Site structure

Understanding the structure of your site is important and that structure depends upon your business and what kind of services your business provides. If you're not promoting a business with your site, then what topics do you cover and how best do you display those topics?

Two options seem to jump out at this point:

• Subdomains
• Subdirectories

Subdomains versus Subdirectories

To start with, don't ask me why here I'm referring to folders as directories. Folders always used to be called directories going back to DOS when I first got into computers. I can't see any difference personally, they both do exactly the same thing and folders or directories can both have folders or directories inside them.

My first sites have always kept their subject matter apart using subdirectories; eg www.any-site.com/animals/dogs.html. It's a way of keeping the information of an expanding site separate and easy to deal with. Each of those subdirectories created would hold the files for that section (html, images and anything else I used for that part of the site). That way, if I wanted to change a section, I didn't have to trawl through a huge number of files to find what I was looking for.

Plus, in my opinion, it looked more professional.

One thing always confused me though and that was how sites got addresses like "aminals.any-site.com".

The "animals" part is a subdomain of any-site.com, but when you look at the directory structure using your FTP software, it's just a subdirectory of the root, which in most cases is "public_html". When I first discovered what this naming convention entailed, my web space provider wasn't providing subdomains and I as a user had no access to the DNS (Domain Name Server) to create a subdomain.

Many companies use subdomains for the various sections of their businesses. One of the best known is Wix, which has been using subdomains for ages for its users to create websites for free. Each site is a subdomain of the Wix domain, but each operates as a standalone site.

You can do this too and even if your web space provider doesn't allow you to readily create a subdomain, you can do it from a subdirectory - which as I said, is pretty much the same thing, but without the fancy name.

The difference between subdomains and subdirectories is that when you want to access a subdomain, the subdomain's name goes ahead of the domain name - just like above with "animals.any-site.com".

Subdirectories on the other hand go after the domain name - ie www.any-site.com/animals.

So understanding the structure is the first step, but the need for subdomains over subdirectories is dependent upon what you are attempting to do with your site.

For us it's simple.

My wife and I run a small business from home. My wife does one thing, while I do another (although I do help with her side of the business too). Neither areas of our business are related other than sharing web space; in other words, both sides of the business are on the same web site.

I have been told that this is bad, but I can't understand why, I mean, if someone who searches for what I do, then (hopefully) they will be directed to the pages of our site that pertain to that, not the other side.

To try and separate them further, but without the added costs involved with purchasing and hosting a new site, I decided to go down the subdomain route.

To that end, I am creating a site that displays the services my wife (and I on occasion) provide, with a subdomain containing a very different-looking site, displaying the services I provide. There are plans to add another subdomain to replace the site I lost when I left England (because they wouldn't host the site if I wasn't resident in the UK), but that's something I will have to assess further down the line.

Whether this works or not remains to be seen, but we will see...

Choosing a theme or plugins

What is a theme?

The theme is a predefined site layout, sometimes - but not always - this extends to colour schemes, fonts and font sizes. Some though are configurable, even in the free versions.

The fact that WordPress almost takes away the users need for knowing HTML and CSS, if you do happen to know it, some themes give you plenty of options to add little niceties that make your site look less like it's an off-the-shelf, pre-made item that you have filled with your blog, online shop or static site.

Choosing a Theme

Finding the right theme can be difficult.

As a 'Top-Down' designer, I feel it's important to convey the right look and feel to whatever front-end is being designed. Whether it's for a stand-alone application, system or web site, the look and feel provides the user with something that conveys the information in the company's livery.

For some, this is as important as the information inside. Ferrari for instance, has a world-wide look with its classic red and for some, if it's not sporting that 'Rosso' colour, it's not a Ferrari.

With upwards of 10,000 themes out there to choose from, it can be a little overwhelming to try and find something you want for either your own site or your customer's.

Finding a theme is a little like house-hunting. Many people want the house that looks right for them from the outset. They are unable or unwilling to look past artificial things like decoration and instead, may actually overlook something that's perfect because it needs some cosmetic changes.

Themes are very similar. If you can look past the colours the designer has chosen in the example and look instead at where the bits that are important are, then likely as not, the rest can probably be changed.

What is a Plugin?

Plugins are what we used to term as 'Applets', pieces of code that can be inserted into the site to give extra functionality.

Plugins can be image galleries, image sliders, or can give your site the functionality of an on-line shop, social media site or similar.

Plugins can be a nightmare, especially if like me, you're not familiar with them, or don't have experience of a particular plugin. 

So when choosing a theme or plugin, which do you choose?

Good question.

Both the themes and the plugins share a common issue - the sales pitch and the claims of what it can do.

Some themes and plugins are completely free and then there are those that are free, but are in fact cut-down versions of premium versions.

Most of them tell you they are the best thing since sliced bread, which is understandable. No-one is going to downplay their own product, but very often the reviews are not for the free versions, but the premium versions. If you're going to try something, you're probably not going to want to buy unseen, you're going to want proof that it's going to do what you want first.

