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Wordpress "Encyclopedia" ?

by Luke Dennison
18 replies
Hi guys and gals,

I'm starting to create my next niche website, which is going to list 500 aquarium fish that people keep, each having about 400 words of discretion about the fish, and also some key stats that will be able to be compared.

I wan't to know if there was some way that I could make the process of entering the information easier into each post?

Custom Fields? Something like that. Here is an example of how I'm wanting it to look like. See the "fast facts" section to see what I'm babbing on about.

Great White Sharks - Shark Pictures - Great White Facts - National Geographic

Will i have to type than info in hand over hand each time I add a new fish, or is there a way I can alreadhy have that typed out and I just add the correct number//word?
#encyclopedia #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    It depends on where you're going to get your content for each type of fish. Do you already have it in hand? Are you writing the content yourself?

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author Luke Dennison
      Originally Posted by Steve B View Post

      It depends on where you're going to get your content for each type of fish. Do you already have it in hand? Are you writing the content yourself?

      Steve
      I know where the content is coming from. It's all on paper and I just need to type it into wordpress.
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve B
        If it's written out in a good readable typeface, I would use OCR software with a text file output. Most such software will require some editing, but it's a lot faster than re-typing everything into a blog post.

        With 500 text files (one for each type of fish), you can then create a data base and display that collection online with a simple linking structure. You will have a portal site. There is inexpensive software that will allow you do that. It beats manually inputting everything.

        Another alternative would be to use a directory theme and create a directory of popular aquarium fish. There are lots of alternatives for the directory theme if you go this route.

        Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Luke Dennison
    Hi Steve, thanks for the hep so far, but I think you misunderstand me. I'm not scared of typing my pages into Wordpress, but your software suggestion was still useful actually.

    What I'm talking about, is if there is a way I could have things automatically at the top of my posts before I'd even started writing it, so all the directly comparable info could be inserted with a push of a button.

    Like

    Size : 13 Inches | Colour : Red | Cannibal : Yes

    So the blue would be in a nice table, with a space for me to quickly add a number / colour without having to retype Size and then format the layout again.

    Have I explained myself better this time?
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Luke,

      the "Best" way to do this would be to create a page template. You could have all of the static information in place already and you would simply be filling in blanks. try reading: Page Templates « WordPress Codex

      If you don't know how or have the time to do this I am sure if you were to give someone on say fiver the specs you wanted you could probably get this set up quick
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by Luke Dennison View Post

      Hi Steve, thanks for the hep so far, but I think you misunderstand me. I'm not scared of typing my pages into Wordpress, but your software suggestion was still useful actually.

      What I'm talking about, is if there is a way I could have things automatically at the top of my posts before I'd even started writing it, so all the directly comparable info could be inserted with a push of a button.

      Like

      Size : 13 Inches | Colour : Red | Cannibal : Yes

      So the blue would be in a nice table, with a space for me to quickly add a number / colour without having to retype Size and then format the layout again.

      Have I explained myself better this time?
      Luke, what you want is a combination of custom fields and a custom page template that would "write" the data from the custom fields into the proper place.

      Look at some of the WP coding/customizing sites that use either recipes or things like employee directories as examples. You sound like a smart guy, so you should be able to adapt an example to fit your fish project.
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve B
        Sorry Luke, I did misunderstand exactly what you wanted.

        As the others have said, a web site template will do what you want.

        I have purchased some templates (WP) through Elegant Themes that make use of "Short Codes." These can be a number of different things - for example, boxes that will allow you to import content. You can place these anywhere on your page. You can also create custom page templates.

        It's a slick and fast way to customize your site and should do what you want.

        Having said that, I would also think about the data base approach where you have many similar files on content. It's a fast way to make your site very searchable and user friendly. Take a look at this one alternative (there are certainly others): dbqwiksite.com (no coding necessary).

