Dynamic Websites !!! Which plan to follow?

11 replies
Hi All,
For a long time I have been designing websites with dreamweaver 8 and photoshop in html. Static websites. I am happy with this process and plan to continue. I also want to expand into more dynamic websites with more bells and whistles. I have no idea the best way to start this off. I know about all the different types of methods like PHP, JOOMLA, WORDPRESS etc... but want to know what is the best to start learning and implement. For example I want to design a website that has a directory on it which can be searched using a search facility that allows different variables to be put in to define the search. I understand creating a database would be the best option to do this but are stuck at this point. Not sure if I can just use dreamweaver 8 to do this without other software....
My question is in a nutshell which track would you take software wise to create dynamic websites and what are the benefits ?

Thanks in advance for any answers

Peter
#dynamic #follow #plan #websites
  • Profile picture of the author minion
    My answer: Wordpress. It's probably the most user-friendly I've used. You can find a plugin or theme that can do almost anything you can think of: directories, social networks, dailydeal, ecommerce etc
    It may not be the fastest platform, but it can be optimised.

    Benefits: Easy to learn, easy to use, easy to setup.
    Cons: I personally don't like PHP - reminds me of my desk: unorganized and messy. And being the most popular blogging/CMS platform means its a target for hackers/spammers - so you gotta tighten up security as much as possible.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
    Thanks for that.
    Any more opinions...
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    Peter Thompson
    supa2007
    http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
    Your home for building on the web

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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan Donrew
    Wordpress was built with PHP, by learning Wordpress you will learn the Wordpress API.
    Wordpress is a CMS (Content Management System).
    If you would like to build more complex websites and have more control then you should learn PHP and MySQL, this will give you complete freedom.

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
    If I am going to design dynamic websites using dreamweaver 8 what server technology would you recommend ( Cold Fusion or PHP ). Have heard PHP is hard to learn ? Is this so.
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    Peter Thompson
    supa2007
    http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
    Your home for building on the web

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    • Profile picture of the author Ryan Donrew
      Originally Posted by Peter Thompson View Post

      If I am going to design dynamic websites using dreamweaver 8 what server technology would you recommend ( Cold Fusion or PHP ). Have heard PHP is hard to learn ? Is this so.
      PHP is constantly developing and has many frameworks, my personal favorite is Zend.

      Speaking of Coldfusion, MySpace was developed using Coldfusion.
      It really depends on what your project is going to be, it's all about preference.
      Programming is all about memorizing the syntax, the more you memerize the better you get, so hard or not? that depends on how much you invest in memorizing it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
    This is basically what I want to do. Design the dynamic website in dreamweaver 8 working off a database and then the website will be hosted in my baby croc hostgator account. To do this what software other than dreamweaver 8 would I need on my local machine. Any help would be great.
    Signature

    Peter Thompson
    supa2007
    http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
    Your home for building on the web

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    • Profile picture of the author Ryan Donrew
      Originally Posted by Peter Thompson View Post

      This is basically what I want to do. Design the dynamic website in dreamweaver 8 working off a database and then the website will be hosted in my baby croc hostgator account. To do this what software other than dreamweaver 8 would I need on my local machine. Any help would be great.
      Download and install WAMP Server, it includes apache server,php and mysql.
      Once you have the server environment installed your good to go.
      You will need to configure a test server in Dreamweaver which is under site tab, Site -> Manage Sites. Set up your testing server there.

      If you need any help you can contact me via skype.

      Good luck!
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      • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
        Originally Posted by Ryan Donrew View Post

        Download and install WAMP Server, it includes apache server,php and mysql.
        Once you have the server environment installed your good to go.
        You will need to configure a test server in Dreamweaver which is under site tab, Site -> Manage Sites. Set up your testing server there.

        If you need any help you can contact me via skype.
        Appreciate your help. Watching a few online tutorials at the momment but if I hit any speed bumps I will contact you. Thanks for the offer.

        Peter
        Signature

        Peter Thompson
        supa2007
        http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
        Your home for building on the web

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        • Profile picture of the author Ryan Donrew
          Originally Posted by Peter Thompson View Post

          Appreciate your help. Watching a few online tutorials at the momment but if I hit any speed bumps I will contact you. Thanks for the offer.

          Peter
          No problem! Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
    Just a follow on question from my original. I have a site called aussielook.com.au which eventually will have pages for destinations all over Australia. At the momment I have the links set up so you search via clicking on an aussie map, then you click on the state, then you would click on the town, region, etc...etc.. from a list. Because this is such a massive list of pages I want to make the navigation easier so that searches can be used from the main page or each state page to find what you are looking for. I want to know what is my solution to create a website like this. Before I go any further with the current design and static site I want to know is a database my solution on a dynamic site or can I keep the static site and create an easier solution. I hope some experts can guide me on this one as I want to move forward with my venture but it is the technical side of the project that is holding me back. I also want to create a business directory on this site that can have a similar search facility allowing you to choose options to locate the business you are after.
    Thanks in advance for advice

    Site below

    All things Aussie


    Peter
    Signature

    Peter Thompson
    supa2007
    http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
    Your home for building on the web

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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan Donrew
    First of, if you are planing on making alot of static pages then i'd recommend using wordpress.
    If you want to make it static you can just create a jquery drop down menu, or just sub menus using sprite technique.
    There is the php option that will require creating a database and storing all page content there then linking each page to an article inside the db and linking each article to the menu.

    For the record, your website is not SEO compatible, your menu is not search engine friendly same goes for any text-image, that's all good if your not planing on optizming it for search engines.

    Like i said before i can help you via skype, as you wish though. cheers!
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