You can sometimes get a feel for the product in question by how many people have it installed and are currently using it. The more people have it, the better it is, right? That could be the case, but whether it's right for you can only be decided by whacking it in your site and giving it a go.

That's how I came to the conclusion that the theme I have chosen to use for my first attempt at WordPress was right for me.

The route I took

I installed three themes before I settled on one I was happy with.

Knowing before I started that I wanted to display a logo cut out a whole bunch of themes and not being able to change colours or other settings without paying for the premium version cut out even more.

I saw some that were visually pleasing, but not right as the producers focused on the blogging or e-commerce aspects of WP, not the ability to make static websites, which is where I wanted to begin.

I settled in the end on a Kadence Themes free copy of Virtue. This theme has been an absolute Godsend as it allows the free user pretty much carte blanche over fonts, colours, positions and even the inclusion of elements. The ability to add extra CSS and HTML to further customise this theme is a definite pro point.

The site I have created with it is slick and very professional-looking, which is testament to the ease of use this theme has as standard for the novice.

As for plugins, well the jury is still out on that one.

I had intended to use a gallery or a carousel for the site I was building, so obviously, I went to the plugin gallery on WP ad typed in the appropriate keyword.

My first concern was the number of these plugins available.

I tried Robo Galley to begin with, but it didn't do nearly what I was led to believe it would and I quickly realised that unless I wanted to pay for it, I wasn't going to get the finish I was after. I also tried JetPack thanks to the fact that it said it had an image carousel that would work with a gallery, but that didn't do what I'd hoped either.

So, as far as images are concerned, I have stuck with static images. I trawled through countless carousel, gallery and lightbox plugins, to try and find something useful and in the end, backed off completely as I really didn't know who to trust and settled on the Muldur/Scully concept of, "Trust No-one."

I have HTML/CSS3 code I used in other websites I have produced that give me something along the lines of what I want, but because this site has a time limit, I haven't had the luxury of being able to try out whether I can insert it and make it work.

Maybe next time.

In Conclusion

You would be very lucky to just grab something 'off-the-shelf' and be confident that it will work. I would suggest that you need to test it in its environment before committing to it. I was lucky with the theme, but I could have spent ages going through plugin after plugin, some of which - if the reviews were to be believed - may potentially have harmed my system, but it means both I and the customer are pleased with the end results.

Next Time...

Site structure

Hello World

Jumping from HTML and PHP to Wordpress

I have had to admit that I am not really interested in learning all there is to learn about PHP, MySQL and all the coding that is involved to be able to make the sites that I make more in line with the current technology.

I have enough trouble making Div containers stay where I put them and preventing their contents from spilling out - which seems to happen a lot.

So here's why I have taken the plunge and have jumped in to working with Wordpress...

The main reason I can think of why I don't like coding my own websites is I hate Javascript. You can't really do a lot without it. You can't centre an image on the screen using CSS and HTML as neither knows what the environment is, so you can do your best to make an image pop up in a place that doesn't appear too arbitrary, but if you're like me, you know that the moment the web page is resized, all the hard work you've put in is going to go out of the window.

CSS3 contains shedloads of brilliant stuff, but there's nothing cross portable about it without writing the code four times over to incorporate all the different browsers, mobiles, tablets and anything else you can think of.

I've been able to find some pretty wonderful code out there to work with, but the one thing that sticks in my craw is the fact that with the exception of some of the commands for Internet Explorer, all the others are exactly the same. Yet here we are writing exactly the same line of code in our CSS file and adding -webkit-, -o-, -ie-  or -moz- in front.

For goodness sake, if the commands are the same, why are we doing this?

So why Wordpress?

Firstly, Wordpress is free. That's always a bonus.

A few years ago, I splashed out on an Adobe suite, which included Photoshop CS4, Illustrator and Dreamweaver - amongst others.

Literally, as soon as I bought it, it was out of date. Suddenly, I discovered that my version of Dreamweaver was woefully under powered as it didn't know anything about CSS3 - which everyone wanted - and therefore, wouldn't ever display correctly if I used Flex commands, Text-Shadow or Box-Shadow to name but a few.

I took the plunge and went for Microsoft's WebMatrix freebie.

This was amazing, until I learnt that it didn't like Flex either and a few other CSS3 niceties. You could run the code and it would work, but the editor didn't agree, so you always had a fistful of errors listed - even though they weren't errors at all.

Have MS updated it?

Not at all.

I have basically reached the end of what I know and what I can get my head round with HTML and PHP, CSS3 and everything that encircles it.

Yet I am being asked more and more to design and develop sites where the bells and whistles are all so necessary. Things like contact forms so you can have people message you from your website and not have to put your email address on view, opening you up to untold quantities of spam. Image controls for sliders and carousels. Without JS, getting anything to work the way you would like is a nightmare.

Wordpress appears to have everything I need and the majority of it is free.

So far, what I have found using it for my first site (a test site I have created for a customer, which I will recreate on her web space if she likes it), it's clean and reasonably simple to work and if, like me, you have some CSS3/HTML knowledge, you can add in a few niceties that don't come with the theme you choose.

Next time...

Choosing a theme and or plugins