Wordpress as a Content Site

How would you go about doing this? By this I mean layout, etc. Would building a site similar to this; http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/ be possible with Wordpress? I would use Joomla but I like the ease of the admin end which would be great. The Joomla back-end feels very packed and slow...

 

No you can't do such elaborate things but the best you can do is to create a page as the main page rather than the blog. If you know some HTML coding, you can make it look pretty neat with tables and such. Search for WordPress CMS plugins, I'm sure someone at least attempted this.

 

So would you recommend using Joomla instead?

 

You CAN do something similar to this kind of thing in Wordpress, using a magazine or news style theme.

For example, Brian Gardner's Revolution Wordpress themes (Google for link, easy to find) can do something like this...

• the top story would be a "featured" post
• life/ministry/family would be categories
• same for what's new/upcoming events/today's word

You can have posts that don't look like blog posts -- if you either find a suitable theme or edit your own. You can take away comments/date/author info etc, and make it look more like an information page.

Harder to do with online catalogue and shopping cart ... may need Zen, osCommerce or Magento or similar to do that.

If you check out the site you linked to in www.quarkbase.com, you can find out more, but it doesn't reveal much technical info.

 

lolwhut?

+rep for truth

 

go with joomla.

 

Depends on your project needs. Joomla is a good choice for extensive sites and content can be moved around fairly easily via the modules. If you choose Joomla I would recommend RocketTheme (dot) com as a place to look for templates. Joomla has a "blog" type feature built-in, but I think it would be better served just handling straight content. Big advantages are multiple menus and menu styles, and placement of modules which hold content. Disadvantages may be finding different extensions to make some basic functionality work - such as the default WYSIWYG editor.

Though I have not used a magazine layout for WP, it might do the trick for you, but again it depends on your site needs. if it's a plain toss up I would lean a little more towards WP since it is a bit more stable in my opinion and easier to maintain. WP has a smaller learning curve too.

Cool thing is that they are both free to install and play with. Hope this helps.

 

I'm having trouble positioning things on Wordpress, are there plugins to show different categories or will I have to code that myself.

 

yes you can google it or code it yourself.

 

I find module positioning functionality working better at Joomla. Wordpress does look easier to manage, however it may give headaches to newbies, too.

 

Yeah the only thing thats stopping me from using Joomla is the editing / publishing interface. It's very slow / old fashioned. I like the ajax and everything of wordpress.

 

Well, yes, I'll have to agree with that, too.

 

So is there any solution / way around that?

 

You mean a way around Joomla's editing / publishing interface? I'm afraid not much other than changing the text editor. You have to accept it the way it is, or switch to Wordpress if you prefer its interface instead.

 

Yeah are there plugins or anything to change the text editor?

 

Thats a nice looking site. Took more than just a good CMS to make that happen. Someone spent some time on the structure and design before the CMS came into play.

 

Yes of course, but back end is also very important.

 

Yes there are, only none seems to be working perfectly. My choice would be wysiwygpro but you can test them all if you wish, see the options available at extensions.joomla.org.

 

If you want to see an alternative magazine style theme for WordPress, both the Branford Magazine and a variation on that, the Wynton Magazine are very nice. Free as well! They're both designed by Micheal Oeser. I use the Branford one on my writers site and couldn't be happier with it. Once you get the hang of the custom fields it's very easy to use. I like WordPress, I must admit. But then I like Joomla too.

I've had sites based on both Joomla and WordPress and set them up for others. The big plus with Joomla is the add ons. The components and modules are extremely varied and updated all the time. I think Joomla offers a wider range in that respect.

Joomla's got a steeper learning curve but more flexibility imho. If your site's going to be along the same lines as lifeway, it has great add-ons like the Prayer Center. Especially useful is the Community Builder option if you're looking to create an online community. Complex add-ons like CB are not for the fainthearted though as there's a lot to learn with them.

As has been said before, a lot depends on what you actually want to do with your site and how interactive you want it to be. If all you need is basically for visitors to be able to comment on the content or simply display the content plus a few bells and whistles, you can't go far wrong with WordPress. Hope that helps.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Can you explain what are custom fields? What do they do?