        Good luck to you,

        Steve
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        • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
          Very easy to do with the newest version of WordPress. WordPress supports "tables" appropriately and this plugin is compatible and very advanced:
          https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/

          Essentially, you create the tables and labels inside the plugin interface color, size, whatever. Open your normal WP editor (WPE) for your posts or pages and the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin interface is integrated into the page. Create a table using the WPE menu. Scroll down to the ACT. copy the color, size, whatever and paste into your WPE table. Done!

          Also, one special feature is that you can use images and assign alt-text to the images. That means you can use the same image multiple times across the entire blog and each image will have different alt-text.

          Last, all of the information is stored inside the MySQL Database which presents all sorts of advantages.

          You can see what I did with it at WarriorTheme dot com on the home page in the Featured Area.

          Good luck,
          Jeffery 100% :-)
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          • Profile picture of the author savidge4
            Jeffery,

            I totally get what you are saying. It looks nice and clean I get it. However... tables are not responsive. I personally would have used columns shortcode and get the same effect AND it would be responsive.

            Yes there are some admin side advantages to your method. But the goal here is to produce easy and usable material for the end viewer. ( I will say this, I will bet the majority of your viewers for that site are desktop so that may not be such an issue. ) but for the general population of web builders mobile considerations in todays world I think need to be made.

            I still am going to say that if you are creating basically 500 pages that aside from the actual content are the exact same... build or get built a page template. Heck if you get ahold of someone that REALLY knows what they are doing they could auto populate the pages from a comma delimited file ( that would be sweet! )

            The other obvious solution is to create a page the way you want it. using short code and the like. Insert all of the elements you want etc. Once you have that the way you want it, you can then go in and simply copy the page code from wordpress. paste it in notepad and save for safe keeping. then you just go in and change the existing information. So all of your text size and coloring would be set. your positioning is set... and you only have to make 500 changes! ha ha Luke? do you ever do anything easy? ha ha

            Originally Posted by Jeffery View Post

            Very easy to do with the newest version of WordPress. WordPress supports "tables" appropriately and this plugin is compatible and very advanced:
            https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/

            Essentially, you create the tables and labels inside the plugin interface color, size, whatever. Open your normal WP editor (WPE) for your posts or pages and the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin interface is integrated into the page. Create a table using the WPE menu. Scroll down to the ACT. copy the color, size, whatever and paste into your WPE table. Done!

            Also, one special feature is that you can use images and assign alt-text to the images. That means you can use the same image multiple times across the entire blog and each image will have different alt-text.

            Last, all of the information is stored inside the MySQL Database which presents all sorts of advantages.

            You can see what I did with it at WarriorTheme dot com on the home page in the Featured Area.

            Good luck,
            Jeffery 100% :-)
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            • Profile picture of the author NobleSavage
              What you are asking to do can be done easily with a little bit of PHP and a database. The suggestions to use WP and some plugin make me cringe. WP is a bloated monster that never stops growing. 70% of WP installs are hacked.

              I completely understand that some people will never learn the basics of programing, but it might be to your advantage to hire a freelancer and knock out some light weight code.
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              • Profile picture of the author savidge4
                so interjecting a second DB and secondary calls for a page load is not bloating? If you are building from the ground up then no ( MAYBE ) but implementing with WP what you are suggesting is oh I don't know just like adding a plugin.. but technically even more of a hog.

                Originally Posted by NobleSavage View Post

                What you are asking to do can be done easily with a little bit of PHP and a database. The suggestions to use WP and some plugin make me cringe. WP is a bloated monster that never stops growing. 70% of WP installs are hacked.

                I completely understand that some people will never learn the basics of programing, but it might be to your advantage to hire a freelancer and knock out some light weight code.
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                • Profile picture of the author NobleSavage
                  Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post

                  so interjecting a second DB and secondary calls for a page load is not bloating? If you are building from the ground up then no ( MAYBE ) but implementing with WP what you are suggesting is oh I don't know just like adding a plugin.. but technically even more of a hog.

