WP overrated?

I can understand your frustration. It does take a long time to learn any new tool, and WordPress is just the same.

If you’re just looking to throw up a iste, set a theme and add a few pages/posts, then it’s easy. I get the feeling from what you’ve written that most of your frustration comes from you wanting to do more then the standard core functionality, and finding out that you need to do modifications to achieve this? If that’s the case, then that’s just how it goes with any tool. There’s never going to be one single thing that will be able to do everything that you and everyone else want it to – that’s just way to complex.

After two days of trying I would never consider you to be a “flaming idiot”. I came into this with years of PHP work behind me, and it still took me a few months to get used to how it all worked and what I needed to do to really get my mods working correctly.

Thanks for your reply, Mike.

I had big hopes for WP at my school – that it could be a great teaching and collaboration tool. But if it’s this difficult for me to use, then I don’t think it’s going to work for them.

I’m not sure what to do at this point.

Well, exactly how far do you want to change/modify things? Are you looking to put up a site with a basic theme and just add content, or do you want to do some extra modifications?

If you can stick to the standard functionality you can do a whole lot still. If all you want to do is publish some content, install WP, throw on a theme, and start writing.

I have built a couple of decent sites without anything more then a theme and some HTML layouts in my pages/posts. It’s only when you want to do something that’s not in the core functionality that you’ll need to start getting into the coding side of things. Remember that there’s a huge amount of plugins out there that can extend the functionality as well, os it’s worth looking through the list to see if there’s anything that can help with what you are looking to do.

Well…I may have to eat some crow. I think I’m beginning to make sense of all of this. I think my problem was I tried to do too much in too short a period of time. Clearly this is something that takes some learning. But before I can work with the teachers I have to understand it myself. I don’t want them going through what I went through. We’ll see how it all works out.

I appreciate your follow-up and calming me down.

Thanks

Hi Kartoony,

I understand your frustration. WP still has a ways to go, particularly with the abysmal media organization (or lack of it). But I think it’s not that bad. In the last month I’ve made a pretty decent website from scratch. It’s not an obvious WP site, and didn’t require really any coding… but a tad bit of CSS.

Let me know if you have any questions. You can view it here:

https://etchedinpixels.com/

I have a post where I list my recommended WP Plugins at the end. It might help
https://etchedinpixels.com/recommended/recommended_web-hosting/

Nice clean site – that’s what I like about WP. The only thing that concerns me is that WP sites all seem to look the same. Of course, it’s the content that should set the site apart – nice images BTW – what filters do you use for post processing?

I agree about the media organization – that’s what led to my original frustration.

I’ve been looking at some Gallery software that my hosting company offers: Gallery, Piwigo, Coppermine, Zen Photo, etc. I’m thinking it would probably be pretty easy to do some simple linking (well, shut my mouth – NOTHING is ever simple).

It appears to me that WP creates individual posts for each image and then, somehow links it all together into a Gallery – kind of kludgy??? I’m using a Free Template from Vandelaydesign.com.

I REALLY do NOT want to spend a lot of time “webmastering” – I want to focus on my photography and post production work. I was hoping WP would help me achieve that goal, but it’s looking like that’s not going to happen.

OK – I take that back about those galleries – after perusing a couple of their sites, it looks like a lot of trouble – better stick with Flickr for now.

Let me restate what I said earlier – “nothing is easy”!

Thanks for taking a look. By “look the same” I assume you are referring to the similar layout that one is forced into using. Yes, one is forced into a general template and way of doing things.

For post-processing I have no one workflow. But generally I shoot RAW and do color enhancement in Lightroom. I also do skin softening or sharpening in there for portraits. Lately I have been using Photoshop and Nik Efex Pro 4 to bring out more detail and drama. That’s been pretty effective.

I haven’t been satisfied with any of the WP media organization plugins. None of them are plug-and-play, drag-and-drop. So instead I keep my photos on a separate service. When you go to gallery.etchedinpixels.com you are actually going to my Smugmug gallery. But for new users I’d suggest Zenfolio (cheaper and better organized). Zenfolio even has blogging built in at no extra charge. You really should check them out. 14 day free trial.

