WordPress for Managing a Portfolio Website?

[tdesanto]

Anyone using WordPress?

I've been thinking about using it as the website management tool, but I'd like to hear how easy it is to learn an use for a novice to websites.

Otherwise, I've practically decided to use Expression Studio 4 for more of a WYSIWYG-type editor.

I know some here use Joomla, but that looked like it might have a steeper learning curve.

The type of site I want to create is more of a photography portfolio, ability to sell prints/ images with simple PayPal code to use PayPal as the checkout tool, and pages to host articles and possibly a blog.

This is where I started thinking about WordPress as it was essentially created as a blog tool, but has expanded to allow more. I found a template company that could help me get started, but I'm worried about how hard it will be to read the code and edit in a text editor versus using a WYSIWYG-style editor.

I welcome feedback and advice from any of you currently managing sites.

Thank you,

Tony

 

[ThomD]

For "just" selling prints, I'd look hard at Smugmug. Wordpress is very good, but a targeted solution would be better.

 

[tdesanto]

Thanks, Thom, for the quick reply. I always appreciate your solid feedback.

To be clear, I want to have a site that's more than just selling prints or images. I want to have a place to host the portfolio, articles, maybe a blog, etc. too.

 

[ThomD]

Well,

In that case, I like workpress - use it for our web site. Unless you are an IT guy and like keeping your code up to date (like I do), I'd look at a fully hosted solution. I'd still consider smugmug for the sales and fullfilment side. Unfortunately, the integration between the two is not great. I've just started putting my images on SM instead of in my own gallery. It works, but if you look at my site you'll see the top two posts have images that are not centered correctly. There is a bug in my CSS and I won't get around to fixing it until this weekend.

 

[tdesanto]

So, can I use it to compose on my desktop and then upload to the host server when I'm ready to move it to production?

If so, then I could always keep copies of each version before I change anything and then if I have an issue, I could always revert back to the previous version until I could figure out any issues that come up.

 

[ThomD]

Composing content is generally done in the WP interface. It supports drafts and versioning. So, if you mess up content you can roll it back.

I'm not sure what scenario would require that you change any code. I've done it to the image plug ins because I wanted to change the light box behavior and I like to code.

 

[tdesanto]

Thom,

One more question in case I didn't understand how you manage the site. Do you compose everything in a development environment on your desktop and then upload the finished version to your production/ host environment? Or, do you simply make changes to production and rely on the version control you mentioned in your last post?

 

[ThomD]

Thom,

One more question in case I didn't understand how you manage the site. Do you compose everything in a development environment on your desktop and then upload the finished version to your production/ host environment? Or, do you simply make changes to production and rely on the version control you mentioned in your last post?

By manage the site are you taking about the code, the look or the content?

Changing the look is usually just a matter of changing the theme. Themes are a set of files on the server (style sheets, icons, etc). Picking a theme is then just a configuration on the WP admin screen.

I don't change the code of my site. I change the content only. Content is added to the site directly through the WP rich text editor, with the ability to save as draft, preview drafts and roll back to earlier content versions.

On those extremely rare occassions when I do tinker with code (never the core WP files, only an plug-in or two), I just hack the code directly.

One of the nice things about WP is that the content is portable. I was having performance problems that I figured were tied to a slow SQL server on the back end. (SQL server provided by my web hosting company.) I used the database server admin tool to down load my entire site (excluding photos) as a big SQL statement, created a new database at my web hosting service and then loaded the WP data into a the new database. I then changed the WP config.php file (the only php file you ever direcly edit) to point it at the new database server. Presto - all my site is now served from the new database and performance is much better.

 

[nwoods]

I agree with others that SmugMug is pretty good for selling product, and there is nothing better at hosting and displaying your images, but they don't (yet) offer a full website package. You need to roll your own. Fortunately, there are some fairly easy ways to do that. I like StudioPress, which is a full serviced theme generating company that uses the WordPress engine. They have a couple of photography related templates you might like:

Manhattan:
http://www.studiopress.com/demo/manhattan.html

Landscape:
http://www.studiopress.com/demo/landscape.html

For myself, I wanted to continue using Smug and have a full blog. I looked into these and a number of others a few years ago when I contemplated revamping my blog and smug accounts into one site. At that time, there wasn't any one solution, and would have had to pay someone to build it using the tools above, or from scratch. If you did find something "off the shelf" please post it here!

 

[tdesanto]

Thanks again guys.

I'm trying Photocrati. I bought the theme and am attempting to personalize it and get set up. This looks similar to what you pointed out Nathan.

Thom, originally I was looking for a way to do changes at once, to modify off-site and then upload the changes. In order to do this, I think I would need to install everything on my desktop and then FTP everything up to the host.

But, I'm using Bluehost and they not only have auto backups each night, but I can generate one at any point. I can use these backups as restore points. So, for now, it doesn't look like I'll have separate development and production environments.

 

[ThomD]

If you are going to tinker under the hood with code or theme changes, do not make changes directly to your production site. Even with a backup available you really do not want any customers seeing your work in progress. Just setup a second site. It is all pretty portable.