Advice on best way to build my cms

  • I want to use WordPress to create a cms for a group of friends and myself. But I’m not sure which is the best way to start:
    1.Attempt to adapt an existing wordpress theme and build onto the existing structure
    2.Build one from scratch

    I’ve had a look at some great tutorials, read through large chunks of the codex and read Tessa Blakeley Silver’s WordPress Theme Design, and now I’m confused about the best way for a newbie like me to start. I’ve got reasonable HTML and CSS skills, and a beginner’s grasp of PHP.
    Also, our design is complex and includes – on each person’s page a booking calendar, small photo lightbox gallery, Google map, and another 5 boxes for dynamic text content.

    So, my question is, for a fairly ‘green’ developer, like me, do people recommend I adapt a theme or start from scratch. Any advice gratefully received.
    Sam

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  • I recommend doing both. Get in there and pull apart some of your favorite themes and see what makes em tick. Then make your own theme, tailored to your needs. Installing XAMPP and running WP local is a good start.

    I’ve always starting with a theme I like and modded it from there. Mainly because I think others can do a much better job at making a great final appearance than I do.

    I think what also is huge is to decide how you will organize the content. I am building a CMS now and am taking extra time to make sure that I’ve got posts, pages, categories, etc all laid out in a way that is usable with my theme. I’m using the Mimbo2.2 theme, which has a great home page.

    From my experience, I always start coding myself from scratch. Otherwise it can take a while to work out what is happening in someone elses theme and after that time you may not even want that code anyway. I suppose Duddha has a point though in that looking at other themes code enables you to learn how to do stuff.

    I have been watching some tutorials here that may help:

    https://www.penny4them.com/2008/creating-a-custom-theme/

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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