You could also use Lightroom to export some pretty slick galleries, and just upload them to a web server. It’s a nice solution but doesn’t have the ecommerce built in.

I prefer using some other site to host the photos because I can more easily reorganize them and update the development settings using a Zenfolio Lightroom plugin.

One thing though, if you go this route: I recommend you create local copies of your images on your WP site. You don’t want a broken image if you change something at Zenfolio.

Again, check out Zenfolio. It might save you the trouble of Webmastering. I didn’t use the blog feature but it seems like it might ameliorate the frustration you had with other services. ZF is also way more professional looking than Flickr. And more customizable as well.

I’m interested in taking a look at your images. Go ahead and add me at flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/calleyne/
or via WordPress if you have your blog online.

You know the story of the Shoemaker’s kids not having great shoes? My Flickr site sucks right now – but I’m working on my website.

It’s taken me a while to get my head wrapped around digital photography. I grew up with film – and a lot of B&W. My dad was a pro photog and I grew up on Speed Grafix. Heck color didn’t even come about until my teens? My mother did “oils” of my dad’s B&W work – many a night she’d be up until 3-4AM retouching and coloring senior portraits that dad was developing in the basement. I remember when he processed his first roll of color film. That was back in the day when the “color lab” was the big thing – we used one in NJ I think.

I like the looks of Zenfolio but I really don’t want to sell stuff online. I’m not sure I even want to do a lot with ESM. I’m just trying to see if I can get that off the ground. Maybe pick up a couple of projects to work with along side my day job.

Here’s a link to my school Flickr photo stream. I’m working on a project to get all the school photos of the last couple of years up on Flickr. Most of the 2012 stuff is mine – particularly the sports stuff. I don’t do much post processing since I shoot a lot of images. I’m doing a fair amount of multimedia work for the school particularly projects like this. Hope to do more promotional work for the school.

Yeah – backup is one reason I started looking at Flickr and SmugMug (I had an account). Right now I’m just letting CrashPlan (used to use Carbonite – but they won’t backup external drives) backup all my photos. I’ve got over two terrabytes with them so far.

ANYHOO…this is getting WAY off topic. If you want to continue talking shop feel free to email me @ john dot orban @ gmail.com. I LOVE talking photography. In fact, I think what you’re doing and what folks like these guys are doing is the future of photography.

Although, my photographer is doing some pretty good stuff without that “artsy-fartsy” stuff (but imagine what she COULD do). I just don’t think it’s good enough just to take good photos – capture great images – Ansel Adams did that in B&W 50+ years ago!!

I’m always looking (and trying to encourage others) to come up with the “next great thing”. It’s a constant learning (and growing) process.

Cheers,
John

You should use the Quick Post interface on WordPress.com to give things a spin. www.ads-software.com is a very extensible platform that you can use for development or build a quick-n-dirty website. There’s a reason why 55% of CMS systems on the web run WordPress, and I discovered it after trying out stuff that was difficult to setup and configure. Installing plugins in WordPress is a breeze! So is developing widgets.

Yah – I’m beginning to believe. My thing is that I tend to get sidetracked and WP has some very attractive features that could do that – creating themes and developing widgets for example. I’m trying a couple of themes to see if they will do what I want, but I fear, eventually, I’ll be drawn to the dark side of WP development.

I do believe, however, there there is great potential for folks to learn WP inside and out and help others develop websites to REALLY be drag and drop simple.

I’m thinking of a friend, for example, who has an incredible collection of B&W images his father took back in the 30’s in the Mid-West. He used very high end equipment (for the time) and left behind a treasure trove of 4X5 negatives. John has been using Photoshop to bring these images back to life and it’s a shame that the only way you can see them is to stop by his office and see the gallery he has hanging up all over the place (which, BTW, is a GREAT way to display art).

There just is NO WAY he has the technical skills (nor does he want them, as far as I can tell) to do everything to create a website that we all just take for granted.

He could, very easily, upload images and write posts, but, let’s face it, for someone just starting out, the whole process of obtaining a domain name, buying hosting, setting up the templates and all that is daunting.

