Newbie: Can WP do what I want it to do?

  • Hey guys. I’m somewhat intimidated by WordPress but also impressed by what I’ve seen of it so far. I’m also fairly unfamiliar with the workflow for building a site using WP and I’m looking for some input.

    I’m looking to redesign my portfolio site, which has a lot of video content. Essentially I looked into WordPress to figure out how to integrate a blog into my site…. but now it looks like it would be better to integrate my site into WordPress. Is that really the best way to go about it?

    I’ve done a quick & dirty design mock-up of sorta what I’d like my redesigned site to look like.

    If I don’t have too much coding experience, how much work will it take to set up a theme that looks like this design?

    Is it easy to manage an entire site structure (with literally dozens of pages) within WordPress? Or am I thinking about this the wrong way?

    Thanks a lot.

    –Colin

    Also, how does WordPress deal with Quicktime content?

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

  • WordPress will be perfect for your needs. The correct approach is to create a WP theme that looks like the mockup you have created. It already looks like a lot of existing WP themes, so all it will require is a little css tweaking of an existing theme and you should be ready to go.

    Yep as said above,
    you don’t just have to use WP for the blog, use it as your CMS and let it drive your site.

    Thread Starter effstops

    (@effstops)

    Okay, cool.

    Problem is, I’m not comfortable enough with CSS to feel like I know how to begin. I don’t totally understand how the php files reference each other, or what sorts of things should be handled with code as opposed to images, which I’m more accustomed to.

    Are there any particular resources you would recommend?

    Also, is it possible to have one page have a two-column layout and have another page have just a single column?

    I’m willing to put some time into this but I’ve already spent a few days trying to wade into it and I feel like I’m already in over my head.

    Thanks!

    –Colin

    The WordPress Codex basically describes everything within WordPress, there is basically an article on everything, that’s where I usually end up when i’m stuck on what something does within WP.

    Sure you can have different templates for different pages, one column on one and two column on the other.
    You’d need CSS knowledge to set-up the columns + pages how you wanted, unless you could find an already available theme to suit your needs.

    You’ll get used to it pretty quickly, the codex describes most of the basics, and you can just work off the default template if you want to create your own theme and edit it and you learn as you go is what i did.

    If theres any basic questions go ahead and ask i can try to help.

    Thread Starter effstops

    (@effstops)

    Thanks so much, xdesi. I really appreciate it. I’ll go ahead and get started!

    These sites helped me a lot when I made my first theme from scratch:
    https://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19/so-you-want-to-create-wordpress-themes-huh/
    https://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/09/28/designing-a-wordpress-theme-from-scratch/

    Until then I only fiddled with existing ones.

    Once you know how to get that photoshop mockup done into a WordPress template, you’ll want to get back here and look for features like video embedding and getting those pretty thumbnails to show up next to the listed posts.

    For the video, I would go with the anarchy player plugin. Dumb name, but all you do is upload a video, create a link to it inside your post, and the plugin translates that to an embedded video player. Works with mp3 too.

    For the thumbnails you’ll want to create a cover image for the video and simply upload it to the post without actually embedding it – your theme will extract the associated image automatically with a few lines of code, a few solutions can be found in this thread!

    Thread Starter effstops

    (@effstops)

    [b]mores[/b], thanks a [i]lot[/i] for the tips. Those first links will be a huge help, and the anarchy player plugin looks to be exactly what I’ll need.

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