                  No, I'm advocating scraping WP.
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                  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
                    I hear you... Im right there with you. but the market trend suggests that web developers better hop on a mainstream CMS train of one sort or the other.

                    I look at it this way, I am not stooping to WP... with my ability I can only increase the value of WP. Understanding best practices outside of WP and then bringing those into WP development can only make your time of greater value.


                    Originally Posted by NobleSavage View Post

                    No, I'm advocating scraping WP.
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                    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
                      The problem isn't with Wordpress, at least, not this problem.

                      The problem is with people who rely on plug-ins and auto-this and auto-that to do everything for them without knowing what happens inside the black box.

                      Setting up a custom post type with a few special fields isn't rocket science, nor is customizing a template to create the display you want.

                      If someone is unable or unwilling to do it themselves, it's a fairly simple job for a competent developer, which means it's not going to break the bank for a one-time job that saves hours of repetitive work.
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                      • Profile picture of the author savidge4
                        So we are all sitting here talking in theory what we could do.. how it could be done blah blah blah

                        Here is some shortcode that would get you pretty close to that exact same layout.
                        Code:
                         [fourcol_one]RELATED POSTS [related_posts columns-"1" limit="5" image="1"]  
 [/fourcol_one][fourcol_three_last][box]Content
  
 Size:
  
 Colour: ( took me 3 freekin trys to get that "U" in there ! )
  
 Cannibal: ( My Ex Wife is a fish? That explains a lot! )
 [/box]insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks insert your body of text here and see how it looks  
 [/fourcol_three_last]
                        to finish it off and get things to lay right it will need a bit of CSS to adjust the box:
                        Code:
                        .normal.woo-sc-box {
        padding: 0px 15px;
        margin: 0px;
        width: 33%;
        float: right;
 }
                        By far not the best solution. but a solution non the less. You can easily copy and paste that code into each post you are making and then just fill in the blanks... 500 times! ha ha
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  • Profile picture of the author Luke Dennison
    Great discussion so far and I'm certainly going to be looking into things further, trying to get the most efficient way etc.

    Right now as an "interim" which may end up being the actual solution is just a good ol' copy and paste.

    Convict Cichlid | Freshwater Aquarium Fish

    That's the table I.m talking about. I have it in a notepad, and every time I get to that section I just copy/paste it in and change whatever needs changing. If you scroll to the bottom and click on any other fish, the post should look the same as all the others I have completed so far.

    I think I should create a post template like suggested.

    Also, I heard some talk of responsiveness. My theme is not responsive but most of the people into the aquarium hobby are looking from desktops. Is it possible to make a non responsive theme responsive?
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Site is looking nice... who would have thought fish? I guess I go after bigger fish <drum roll>

      In regards to making a non responsive theme responsive... the short answer would be no. It can I guess be done, but just easier to get a theme that is.

      Originally Posted by Luke Dennison View Post

      Great discussion so far and I'm certainly going to be looking into things further, trying to get the most efficient way etc.

      Right now as an "interim" which may end up being the actual solution is just a good ol' copy and paste.

      Convict Cichlid | Freshwater Aquarium Fish

      That's the table I.m talking about. I have it in a notepad, and every time I get to that section I just copy/paste it in and change whatever needs changing. If you scroll to the bottom and click on any other fish, the post should look the same as all the others I have completed so far.

      I think I should create a post template like suggested.

      Also, I heard some talk of responsiveness. My theme is not responsive but most of the people into the aquarium hobby are looking from desktops. Is it possible to make a non responsive theme responsive?
      Signature
      Success is an ACT not an idea
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  • Profile picture of the author Ferzy
    Not sure if this is something you would entertain, but wikipedia runs on an open source platform, so you can install it a wiki on your server and try to run your website on a platform that is dedicated for creating an encyclopedia style of website in stead of wordpress. Just a thought.
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