billkwandoI'm building a non-blog site for someone, and gravitated toward wordpress due to its apparent ease of use, because I want to get the site up and running and hand it over to the client so they can make on-the-fly updates easily.
I'm finding building simple pages to be an exercise in frustration, due to the inability to make simple formatting changes, such as changing a page from a single 900px-wide page to one with 2 columns. It seems strange that you can put all this HTML into a page, and then WordPress ignores half of it. For example, I was trying to build a simple small email subscribe form/social networking box on the page....and while the table shows just fine on the visual editor (colors and all), on the actual page it's a tiny printed unformatted colorless mess.
http://franznicolay.com/wordpress/test-page/
(see the second form box...the first one I created with a plugin that also doesn't seem to acknowledge my table colors or widths).
I'm sure someone's going to tell me not to use tables and to use divs instead, and that leads me back to the conundrum of wanting to be able to design a simple multi column/box page design from the standard WP editor, without a lot of coding....so my client can update through the visual interface whenever possible. Not to mention that none of the divs I've made with plugins work in IE8, only firefox.
What I'm not looking for is boxes or columns all over the place (not a full on magazine layout). More like the ability to create a simple 2 column layout, with the ability to place more boxes inside, like for my subscribe widget thing. I'd also like the columns to force text to wrap, but cause I have a problem with standard sentences running off the side of the page instead of wrapping:
http://franznicolay.com/wordpress/thedesignofgreatdespair/
(you'll have to view it in FF or Chrome, cos as I mentioned, the divs don't work in IE).
I know I'm not providing a staggering amount of detail. I know I'm on the newest ver of WP, and that the theme is Big Square by Wordspop, modified by me in the style.css to be 900px wide and get rid of the blank but unformattable sidebar....I also know that the Wordspop menu in the Dash doesn't even work....but it's too late for that now cos I'm stuck with this theme as the client has already OK'd the design (wants a white page and likes the navbar).
I'd just like some guidance to extricate myself from this mess without making myself look like a bigger idiot than I already do....I mean what kinda web designer can't create a simple page split down the middle, with a pic on one side and news on the other (that doesn't keep running off the page til it's in the Atlantic)?
Me, apparently.
P.S. I'm willing to provide whatever details or perform whatever tests you might suggest, so if you're willing to help, I'm willing to listen and absorb.
