Brand new to coding and wordpress world, how to achieve this website !?

  • MGBHallinONE

    (@mgbhallinone)


    11 years, 5 months ago

    Hello,
    I am brand new to coding and WordPress world and did a Google search and found many reporting WordPress to be the way to go for websites …etc.
    Yes I read that WordPress no longer a blog platform only but now considered a framework for almost any kind of websites.
    My problem is that I want to do my website and I can not find my way out with it.
    To be honest I’ve knocked the Drupal and Joomla doors 1st but found things a it hard and tough so I am here after many Google reviews as mentioned earlier.
    Please do not laugh at me if I am saying that I do looking forward to be an expert with coding and get this website done.
    Where exactly I should start!?

    Regarding my website:
    It is an educational website for a local university and I think about trying to do it myself instead of hiring someone else to do the job for two reasons:
    1) I’ve plenty of time for the time being (about free 4 hours each day).
    2) Lake of finance to pay the coder as it is gonna cost a lot of money that is not considered in the current budget and been postponing this website for 3 years so far, so I want to make it done.

    The idea of the website is to make a big CMS or portal for everything in the university including the lectures (video-audio) and some of the books archive to be as local intranet and accessed remotely.

    I did read that creating pages is ok in wordpress but I want to make everything in tables and not pages one above another.

    Also when I add any new article or post I need to include audio and video files that is hosted locally or from http://www.archive.org where we place most of our stuffs.

    also want to make all topics and professors included as some of them give lectures to various students in different classes …etc

    Also want to make it by Topics itself …etc

    so can I make such a thing with wordpress!?

    Sorry if I am not good with English as it is not my native.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • mokah

    (@mokah)

    11 years, 5 months ago

    Hello, this seems like a rather big project, especially for someone new to WordPress.

    I’d start by WordPress and enabling WordPress Multisite, that way you can have a separate website for each section of the university website e.g. the computing department, the arts department, etc.

    I’d then look for a theme or design one which would be suitable for the main, public section of the University’s website i.e. the main section with the details of the university.

    You can use this theme for the other sections as well and maybe change the colour scheme for each part of the website.

    There are plenty of WordPress plugins to expand capability and do more or less everything want it to do and there isn’t a very big learning curve but that depends on how skilled and experienced you already are with this kind of stuff.

    There are probably fifty different ways to go about this, you’ll have to chose an approach to suit you.

    Good luck.

    WPyogi

    (@wpyogi)

    11 years, 5 months ago

    This might also be helpful:

    http://codex.wordpress.org/Getting_Started_with_WordPress

    I did read that creating pages is ok in wordpress but I want to make everything in tables and not pages one above another

    Not exactly what you mean by “pages one above another,” but definitely don’t use tables for layout — it’s outdated, inefficient and poor coding. Tables should only be used for tabular data per W3C standards.

    Thread Starter MGBHallinONE

    (@mgbhallinone)

    11 years, 5 months ago

    Thanks for the fast reply.

    this seems like a rather big project

    Yes it is.

    especially for someone new to WordPress.

    What shall I do or study or learn first before I dive or dig into this?

    I’d start by WordPress and enabling WordPress Multisite,

    is it a plugin? or another project?

    that way you can have a separate website for each section of the university website e.g. the computing department, the arts department, etc.

    this sound really good but what about the overlapping or intersections in between? especially for instructors!? I mean the same instructors almost give lectures for various students in various classes in different years!
    For example if I want to list all lectures by any given instructors for various years how to do so!?
    For example if Professor (X) gives lectures to students in the 1st and 3rd years in Subject (Y), how can I list and make such a relation!?
    I know that it is something related to Taxonomies and terms and views but I do not quite full understand it correctly?

    Also if I want to search for something how to make it in the whole sections!?

    I’d then look for a theme or design one which would be suitable for the main, public section of the University’s website i.e. the main section with the details of the university.

    Actually I will make it as possible as simple and may use the default theme for WordPress and only change colors.

    You can use this theme for the other sections as well and maybe change the colour scheme for each part of the website.

    This sound good.

    There are plenty of WordPress plugins to expand capability and do more or less everything want it to do and there isn’t a very big learning curve

    YES I am lost with all these plug-ins.

    but that depends on how skilled and experienced you already are with this kind of stuff.

    All I did before was setup some forum software and setup some MODs but all through following a read me file 🙁

    Good luck.

    Thanks a lot and looking forward to find my way out.

    Thread Starter MGBHallinONE

    (@mgbhallinone)

    11 years, 5 months ago

    Not exactly what you mean by “pages one above another,” but definitely don’t use tables for layout — it’s outdated, inefficient and poor coding. Tables should only be used for tabular data per W3C standards.

    But if I want to list data with an organized way and make listed titles click-able? how to do so?

    Thread Starter MGBHallinONE

    (@mgbhallinone)

    11 years, 5 months ago

        Tables should only be used for tabular data per W3C standards

    Please may more info about this ?

    Thread Starter MGBHallinONE

    (@mgbhallinone)

    11 years, 5 months ago

    One last thing.
    Please if I want to get a book, please may you suggest ones?

    WPyogi

    (@wpyogi)

    11 years, 5 months ago

    Tables are fine for data — and you just put links in the table cells — using anchor tags: <a>This will be the text that is a link</a>

    Context of my comment was that before there was CSS — Cascading Stylesheets, entire websites were laid out using tables — which typically involved a ton of often repetitious coding. But with the introduction of CSS, that’s no longer necessary–one big advantage of CSS is that it allows separation of content and style — once you learn a bit more about HTML, CSS and WordPress, you’ll understand more about how that works.

    This is a good reference site for website work: http://www.w3schools.com.

    There are lots of resources out there – books, websites, YouTube videos. I’d suggest you just start searching and doing a lot of reading and once you understand the basics, jump in with a site to experiment with.

    Here’s a few links that might be worth checking out:

    http://wordpress.tv/

    http://wordpress.org/about/books/ Pay some attention to how current the book is — as WP is always evolving. Amazon reviews are a good place to look at possible books as well.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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