On one hand you could say, “Look, get with it. If you want to participate in this technology – learn it!”

But that’s old skool high priest technology and is the reason why Facebook has a billion users.

I’d love to help him, but don’t know if I have the time to set it all up and then field the phone calls I KNOW will be coming as he encounters issues.

Face it – NOTHING IS EASY (anymore). I’m finding WP is pretty slick, but there’s a learning curve (as with anything I suppose). I’ll figure it out, but can I then transfer that knowledge to someone like John so he can do what he wants to do, which is just display his art.

To be continued…

can I then transfer that knowledge to someone like John so he can do what he wants to do

Assuming he is willing to learn, then yes. I have clients who are sculptors and clothes designers who have learnt, over time, to handle pretty much everything on their own WordPress sites. Yes – it takes time and there is a learning curve but theme there’s always a learning curve with any new technology. WordPress is so much more powerful than Facebook – hence the learning curve is a little steeper. But there’s a lot of online documentation already available – and more coming soon specifically for non-technical users.

Why not get him started with a free wordpress.com site? The WP interface is identical but there’s no messing around with domain names or hosting. That way, he can see if he can get used to WordPress with zero cash outlay.

@kartoony

I’m really confused. There seem to be at least 2 people posting under your account: John and whoever made the last post referring to John. This unfortunately makes it hard to sort out the conversation. It would be good for you to create another account and post separately.

Which leads to a side note: WordPress supports multiple users. The different people can make separate posts, and it will note the author. The separate users can also have their own WordPress.com/org commenting accounts and avatars.

If you guys/girls really can’t bear to use separate forum accounts, it would be helpful if you at least signed your posts (although I’m afraid this will lead to even more confusion).

Sorry about that. I’m me – the John I was referring to was my friend who has the photos. Actually he’s my dentist but we both share an interest in photography. He’s more into the post production end after discovering the old negatives. The photos adorn his dental office and are just fascinating to look at. Farm life in the 30’s – a real step back into history – the kind of stuff that was done for that WPA project, I believe, that sent photographers out around the country documenting life during the depression? These photos, however, were those taken by an advanced amateur. This guy knew what he was doing and had the equipment to back it up. I can’t remember what John said he did, but he had some kind of high level job – college professor or something like that. Point is, he had the bucks to buy the equipment he needed and the time and inclination to document his family.

Anyhow…I’m trying to figure out the easiest and best way for him to get a web presence so that he can share these photos. I can tell you, if the technology gets in the way, the project probably will die. I’ve got to make it easy for him so that he can focus on restoring and developing those negatives rather than fiddling and futzing around with web sites and such.

As you and I have discussed before, the gallery properties of WP are kind of clunky and I just don’t want that to be a problem for him.

But, sorry for the confusion – I could have been clearer.

WordPress + a suitable gallery plugin would seem to be the best way forward. You might also want to look at using a photoblogging theme to show those images off to best advantage.

What gallery plugin would you recommend?

I’ve looked at photoblogging themes and, quite frankly, they seem to complicate matters.

I’ve also looked at some open source gallery software which my ISP supports and thought I could easily link to, but that software is not very intuitive.

Chris has recommended ZenFolio and I have to admit that looks pretty good but it has a gazillion bells and whistles that have to be configured to make it work right – something I don’t have time to do for John or even myself. Those type of sites assume you want to sell photos and I know I don’t want to do that now and I’m not sure John would. And even if he does, there’s that whole piece to configure correctly and maintain.

Like I said, there is nothing easy.

But I would like some recommendations for gallery plugins. In my own case, something that will support video as well as images. The majority of what I do is video. Right now I’m posting everything I do to Vimeo with embed code on other sites.

There are absolutely no limits to storage and bandwidth with my current ISP – which I think is a great deal. Yeah, it’s a shared service, but I have the options to go to a virtual server or even my own hardware if and when the need arises.

Those of us who have been fiddling with this stuff just take it for granted. When you start to break it all down – like you need to do to explain it to someone else, you realize how complex it all still is. As much as we’d like to think it’s simple, it really is not.