreement at the request of one of the arguing parties. If people who actually have information worth imparting and are generous enough with their time to do so, only to have their efforts truncated because someone of differing opinion decides they've had enough of an argument and doesn't feel like letting it continue without them, they're not going to be encouraged to offer assistance to others.







Furthermore, this "I'm going to post purely to flatly dismiss what someone else has said without expounding my reasons for doing so" is pretty damn retarded. Apart from being disrespectful to others, it demonstrates your own deficits in argument and understanding.

Great post!

I hate that word retarded being used though!

Pixelcraft

Maybe beginner and advanced is the wrong wording, maybe professional/industry and amateur/hobbyist - the problem being though, who decides who falls into which category?

Webmonkey

Pixelcraft wrote: »

Maybe beginner and advanced is the wrong wording, maybe professional/industry and amateur/hobbyist - the problem being though, who decides who falls into which category?

Industry could also be classified as amateur sometimes

Pixelcraft

hence my last point!

Saruman

I have used joomla and wordpress. Mostly I do not charge or if I do I make very little money. Only one proper paying customer. Its only a hobby for me to be honest and a way to make a little extra money.
I would not be good enough to go professional and I am not sure I would want to.
I know a little HTML, little javascript, little flash animation and enough to get by.

There is no problem for a pro to use joomla, it is a way to keep the cost down and the customer is paying for the persons time. If I was a pro I would not ne worried that the customer will go make their own site if they find out you are using Joomla, for one thing they would have no idea how to even install the thing unless they are lucky and stumble across a host that uses fantastico or something similar to install it in a few clicks.

Also you can not just stick up a website with joomla with no knowledge and you have to have some html experience so you can change banners etc.

bSlick

This forum doesn't have enough traffic to be splitting it imo.

ocallagh

charybdis wrote: »

Looking through the last five pages or so of threads I can't see anything I wouldn't class as "Beginner", with the possible exception of the thread about the decision to abandon XHTML 2 which has no replies.

I agree. I've been a user on boards for a few years now (mainly post in the poker forum). I decided since I have 10 years+ web dev experience I would start contributing to the web dev forum. I was hoping to have intelligent dicsussions with other like minded developers about new technologies, bounce ideas off others, possibly make some contacts and in general become part of an Irish community of web developers. Instead this forum has a huge amount of beginner threads, a lot of disgruntled 'developers' who manage to turn most threads into an argument of sorts and a very small amount of helpful contributors. I admit I fell into that 'disgruntled' category in this thread, but NN managed to bring the worst out of me! Anyway, I'm close to being done with this forum and it's a pity because I reckon the same has happened to dozens of developers over the years that attempted to take part in this forum. That is the reason it is a beginners forum, the lack of advanced threads does not imply an advanced forum won't fill. I think it will given time and proper moderating

Webmonkey

Maybe we should create a forum for actual web developers so we can build a network. Perhaps, have it so you must request access to post, but let it open to view.

aidan_walsh

If you have suggestions for the forum, can we take them to the Feedback forum please? I'd rather this was not derailed any further.

smemon

I think one of the major factors we're overlooking is that open source allows a client to go elsewhere when they want upgrades or tweaks. If you're talking about joomla or wordpress there's a good chance the client can actually do things for themselves or get help online - for FREE. That words scares developers.

With a custom solution, a client is basically locked in to working with the one company and therefore they've no choice but to pay whatever said company is looking for.

Yes, if i'm a company and want a website built, i can pay €10k and get a beautiful custom designed and coded system - 100% unqiue.

IF the site could be built using joomla or wordpress, why would i bother paying €10k? What do i get apart from knowing my system is custom built? And that's not necessarily a good thing either - wordpress plugin developers, theme designers etc... are two a penny so it will cost me much less to add new features.

Hiring an outsider to look at / enhance a custom built solution will take an awful lot of time... new database structure, new code, template structure to get used to etc...

I'm not saying wordpress and joomla should be used for 100% of projects, but they're more than adequate for the vast majority of brochure / basic sites out there.

Leave cash out of it - what benefits the client more? Open source or custom built? I'd say a marriage of the two, so that the client gets a custom *looking* site whilst being able to upgrade, add features, control the site with all the bells and whistles an open source solution like joomla or wordpress can offer.